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How Do We Respond to the Question 'What About Rape and Incest?'
Christian Post ^ | 08/25/2012 | Karen Gushta

Posted on 08/25/2012 8:30:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Republican Todd Akin is standing firm. He has refused to bow to pressure to withdraw his candidacy for the U.S. Senate after he made a comment that Gary Bauer of The Campaign for Working Families called, "a gift to our political enemies."

When the Missouri Congressman was asked by a St. Louis TV station to state his views regarding possible exceptions for abortion, he responded, "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." He added: "But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. You know I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

For all his good intentions of trying to put the focus on the right to life of the unborn, Akins' use of the phrase "legitimate rape," which he later called a "misstatement," and for which he apologized and asked for forgiveness, has resulted in fierce castigations from Democrats and the liberal media. It has also brought calls from his fellow Republicans to withdraw from the race against incumbent Claire McCaskill.

Ann Coulter wrote, "If Akin truly loves his country and genuinely wants Roe v. Wade overturned, he will step aside and allow another Republican to run in his place." Coulter and others have said Akin should have been better prepared to respond to the question.

"How about saying," she offered, "'Yes, it's still a life, but more people are killed in drive-by shootings in Chicago every year. You give us the 2 million abortions that aren't a result of rape and incest and we'll give you the few thousand that are.'"

Coulter was correct in pointing to the huge number of deaths every year at the hands of abortionists. But her response still misses the mark on two points.

As lawyer Rebecca Kiessling, who was herself conceived in rape, says, "Rape exceptions in the law actually put the government in the position of having to ascertain when the child was conceived, who the father is, whether the child was conceived during the alleged rape or during intercourse with her husband or boyfriend, and if the child was conceived during the time frame of the alleged rape, then the government would need to determine whether the sexual intercourse was consensual or not."

According to Kiessling, the "rape exception" only perpetuates injustice against rape victims whose accounts are viewed with skepticism. She says that "it further leaves the majority of impregnated rape victims wholly unprotected under the law. Rape exceptions suggest that a 'real rape victim' couldn't possibly love 'the rapist's baby' and that rape victim mothers don't exist."

This assumption was expressed by Susan Milligan in U.S. News and World Report. She called children conceived through rape, "spawn." Such comments deserve as stern a rebuke as Akin's do. No child is any less human because he or she was conceived during a rape. Such a claim denies the biblical truth that all children-including the unborn-are created in the image of God. The circumstances of their conception are irrelevant. The baby in the womb is an innocent human person whose inalienable right to life must be protected just as much the baby outside of the womb.

Coulter's response also overlooked the fact that abortion itself is a traumatizing experience. The truth is:

abortion hurts women. Giving a woman the abortion option-whether she is the victim of a rape or a married woman with unplanned pregnancy-is not the "compassionate answer." Abortion does not bring healing; it brings misery, pain, and suffering, as millions of women who have had abortions can attest.

After 39 years of legal abortions in America, the statistics on the effects of abortion on women are nothing short of tragic:

•65 percent of women who abort report symptoms Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that they attribute to their abortions.

•Women who abort have a 62 percent higher risk of death from all causes for at least eight years after their pregnancies.

•Suicide rates in women are 6–7 times higher after an abortion.

Supporters of the abortion industry want to hide the truth that abortion is harmful to women. Every woman considering having an abortion should be told the fact that 31percent of women who have abortions suffer health complications afterwards.

•Women who abort are twice as likely to have pre-term or post-term deliveries in subsequent pregnancies.

•Women who abort are more likely to experience infertility, stillbirths, and miscarriages.

•Women who abort have a significantly increased risk of breast cancer and cervical cancer. (See the Elliot Institute's Life-Threatening Risks of Abortion)

As Rebecca Kiessling observes, Rep. Akin is not the first political candidate to have run afoul of the media over the question, "What about rape and incest?" "The problem," she says, "is not with these candidates' values. The problem is how they express them."

Kiessling says candidates should respond to the question by giving the following three-part answer:

First, according to the Supreme Court, the death penalty is "cruel and unusual punishment" and rapists don't deserve the death penalty. However, if the rapist father doesn't deserve such punishment, how can we say that the innocent child conceived in rape deserves to die for the crimes of her father?

