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Santorum to Rape Victims: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade!

Jill

In an interview with Piers Morgan, Rick Santorum clarified his view that abortion should be illegal even where the woman was raped. Why? It’s a gift from God, and don’t look a gift-god in the mouth:

Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

The thing is, we don’t just “accept what God has given us” in a whole lot of circumstances. Like when God gives us cancer. Or when God gives us problems with a wanted pregnancy. We try to counteract the things that are physically or psychologically harmful to us, or things that we don’t want to happen. And plenty of women do choose to give birth when they’re impregnated by rape — that’s a totally valid choice. But it’s not one that should be forced on any woman, rape or no rape.

54 thoughts on Santorum to Rape Victims: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade!

  1. Of course, once she actually delivers the baby, she’s a welfare-sucking single mother who shouldn’t expect hardworking taxpayers to pay for God’sher choices, right Rick?

    These “God’s gift/God’s plan” forced-birth advocates either don’t quite think through the implications of their statements, or they don’t care

  2. Every time I hear Santorum on TV, I just mentally replace everything he says with a nasty-ass raspberry noise.

  3. Argh. I don’t like Santorum either, and I can’t figure out why he has so much support. And while I am firmly pro-choice, I do respect Santorum, in this instance, for his intellectual consistency. If you really believe that abortion is murder, and every child is a gift from God, then you must also believe that there shouldn’t be exceptions for rape and incest. So in some ways, I find Santorum less annoying on this than other vocal anti-choicers who are far less consistent.

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  7. I guess its probably inappropriate to say…but when someone gives me a gift I don’t want, I usually a) throw it in a closet and forget about it, b) donate it or c) regift it.

  9. What about the rapist? Is the child God’s gift to him, too?

    The reason I ask this is that I have heard of circumstances where the fact that a child was conceived during a rape was not enough for a court to terminate the father (rapist)’s parental rights. So, having a child fathered by a rapist leaves open the very frightening possibility that the rapist will be in the victim’s life for a very long time and that the rapist will have a say in the raising of the child and the legal right to spend time with the child when the mother is not present.

    Just another way that Santorum doesn’t think through the implications of his statements.

  10. I agree with nev — while this is obviously an abhorent statement, in some ways I appreciate that Santorum is at least consistent about his views on this subject. If it’s a life, and if you think its right to live trumps the autonomy and bodily integrity of the mother, then it shouldn’t matter whether it was conceived in rape or incest or whatever other terrible circumstances. At least Santorum’s not running away from the worst implications of his position in an effort to make it more palatable to the public.

  11. See, I don’t value that kind of consistency. All that says to me is that his rigid ideological views are more important to him than any vestige of compassion. And the hell with that.

  12. If you really believe that abortion is murder, and every child is a gift from God, then you must also believe that there shouldn’t be exceptions for rape and incest.

    I don’t care about consistency, either, but the idea that he’s really “consistent” is nonsense. Not unless, as I think I’ve pointed out before, Santorum and his fellow anti-choice fanatics also take the position that there are no circumstances in which they would be willing to drop a bomb in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else if there’s any possibility that there might be a pregnant woman standing under it.

  13. This is actually the logical conclusion of the “pro-life” argument. I disagree w/it, but it’s actually more coherent than being “pro-life” with exceptions for rape/incest.

  14. So, having a child fathered by a rapist leaves open the very frightening possibility that the rapist will be in the victim’s life for a very long time and that the rapist will have a say in the raising of the child and the legal right to spend time with the child when the mother is not present.

    shudder. That is one horrifying possibility that I’m sure none of the pro-life people even consider. I know first hand how soul crushing and damaging it is to have to go through a custody battle with an abuser. Even with that experience, having to go through one against your rapist…that is something that I can’t even imagine how incredibly hard that would be.

    And somehow I think even if Santorum had thought about this, it wouldn’t matter. Just one more thing you ‘get’ to make the best of.

  15. The logic of that statement is lacking. Under that premise, anything bad that happens to anyone is just God’s will. Might as well learn to accept it.

    Those who comment here frequently know that I’m a person of faith. However, though I believe that God ultimately sits at the controls, it’s presumptuous to believe that one person can be God’s spokesperson.

    As I understand it, God and the decisions God makes are too mysterious and complex for one puny human being to even attempt to translate. I myself admit that I don’t always understand God’s role in my life immediately, but I will say that I eventually discover some large, meaningful aspect of it. One decision has a multiplicity of meaning, and to believe so cavalierly is irresponsible and an incorrect rendering of how God works. In my opinion, that is.

