February 9, 2015

"Lawmaker sorry for saying having child from rape is 'beautiful.'"

Pushback received by West Virginia state Rep. Brian Kurcaba, who favors a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with no exception for rape.
Kurcaba, a Republican from Monongalia, issued a statement Friday apologizing to "anyone who took my comments about the sanctity of human life to mean anything other than that all children are precious regardless of circumstances."
By the way, we are all descendants of rapists, aren't we? In the genetic line that led to each of us, there must be ancestors who were the product of a rape. How could it be otherwise?

ADDED: Let me front-page one of my own comments, which restates and elaborates on what I said above:
If every woman who was raped in all of human history and pre-history had had the ability to abort and had done so, not one single person who now lives on the face of the earth would exist. We all contain the inheritance of rape, and if life is beautiful, Kurcaba had a point. But it's a point they can kill you with in our aggressive American political discourse. That's the lesson here.
Imagine the completely different set of persons who would populate the earth instead of us if no rape-conceived child had every been born. What would they be like?!

Another perspective is: What are we like? What part of our cruelty and selfishness comes from this genetic inheritance?

A third thought experiment: If, beginning now, every woman would terminate every pregnancy caused by rape, how would humanity change?

114 comments:

Brando said...

I misread that as "Republican from Mongolia" and thought "of course, Genghis Khan is probably still a folk hero there!"

Pro-lifers have to be far more disciplined with their talking points re: rape. I get that the point is that a child is a valuable thing even when its conception itself was a vicious crime, but every time you sound a bit glib about rape you're just digging it deeper.

Anonymous said...

I'm no closer than I ever was to understanding why it would ever take a woman 20 weeks to figure out she's been raped.

Laslo Spatula said...

It is tough getting through life always pretending we don't know what was meant.

I am Laslo.

jr565 said...

"I'm no closer than I ever was to understanding why it would ever take a woman 20 weeks to figure out she's been raped."

Same for incest.

jr565 said...

He didn't actually say having a child from rape is beautiful. He said that the rape is horrible, but a child is beutiiful. And so if a child is born, that in itself is beautiful.
Making lemonade out of lemons, as it were. Make the best of a bad situation. etc etc.

jr565 said...

Brando wrote:
Pro-lifers have to be far more disciplined with their talking points re: rape. I get that the point is that a child is a valuable thing even when its conception itself was a vicious crime, but every time you sound a bit glib about rape you're just digging it deeper.

While I agree that pro lifers need to mind their words, it would help if the media didn't quote it out of context to suggest that he's saying having a kid from rape is beautiful.

furious_a said...

Christians probably raped during the Crusades.

dbp said...

I'm with Paul on this. It seems like, if anything, the decision would be easier if the pregnancy was a result of rape. So, why give more time to make up your mind in this circumstance?

dbp said...

OTOH, some prenatal diagnostics (at least used to be) hard to do really early. And so abortion for medical reasons would have a rational reason for a later decision point.

jr565 said...

If it turned out I was the product of rape, I would hope my mother had his attitude and didn't abort me. I would say "Im sorry for your situation, thank you for letting me live"

jr565 said...

furious_a wrote:
Christians probably raped during the Crusades.


Muslims most certainly raped during the Islamic expansion that preceded the Crusades.

tim in vermont said...

Christians probably raped during the Crusades.

And we will never live it down.

jr565 said...

I have an issue with women being able to claim rape as an abortion excuse when they never actually report a rape.

tim in vermont said...

If it turned out I was the product of rape,

Unless you have some nifty way of deleting certain ancestors from your DNA, not to mention the causal implications of their life, you certainly are the product of rape.

Brando said...

"While I agree that pro lifers need to mind their words, it would help if the media didn't quote it out of context to suggest that he's saying having a kid from rape is beautiful."

I just take it for granted that the opposition (whether in the media or otherwise) will take anything you say in the context most damaging. Best to make it harder for them by being careful what you say.

The Right became better at this since the '70s and '80s but I think in today's environment of social media and handheld recordings everything gets captured and distributed, so there's just so much more out there to work with. It's great for opposition research, but it means having to be ever more vigilant.

Rae said...

