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VA State Legislator: Disabled kids are a punishment from God

Jill

Well this is a new level of offensive and disgusting. At an anti-choice press conference in Virginia, staged to encourage the state legislature to pull funding from Planned Parenthood, Republican state representative Bob Marshall told the audience that:

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said Marshall, a Republican.

“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”

…I’m unsure of what else to even say.

46 thoughts on VA State Legislator: Disabled kids are a punishment from God

  2. Not that it wasn’t already clear enough that many so called representatives have no concept of separation of church and state, but this really makes it pretty non-debatable.

  3. Oh geez, this idiot is from my state.

    Does he have statistics on the disability rate of children whose fathers had sinned? Or is it just us sinning mothers that cause our children’s disabilities?

    My son is disabled. I had an abortion. His father had a previous relationship in which there was also an abortion. I guess my son had no chance?

    How completely ignorant.

  4. So what did my parents do to deserve me?

    I guess my father’s nominal Catholicism was enough of an offense.

    I’d call this guy a pig, but that would be an insult to pigs.

  5. Eh…my brain is stupid, so like, I’m thinking, what about ‘good republicans’ like Palin with disabled children? Does he say they are sinners, or does he give them an exemption?

  6. So I guess my and my brother’s ASD was a result of… nope, I’m the firstborn.

    Also, I don’t think I like these people’s God and I don’t want them or their idea of God anywhere near me or any kid someone puts me responsible for. What a poisonous thing to say!

  7. It gets worse…Gov. McDonnell (a Pat Robertson BFF), Lt. Gov. Bolling, and Atty. Gen. Cuccinelli (who brought about those idiotic “Choose Life” license plates) all support the religious whackjobs calling to yank PP’s funding. No surprise, they are all wealthy white Repugnican Christianists. Even better, “Rev.” Joe Ellison, one of the aforementioned religious whackjobs, acknowledged that he paid for girlfriends (yes, PLURAL) to have abortions while he was in college and he now feels terrible guilt and shame over it. Apparently every woman in Virginia now has to atone for Preacher Boy’s “shame” at paying for those long-ago abortions (he apparently has no shame at not using BC or not keeping it in his pants). And don’t even get me started on the repulsive waste of oxygen and carbon that is Del. Marshall.

    Gah, I hate my state and the sheeple that voted the God Squad into office.

  8. Going by that rationale, wouldn’t doing anything with your firstborn other than going all Abraham-and-Isaac on them condemn your second-born to the same fate? I mean, that whole “dedicated to the lord” thing he’s talking about there didn’t exactly involve little dedicatory plaques.

  9. Going by that rationale, wouldn’t doing anything with your firstborn other than going all Abraham-and-Isaac on them condemn your second-born to the same fate? I mean, that whole “dedicated to the lord” thing he’s talking about there didn’t exactly involve little dedicatory plaques.

    Your argument seems to imply that you assume these are reasonable people capable of both literacy and comprehension.

  10. One other thing – I love how these tools get fixated on “Old” Testament laws, yet seem to have difficulty actually following those laws (anyone see these guys eating a cheeseburger lately? Sinners.), and forget that Yeshua ben Yahweh renegotiated the contract anyway.

    Religious fanaticism, the gag gift that keeps on giving.

  11. Bah. I’m not religious, but I used to be. When I was, I would hate individuals who would pin their own intolerances on God. Good luck if s/he is real, because if I was hir, I would be pissed.

    What do I know though – I’m just an ignorant heathen 😉

    I like to think hate-spewing douchebags are God’s way of punishing us for not having quite figured out equality.

  12. But last I heard people with disabilities were put on this earth to inspiiiiiiiiiiire the non-disabled to realise their true capabilities.

    I just can’t keep track of what people with disabilities are supposed to do for everyone else.

  13. The ‘baggery. It astounds.

    I just can’t keep track of what people with disabilities are supposed to do for everyone else.

    @Anna: BWAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAA! Thank you. I desperately needed that snark to wash the ick out of my brain.

  14. How horrible! I don’t think he’s taken into consideration that in the last 50 years, doctors have become better-equipped to identify disabilities, especially at an earlier age, and regardless of first-born status or prior abortion, more children are born with some sort of a disability than those 50 someodd years ago.

  15. And he’s a part of the party who wants to “retake” the White House as they say. We’re screwed if they do.

  19. “Your argument seems to imply that you assume these are reasonable people capable of both literacy and comprehension.”

    I’m just wondering if they’re peeved that abortion deprives their deity of the infant sacrifice that’s rightfully his.