  16. See, I don’t value that kind of consistency. All that says to me is that his rigid ideological views are more important to him than any vestige of compassion. And the hell with that.

    Agreed. I’m not about to appreciate someone’s foolish consistency when all it accomplishes is to make him consistently awful.

  17. I have a dear friend who has actually had to make this choice more than once, and has chosen both outcomes. I’m unbelievably sad for her past, and for the hell her rapist put her and her daughter through. Like when he tried to take sole custody. But I’m also unbelievably happy for her present, her new relationship and the relationship she has with her daughter now. That child is a wonderful kid, and my friend would never undo her decision. But I also know that the journey she took to get here would have been exponentially more diffcult, maybe impossible, if she had carried every one of her rapists “gifts from God” to term. Rick Santorum needs to not talk about things he will never understand.

  18. Another reason Santorum’s stance is actually NOT consistent are his statements concerning contraception. He has stated that the Supreme Court should not have overturned local laws concerning birth control, and he said he is against federal subsidies that provide contraception.

    Since contraception could prevent abortions, he should most definitely be in favor of everyone who engages in sexual intercourse to easily have access to it. After all, in his eyes, that would prevent a murder of a human being.

    It’s like being against fatal car accidents but not being in favor of seat belts. What if something simple could prevent so many deaths yet you were also against the thing that could prevent it?

  19. His consistency does prove that he is awful, but at least he doesn’t hide it behind flip-flops and code words. He says it straight out. So did Michelle Bachman.

    The thing I have been thinking about lately, in regard to that honesty, is what it represents. Bachman and Santorum (and to a certain extent Ron Paul) are not afraid anymore to say straight out that they want to get rid of birth control or that rape doesn’t matter. And the audiences at the debates aren’t afraid to cheer at the idea that someone should just die without healthcare. What does that mean? Romney still tries to be wishy-washy and political, to appear diplomatic, but he is losing ground. Gingrich gets his biggest applause when he refuses to be diplomatic, as he was talking about Israel and Palestine.

    Something has happened to make people not afraid to show their vileness. That is disturbing.

  20. Exactly, Mama Mia. There are two things that bother me about the rape and incest exceptions: (1) it makes anti-abortion laws explicitly a value judgment on the woman in question (well, if you were slutty and had sex on purpose then you should be stuck with the consequences, but if it really wasn’t your fault then I guess we’ll let you off the hook) and (2) I don’t want someone pretending that banning abortion isn’t that bad by making exceptions for the most extreme cases where it’s blindingly obvious that forced pregnancy is terrible for the woman in question.

    If you think abortion is murder and that your belief trumps the right of a woman to decide what to do with her body, it shouldn’t matter whether she had unprotected sex with 50 guys or had her birth control fail in a monogamous relationship or was impregnated against her will. And while I’m normally on the side of harm reduction, I don’t think rape and incest exceptions are doing all that much good — both because they can be extremely difficult to access even in cases where they should apply, and because they make abortion restrictions more popular with the general public (the proportion of people who agree with no-abortion-except-for-rape-and-incest is much higher than people who agree with no-abortion-no-matter-what). Given the choice, I’d rather have those exceptions than no exceptions, but I hate the intellectual dishonesty that accompanies them.

    As for your point, Donna L, I don’t think the two are necessarily inconsistent — someone could believe that the war in question will ultimately save more lives than it takes, or could believe that a government has a duty to protect its own citizens’ (or potential citizens’) lives but does not have the same duty to the citizens of other countries. I don’t agree with those beliefs (at least most of the time, with respect to the first one — sometimes I do think war is necessary, though I certainly wouldn’t include Iraq or Afghanistan in that category), but I don’t think that any support for war is necessarily inconsistent with being anti-abortion.

  21. That is one horrifying possibility that I’m sure none of the pro-life people even consider.

    Considering that they don’t believe in the veracity of any report of rape by a woman who wasn’t attacked by a black man she had never met before who beat her to a pulp, I’m sure that Santorum and his ilk don’t mind too much.

  23. Funny how fundies always believe that the best gift for a woman is something she doesn’t want, tries to avoid, and comes via penis. So to speak. When women actually tell them what they do want, fundies go, “No, um, we don’t want you to have that.” They’ll decide for us, thank you very much, and what they decide, curiously enough, always hurts women and benefits them.