Second, Keissling points out, rape victims are four times more likely to die within the next year after the abortion, with a higher rate of suicide, murder, drug overdose, etc.. "If we truly care about rape victims," she says, "we should protect them from the rapist, and from the abortion, and not the baby. A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim-an abortion is."

Finally, notes Kiessling, rape victims choose abortion at half the rate of the average unplanned pregnancy, which is over 50 percent. "Only 15-25 percent of rape victims choose abortion…. The majority of rape victims choose to raise her child - not 'the rapist's baby'-HER child." At her website, Rebecca has gathered stories of women who became pregnant by rape and either regret aborting, are raising their children, or are birth-moms. She also has stories of those who were conceived in rape and/or incest.

The answer to the question, "What about rape and incest?" is clear-and it's not abortion. Two wrongs do not make a right.

-- Dr. Karen Gushta is a writer and researcher for Truth in Action Ministries (formerly Coral Ridge Ministries). Her most recent book is How Can America Survive? The Coming Economic Earthquake. She has also written The War on Children: How Pop Culture and Public Schools Put Our Kids at Risk (2009) and co-authored Ten Truths About Socialism (2010). Dr. Gushta is a former board member of the Broward County Right to Life and is Vice-President of Broward County Eagle Forum. Her doctorate is in Philosophy of Education.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: abortion; incest; rape
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1 posted on 08/25/2012 8:30:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s still a life. There’s adoption. And it’s rare... Now let’s talk about Obama’s economy which is destroying the future of all babies.


2 posted on 08/25/2012 8:33:09 AM PDT by nhwingut (Sarah Palin 12... No One Else)
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To: SeekAndFind

What about it? It happens...


3 posted on 08/25/2012 8:34:49 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (zerogottago)
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To: nhwingut

Ditto.


4 posted on 08/25/2012 8:35:04 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (Repeal Obamacare, the CITIZENSHIP TAX)
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To: SeekAndFind
What do you say?

How about:

"Show me an unborn child who has committed these crimes and then we'll talk about how to punish it."
5 posted on 08/25/2012 8:36:30 AM PDT by shibumi (Cover it with gas and set it on fire.)
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To: SeekAndFind

simple:if the perpetrator is not elligible for the death penalty, what didi the child do to deserve death?


6 posted on 08/25/2012 8:36:30 AM PDT by camle (keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
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To: SeekAndFind

simple:if the perpetrator is not elligible for the death penalty, what didi the child do to deserve death?


7 posted on 08/25/2012 8:36:53 AM PDT by camle (keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
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To: SeekAndFind

Democrats use rape victims as a means to their end....the deaths of millions of babies.

Whenever anyone questions the bloodbath, they sit on the shoulders of a rape victims and cry crocodile tears.


8 posted on 08/25/2012 8:37:39 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: SeekAndFind
Answers cited are to lenghty and complex. A more simple answer is,”under no circumstances should an unborn child be denied their chance at life”

Should there be exceptions such as the endangerment of the mothers life if pregnancy is allowed to continue? I'll leave that to you folks to decide if it should be included as an exception to my initial statement.

9 posted on 08/25/2012 8:39:01 AM PDT by beenaround
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To: SeekAndFind

On a personal side, I think all babies should be brought to term if it isn’t likely to kill the mother in the process. But on a political side, I think way too much division is caused over something that affects very few cases and the Left successfully uses it as a wedge between pro-lifers to keep them from seeing the big picture which is the millions of abortions that take place legally each year while we fight about the extreme cases.

I’m willing to accept the “three exceptions” if it will get the ball rolling to stop the other 98% of abortions that don’t fit these categories.

Once we’ve legally stopped the other 98%, THEN we can argue about the rest. Until then, it is a waste of our time.


10 posted on 08/25/2012 8:40:29 AM PDT by OrangeHoof (Our economy won't heal until one particular black man is unemployed.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Actually, we don’t have to answer the question. It is a question that is design to draw one into an argument never designed to be resolved - only to foment dissention and division. It is a question to be resolved when the actual power to do something about it is attained.

Democrats are well-schooled at not discussing certain things - obfuscating, lying and changing the subject.