I see nothing wrong with what he said. Republicans need to be prepared to explain their positions in clear language. They don't have the advantage of a fawning press that will bury any gaffes they make.

jr565 said...

tim in vermont wrote:
Unless you have some nifty way of deleting certain ancestors from your DNA, not to mention the causal implications of their life, you certainly are the product of rape.

Well lets concentrate on the physical act and who was involved. If my dad was a literal rapist, I'd still thank my mom for not aborting me. If I could go back in time I'd tell her "please don't abort me"

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm no closer than I ever was to understanding why it would ever take a woman 20 weeks to figure out she's been raped."

It might take a young girl a long time to figure out that she is pregnant or to face that reality and to find her way to an abortion clinic. This might be precisely the person you would want to protect from having to go through with a pregnancy.

Ann Althouse said...

If every woman who was raped in all of human history and pre-history had had the ability to abort and had done so, not one single person who now lives on the face of the earth would exist. We all contain the inheritance of rape, and if life is beautiful, Kurcaba had a point. But it's a point they can kill you with in our aggressive American political discourse. That's the lesson here.

rhhardin said...

Go with the flow.

wendybar said...

Blogger Paul Zrimsek said...
I'm no closer than I ever was to understanding why it would ever take a woman 20 weeks to figure out she's been raped.

2/9/15, 7:54 AM

^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^

MadisonMan said...

The problem with his comments is that they are a variation on Suck it up!! Not compassionate enough.

And sorry, but the Republican Party is never -- ever -- going to ban abortion.

But keep those checks coming! They're trying *really hard* to. Really hard.

Really.

dbp said...

"It might take a young girl a long time to figure out that she is pregnant or to face that reality and to find her way to an abortion clinic. This might be precisely the person you would want to protect from having to go through with a pregnancy."

20 weeks is 4-5 missed periods and one would think pregnancy would be on the radar of a rape victim.

tim maguire said...

The sins of the father must be visited upon the child. Thus spake modern feminism and ancient pagan as though in unison.

But what if the child is a girl? What then, oh glorious SJW?

James Pawlak said...

CHILDREN ARE BEAUTIFUL!

Few elected officials are.

wendybar said...

Ann Althouse said...
"I'm no closer than I ever was to understanding why it would ever take a woman 20 weeks to figure out she's been raped."

It might take a young girl a long time to figure out that she is pregnant or to face that reality and to find her way to an abortion clinic. This might be precisely the person you would want to protect from having to go through with a pregnancy.

I see your point, but I really don't think there 11,000 confused young girls doing this.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/11000-late-term-abortions-take-place-a-year-in-the-u.s.-congressional-repor

tim maguire said...

jr565 said...
If it turned out I was the product of rape, I would hope my mother had his attitude and didn't abort me. I would say "Im sorry for your situation, thank you for letting me live"


“I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”
-R. Reagan

Laslo Spatula said...

Perhaps rape is nature's way of randomly replenishing the gene pool, ensuring diversity can continue.

I am Laslo.

wendybar said...

Usually, if you report the rape, they give you the day after pill.

rhhardin said...

There's a place in Nine Months where Julianne Moore tells Hugh Grant she's pregnant. Grant suggests that maybe she had her period and just didn't notice it.

The look he got back was priceless.

Not a great storyline but there are sometimes moments.

MadisonMan said...

20 weeks is 4-5 missed periods and one would think pregnancy would be on the radar of a rape victim.

Unstated assumption: All women have regular periods.

rhhardin said...

The already been born argument doesn't work. Most people realize that they wouldn't miss being born if they weren't born.

Apparently some group thinks the argument works, but it doesn't.

Gahrie said...

but every time you sound a bit glib about rape

Who's being more glib..those who feel that rape is not a good enough reason to murder your baby, or those who think any reason is good enough to kill your baby?

rhhardin said...

Penguin on airliner to man seated next to him : "For me, this is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream."

bizarro comics

You might have been a penguin if not born.

Gahrie said...

We all contain the inheritance of rape, and if life is beautiful, Kurcaba had a point. But it's a point they can kill you with in our aggressive American political discourse. That's the lesson here.

And why can they kill you? Could it be because slightly over half the voting population allows their emotions to control them?

tim maguire said...

rhhardin said...
The already been born argument doesn't work. Most people realize that they wouldn't miss being born if they weren't born.