    In short, Rick Santorum can bite me.

  24. The consistency argument also breaks down when the most hard line, no-exception, anti-choicers are asked about what sanctions they would impose on women who undergo abortions. Where does Santorum stand on the penalty phase? Does he advocate for first-degree murder charges in prosecuting a woman accused of the crime of murdering her unborn child, regardless of how said child was conceived?

    A woman contemplating abortion must make a conscious decision to terminate, locate a provider, make an appointment, arrange for payment, transport herself to the clinic, and submit to the procedure. You can’t get much more pre-meditated than that. What say you, Mr. Santorum?

  25. After hearing all the fundie arguments, I have come to believe that God is an Asshole.

    Anyone who thinks an unwanted pregnancy is a “gift” should get surgically implanted with something that grows and feeds on their bodies for nine months. And has to come out a small but stretchable hole. Painfully.

  26. I’m pretty confident that Rick Santorum will never be President, and I also hope he never again holds a public office where he has any power to implement his numerous hideous views. But regardless, there’s still a lot of harm just in him coming onto a nationally aired television program and spewing this type of garbage. Like rape survivors need to hear any more assholes opining about what their rape means and how they should react to it. I mean I can’t even comprehend the sheer gall it would take to say this crap to one woman, let alone an television audience that includes millions of women. Get back to us when you have a uterus Rick. Actually, on second thought, even if somehow you got a uterus (if it wasn’t also accompanied by a brain transplant, that is), I’m pretty sure it would still be best if you kept your big, yammering trap shut.

  27. I’m attempting to save up money for a sterilization. Santorum does have a serious chance of winning, which terrifies me. At what point did most Americans reach the point of being too stupid to live?

  28. So, if pregnancies resulting from rape are a gift from God, I argue that Santorum’s God is a douche, and as a result we shouldn’t listen to Him when it comes to morality or making our laws. And if Santorum is taking his morality from this douchey guy, we shouldn’t listen to him, either, when making our laws.

    How ’bout ectopic pregnancies? Are those Santorum’s God’s idea of a gag gift? Hah hah, here’s the gift of life — except it’s going to kill you?

  30. Ectopic pregnancies are of particular interest in Santorum’s Catholic faith.

    It has long been held that it is acceptable to remove the fallopian tube containing the ectopic pregnancy in order to preserve a woman’s life, the removal of the little person within being collateral damage.

    But more recently developed techniques (such as micro-surgery) which remove the doomed embryo but preserve the fallopian tube and hence the woman’s future fertility are unacceptable in Santorum’s “The Pope Wears Prada” cult.

  31. Santorum does have a serious chance of winning, which terrifies me.

    I don’t think he does. He couldn’t even keep his Senate seat in his home state. What he is doing, though, is dragging the range of “acceptable” political discourse that deserves to be taken seriously even farther right than it’s already gone. That may well be as bad in its effects, if not worse.

  32. Politicalguineapig 1.24.2012 at 7:39 pm | Permalink
    I’m attempting to save up money for a sterilization.

    I support this idea. I’ll hold Santorum down while the doctor sterilizes him.

  33. I support this idea. I’ll hold Santorum down while the doctor sterilizes him.

    Must we go there?

    Politicalguineapig, Santorum has no chance at this point, I think.

  34. Must we go there?

    But it means he can have all the sex he wants without risking having more kids. It would be a gift!

  35. I agree with EG, though. Santorum is a joke, but I think he’s getting an extra push because he makes some of the others look “Not quite so bad” in comparison.

  36. Question: Why is it that when Santorum (or, really, any forced-birth proponent) opens their mouth about God’s will he isn’t immediately shouted down by a chorus of voices demand that he answer for his clearly unamerican views? Its especially troubling given that his views are informed by a pontiff in a sovereign country outside of the US.

    I’m not just saying this to be contrary. The religious right needs to be directly questioned as to how, exactly, their entangling of church and state is any different from the Sharia Law they like to use as a bogey man. They need to be clearly challenged as to how their distinctly religious motivations differ from those of any other extremist religious group. They need to be raked over the coals for being no different than the Islamic extremists they think ought to be fair game for targeted killings. This isn’t just political, its a matter of patriotism and constitutional loyalty. We ought to hound these motherfuckers until they say, in public, that they do not believe in the separation of church and state and that their belief is that the United States ought to be a biblical theocracy. They need to say it over and over again on the cameras, cornered until they have no choice but to be as honest as Rick Santorum.