We could take a page from them on this.


11 posted on 08/25/2012 8:42:57 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: SeekAndFind

“Under certain circumstances, I think it is a good idea to cold-bloodedly murder an innocent child ...”

“Under certain circumstances, I think it is a good idea to murder the children of men who have violated the law ...”

Nope. Sorry. I just can’t go there. I can’t make those statements. I leave such pronouncements to the Liberals and worshipers of Moloch.


12 posted on 08/25/2012 8:46:57 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Roger Taney? Not a bad Chief Justice. John Roberts? A really awful Chief Justice.)
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To: nhwingut
.Now let’s talk about Obama’s economy
which is destroying the future of all babies
point taken / very good point....
and for that matters; everyone else, too.

13 posted on 08/25/2012 8:49:32 AM PDT by skinkinthegrass (WA DC E$tabli$hment; DNC/RNC/Unionists...Brazilian saying: "$@me Old $hit; w/ different flie$" :^)
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To: SeekAndFind
Akin used an unfortunate turn of phrase: "legitimate". Unlike Whoopie Goldberg's "rape-rape", his implied that some rapes are not legitimate.

This instantly brings the Hell-hath-no-fury bunch down his throat, because it invalidates "feelings" by implying what few, especially leftists, want to admit:

The tiniest possibility that some of what was indeed reported as 'rape' might have been an instance of 'buyer's remorse, too much alcohol or other judgement impairing substance, or being caught by their spouse, just for a few instances which might become statistically confused or combined with statistics of the brutality of forcible rape--an event which is genuinely traumatic immediately and not just in hung-over or guiltily confronted retrospect.

Any way one considers it, the guy, if he didn't stop when she said 'Stop!" is wrong, the woman may or may not be a contributor to the situation, but the Baby had no say in the matter at all.

Of all, the most undeniably innocent is the child.

So, typical of Liberals who would keep a brutal rapist from death row, they single out the baby to die.

It isn't right, and no parsing of words can excuse the slaughter of innocents, ever.

14 posted on 08/25/2012 8:49:56 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: SeekAndFind
With regard to the Akin controversy I say:

Talk about your double standards!

There have times when rape was accepted as legitimate and there was scant interest, in fact the issue was quickly settled by one rapist himself..

"Better put some ice on that." Bill Clinton said showing compassion and concern for one of the women he raped..

so rape can be legitimate in the sense of "being in accordance with established or accepted patterns and standards" of the Demobrat Party (formerly the traditional, patriotic Democratic Party), the MSM, universities, Hollywood, NGOs, U.N., civil rights industry, much of the ruling class, the "nonpartisan" radio and TV, transnationals, and all the Right People.

These Islamist "temporary marriages" also qualify as being in accordance with established or accepted patterns and standards of the aforementioned pukes.

15 posted on 08/25/2012 8:52:49 AM PDT by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: Gaffer

Democrats are well-schooled at not discussing certain things - obfuscating, lying and changing the subject.

We could take a page from them on this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

You’re saying we should obfuscate, lie and change the subject?

(No, of course not)

I didn’t think so.

We are better than they are. Of course we should address these issues.


16 posted on 08/25/2012 8:53:58 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (NO LIBS. This Means Liberals and (L)libertarians! Same Thing. NO LIBS!!)
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To: SeekAndFind

So you (the pro abortion group) want to kill an innocent unborn child. Why?

How can you be so mean,cruel and selfish?


17 posted on 08/25/2012 8:57:39 AM PDT by ADSUM
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To: SeekAndFind

Answer the question with a question: When is it permissible for one human being to take the life of another?

The correct answer is in self defense. If carrying the baby threatens the LIFE of the mother, then and only then, is an abortion permissible.


18 posted on 08/25/2012 8:58:27 AM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: camle

RE: :if the perpetrator is not elligible for the death penalty, what did the child do to deserve death?

I can already forsee their response to this ( very predictable )... are you going to force the poor woman to be burdened with a child she was FORCED to have?


19 posted on 08/25/2012 8:59:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind (bOTRT)
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To: SeekAndFind

How bout it’s not the baby’s fault.


20 posted on 08/25/2012 8:59:50 AM PDT by coconut47
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