  23. Going by that rationale, wouldn’t doing anything with your firstborn other than going all Abraham-and-Isaac on them condemn your second-born to the same fate?

    I mean, call me crazy (shoe fits. my mom? total sinner, I guess) but isn’t abortion kinda like if Abraham didn’t do all that bullshit foot-dragging and whining, and got his son-sacrificing on with alacrity? These abortionista ladies just love the Lord so much they can’t wait long enough to pop the kid out! God’s all: “I want you to sacrifice your –HOLY ME, you did that super fast! I was gonna maybe let you off the hook if you cried a little. Damn. You bitches are pious.”* /snark

    *God loves the word bitches. I dunno. It felt right. :p

  25. Is it possible that there are now more women who have abortions because the baby will have some sort of disability and they don’t feel like they can adequately care for a disabled child, but in subsequent pregnancies decide that they will be able to provide that care? I’d like to see this statistic.

  26. But, I was told I was a special gift from gawd, becuase he never gives you more than you can handle. There was something about cross bearing in there too, if I remember correctly.

    I’d love an explanation for why my personally prolife adoptive mother has two children with disabilities, although I guess I don’t count, being adopted and all.

  27. Ah bob marshall, correlation is not necessarily causation. Someone put this man in an Introduction to Logic class. Or would it have too much of a liberal bias?

  28. I’m just wondering if they’re peeved that abortion deprives their deity of the infant sacrifice that’s rightfully his.

    Now theres a solution. Just put a cross up on the roof of every clinic and put some kind of tagline in the brochures about “dedicating Isaac to God.” Next time theres a protest you can just appeal to a literal reading of the bible.

  30. Sarah Palin must be horrified and deeply hurt by this fellow Republican’s insensitive and blasphemous attack on her and her son.
    …right?

  31. I think John Mayer just found an opening act he could work with and be sure won’t ever upstage him. Well, maybe as close as he’s going to get.

  32. Well, golly-gee…now I know why my firstborn developed hydrocephalus and has a speech delay and gross motor difficulties! It was my abortion waaay back in 1995. Nature knew and wanted to teach me a lesson!

    GIVE me a break. Sad thing is I live in Manassas and this asshat is one of my delegates.

  34. So in addition to being inspiring, brave, chipper, patient with abled people when they say and do ridiculous things, and a bunch of other crap, I and other PWDs who’ve had disabilities from birth are some sort of Godly warning?

    AWESOME.

  35. As a queer autistic first-born would this imply my mother had an abortion she neglected to tell me about?

  37. I desperately hope that this turns out to be this guy’s Kanye moment. (“Ruining your career in seven seconds: ur doin’ it right.”)

    And may more Republicans successfully have them.

  38. I desperately hope that this turns out to be this guy’s Kanye moment.

    Bob: “Mrs. Palin, Im’ma let you finish in a second, but I just wanted to say that your baby was the best God’s punishment of ALL TIME.”

  39. Dear God: smitey, smitey please. Or are you really that much of an a**hole?
    *Crickets*
    Yeah.. this kinda sh*t is why I’m an athiest. I think Jesus is cool, but his followers..
    And btw- firstborn child after one miscarriage. Sibs are completely normal, I have a learning disability- so according to Marshole, G*d’s punishing my mom for the child he took away?

  41. William? I heart you. Also? I think that is a fantastic idea.

    Dedicating Isaac to God, one child at a time.

  42. So my youngest, who has Spina Bifida, is a punishment for an abortion I never got? Wow, I got all smited & stuff just for contemplating it! I’m going to go gobble up a bunch of shell fish now, just after I don’t properly sacrifice goats upon my entry way. (If my memory of grade-school Bible class is right, that was the nature of that particular sacrifice.)

  43. Wow. And here I thought the children with disabilities that I work with were full, complete human beings with their own lives, wants, and needs. No, they can’t REALLY be human. They’re just a MORAL LESSON.

    Go fuck yourself, asshole.

  44. I’m utterly disgusted…how dare they or anyone, say that, such a obviously biased statement, on a subject too broad for any completely without knowledge on the entirety of this subject.

  45. Things like this make me want to cry. Because I’m a conservative, and this is just…radical assholery. Ignorant radical assholery. I mean, there is an actual conservative intellectual tradition with well-reasoned opinions and moral inquiry (it seems to have died off after the 1800s, with the possible exception of Mises) which doesn’t depend on a single religion and actually uses logic and intellect to come to rational conclusions. And this is so completely the opposite of anything reasonable and human, and of anything that deserves the name conservative, that it makes me ashamed to think that people can associate me with this wacko.

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