    And then, they ought to have the fear mongering they ginned up over Radical Islam leveraged against them. Don’t think that Allah has a place in American politics? Great! I agree. Now answer for the Pope, the Elders in Salt Lake City, and the 700 club you filthy, anti-liberty, atavistic motherfuckers. They wanted these cards, I hope they fucking choke on them.

    And I’ll be as happy as a marine in Afghanistan to piss all over their cooling corpses.

  37. Question: Why is it that when Santorum (or, really, any forced-birth proponent) opens their mouth about God’s will he isn’t immediately shouted down by a chorus of voices demand that he answer for his clearly unamerican views?

    I generally respect your opinion William, and I certainly hate the Religious Right. But maybe the reason the forced-birthers aren’t shouted down for being un-American is that, in general, people on the Left reject jingoism just as they reject the worship of other false gods. In my view, if you’re born in America, then you are American: it’s pretty simple. I have no interest in playing a No True Scotsman game with Santorum and any of these other heinous fucks. Instead, I will point out to the concrete harm their views and actions cause in the lives of real people. And along the way I’ll make fun of them, too, but not for having insufficient allegiance to a country that isn’t so great in my opinion, either.

  38. But people on the right generally reject the idea of separation of church and state. Telling them they’re bringing God into it when they shouldn’t is toothless when you don’t also point out that the foundation of this country embedded the idea that you shouldn’t legislate morality.

  39. But people on the right generally reject the idea of separation of church and state

    You will never have a separation of church and state (this is true especially if we expand “church” to “beliefs”).

    People go to church, and people vote. You can’t reasonably expect them to hold one set of values when sitting in the pew and when standing in the voting booth.

    Get enough like minded people together, and they will vote for politicians that share their beliefs, get laws passed that reflect their beliefs, etc. Even putting aside the legal issues, they will sway the culture of a society toward what they hold to be true.

    Which is why the whole “Why do you care what someone else believes? It doesnt affect you LOL” argument is bunk.

    Our beliefs do affect others, and we do have a moral responsibility to holding good beliefs. Because that wacky guy who believes some off the wall or offensive shit could, ya know, one day, maybe be a candidate for president.

  40. PrettyAmiable, I did not mean to imply that you were saying “Why do you care what someone else believes? It doesnt affect you LOL”

    Just that its an argument that often comes up in conversations like these.

  41. LotusBen

    I generally respect your opinion William, and I certainly hate the Religious Right. But maybe the reason the forced-birthers aren’t shouted down for being un-American is that, in general, people on the Left reject jingoism just as they reject the worship of other false gods

    There is a difference between patriotism and jingoism. The battle with the religious right is, in a very real sense, a battle for what this country of ours will become. Its a battle over the values which will be enshrined in the law, over whose sentiments carry the weight of incarceration and guide the truncheons of the police. Thats not changing, thats the game, its where we are. The question we’re faced with is “what will the United States of America mean?” Abandoning that very central argument in the name of anti-nationalism or a rejection of jingoism is, in my opinion, dangerous because it means we’re constantly fighting skirmishes while the center moves towards the right because we lack the stomach to say “no, fuck you, this is not my American Dream.”

    PrettyAmiable:

    But people on the right generally reject the idea of separation of church and state. Telling them they’re bringing God into it when they shouldn’t is toothless when you don’t also point out that the foundation of this country embedded the idea that you shouldn’t legislate morality.

    Absolutely that needs to be part of the response, you’re right. I don’t think responding is necessarily useful for Santorum and his supporters, but for the large number of moderate (and, often, politically ignorant) observers. I feel like part of the problem the left often has is that it fails to explain it’s opposition and lacks the kind of killer instinct that is necessary when dealing with bullies and would-be tyrants. Santorum won’t ever change his frothy consistency, but a little harsh light could well help more people see how shitty his ideology really is.

  42. Our beliefs do affect others, and we do have a moral responsibility to holding good beliefs. Because that wacky guy who believes some off the wall or offensive shit could, ya know, one day, maybe be a candidate for president.

    Careful there, keep that up and the Christians are going to start whining about how oppressed they are and how you wouldn’t say the same things to a Muslim.

  43. Rick Santorum’s rape/abortion views (and similar views by others) have bothered me for some time and finally led to my post yesterday, “Rape Me Again,” which directly addresses Santorum and Palin’s belief that a rape embryo is a “gift.”

    I’m sure it’s only a gift if it’s given to someone who isn’t them.

  44. @pgp, if you haven’t already (and you have insurance) it’s worth looking into if your insurance will cover sterilization. Mine did. Although if you go the Essure route, fine out explicitely ahead of time if insurance also covers the followup visit. Mine did not and since it was done in a hospital instead of a dr’s office it cost me a LOT out of pocket.

  45. OK William, I see what you’re saying. I agree that patriotric frames can be pretty persausive to people who are uninvolved or sitting on the fence. So I don’t have any problem with their use in an argument. I just don’t think in those terms much myself, so I don’t have much motivation to use them in discussions. My objection to the forced birthers doesn’t have anything to do with their deviation from American traditions. I oppose their type of misogynstic views no matter what country they live in, whether that country has a tradition of religious liberty or tradition of theocracy.

  47. For some reason, my comments keep disappearing.

    EG: Santorum most assuredly has a chance. Americans just aren’t that smart and the evangelicals are set on anyone but Romney.

    Groggette: Thanks, I will

  48. I agree that Santorum has a chance. Most people who vote left (e.g. me) aren’t thrilled with Obama’s performance. I’m going to show up on election day, but I can guarantee apathy will keep many people at home.

    But seriously, can I just say that it baffles me that Republicans can’t put forth one fucking nominee who isn’t pure evil? Obama’s not perfect, but at least he’s not fucking evil.

    (Completely unrelated note, but William, you should start a blog for William-musings and also so there’s a good place to be all “How was your gig?”)

  49. Santorum most assuredly has a chance. Americans just aren’t that smart and the evangelicals are set on anyone but Romney.

    Being smart has nothing to do with it. Pennsylvanians weren’t any smarter when they voted him out of office a few years ago. Nor does it have much to do with the left staying home. Santorum was unseated by a conservative anti-choice Democrat. Plus, Obama’s an incumbent. Reagan and Clinton both unseated incumbent presidents; both were very, very charismatic men who ran during terrible economies. Obama’s vulnerable because of the terrible economy, but Santorum just doesn’t have the charisma of a Clinton or Reagan–i.e., the charisma needed to pull people who are not evangelical Christians to his side.

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  51. Folks, there’re plenty of ways to consider abortion morally wrong but still acceptable in the cases of rape, _and_ be consistent. Accusing anti-choicers who make an exception for rape of being inconsistent is a bit like accusing vegetarians who aren’t anti-choice of being inconsistent — it assumes that there’s only one way to come to a particular moral conclusion on an issue.

    For example, if you think abortion is wrong because you want to punish women for enjoying non-procreative sex, then it’s perfectly consistent to say abortion’s acceptable in the case of rape.

    If you want to ban abortion because you want to control women, but believe rape is always stranger-in-a-dark-alley (and that acquaintance rape doesn’t count), the rape exception doesn’t get in the way of that control.

    If you think both induced abortion and forced pregnancy are wrong, but the scale tips towards abortion as the greater evil in most cases, the potential added harms in the case of rape might be enough to top the scales in favor of the pregnant rape survivor’s rights.

    If you’ve been swayed by anti-choice propaganda to unconsciously believe that embryos/fetuses exist floating in space, independent of anyone else, unless Evil Aborting Women come and kill them, and the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape is one of the few cases where you remember that the pregnant person really is involved; or you believe that all women who seek abortions are irresponsible, unmarried, carefree sluts with the exception of rape victims, who are all devout Christian virgins, and you believe that devout Christian virgins should have more rights than the other group, then your problem is not inconsistency, it’s shortsightedness, lack of empathy, or (in the latter case) just plain being a douche.

    And I’m sure there are more ways to consistently arrive at the “abortion should be outlawed except in the case of rape” moral position that I’ve overlooked.

  53. EG: You do realize that the number of Christian evangelicals are increasing every day? And that people who don’t live in cities tend to lean very, very rightward? Seriously, just about every small town and suburb is a haven for know-nothings/Republicans.

  54. EG: You do realize that the number of Christian evangelicals are increasing every day? And that people who don’t live in cities tend to lean very, very rightward? Seriously, just about every small town and suburb is a haven for know-nothings/Republicans.

    I do. Rural Pennsylvania is not exactly known for its radical leftists. And yet Santorum couldn’t hold onto his Senate seat. That’s an actual fact. I’m gonna need more than “Americans are stupid and people who don’t live in cities are right wing!” to counter it, because those two things have been true for years and years.

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