Apparently some group thinks the argument works, but it doesn't.


I have a feeling you don't understand the argument. Here's a hint--it's too late for them to be aborted.

dbp said...

Not all women have regular periods but those who have irregular ones tend to be aware of this aspect of their body.

If you are a woman with irregular periods AND decide to keep the fact that you were raped to yourself THEN unless you are retarded or somehow don't care if you might be carrying a rapist's baby, you will pick up a pregnancy tester at your first opportunity.

Ann Althouse said...

"And why can they kill you? Could it be because slightly over half the voting population allows their emotions to control them?"

I'd say approximately 100% of the voters are affected by emotion, so it depends on what the definition of "control" is? I think the denial that emotion is part of your decision making is either ignorant or (ironically) emotional.

furious_a said...

So then we have two victims, including the viable, terminated child.

That's why the pro-aborts cling so bitterly to their "mass of undifferentiated cells" position.

Iconochasm said...

"20 weeks is 4-5 missed periods and one would think pregnancy would be on the radar of a rape victim."

My wife's birth control pills kept her having periods until around the 20 week mark when we realized they'd failed. She'd even had an OB/GYN appointment a month or so prior.

rhhardin said...

I'd say approximately 100% of the voters are affected by emotion, so it depends on what the definition of "control" is? I think the denial that emotion is part of your decision making is either ignorant or (ironically) emotional.

Do emotions exist, or are they, like intention, just a marker in an account?

If the latter, then you have to look at where the word turns up and do some lit crit to figure out where it goes.

Women being emotional, I'd say, is an account for their able to want contrary things at once.

It's not an attribution of cause (the emotions).

dbp said...

Even if you were on the pill, wouldn't you go to your Dr. to be checked for VD if you got raped? They would probably run a pregnancy test too, while they were at it.

Gahrie said...

I'd say approximately 100% of the voters are affected by emotion, so it depends on what the definition of "control" is? I think the denial that emotion is part of your decision making is either ignorant or (ironically) emotional

But that is because you are a woman, which is kind of my point.

Most men have no difficulty controlling their emotions and making decisions based on rational consideration. We also think that this is preferable to allowing your emotions to rule you. You, like most women, instead attempt to justify your emotionalism.

Deirdre Mundy said...

Baby #5, I didn't realize I was pregnant until around 20 weeks. I hadn't had the crushing morning sickness, my periods are irregular anyway, and there were a lot of "Oh, I skipped because of X!" moments. And I wasn't gaining weight-- I was losing weight.

So...I didn't bother to take a pregnancy test until I started gaining weight. Went in for my '10 week' check up and .... oops!

I mean, not that it mattered since I barely drink, never smoke, and always take prenatal vitamins, but....my doctor did make fun of me.

It's actually pretty easy to miss the pregnancy until the halfway mark. The thing is, even if you're not a pro-lifer, at that point the baby is awfully close to viability.

Is it really ethical to kill a kid who, given a few more weeks on the inside, will be born and adoptable?

Though...I bet we could really reduce violent crime with a "If found guilty, you and all your offspring and their offspring will be wiped from the planet" law. It wouldn't be moral, but it might be effective.

n.n said...

A woman is the first victim of rape at the hand of a male rapist. A wholly innocent child is the second victim of elective abortion at the hand of the woman or government-sanctioned contractor.

The reconciliation of individual dignity and intrinsic value would be so much easier if a stork did in fact deliver a child, or if it arbitrarily acquired a "soul", as proposed and promoted by the State established religion.

That said, are there women who are the repeated victims of rape in a lifetime?

Once, repent. Twice and more, natural born killer. Perhaps that's why feminist leaders want women to serve in the military. They can review the binders full of women at Planned Parenthood et al and send them into combat.

Oh, well. A human life evolves from conception to a natural, accidental, or premeditated death. Even the Chinese mass murderers do not maintain a pretense to obfuscate their motives and outcome, hence the "one-child" policy. If for no other reason, the Chinese should be acknowledged for their honesty, and overt debasement of human life.

Real American said...

we shouldn't incentivize women to lie about rape any more than we already have.

Laslo Spatula said...

Woody Hayes on the forward pass: "Three things can happen when you throw the ball, and two of them are bad."

1. Successful pass.
2. Incomplete pass.
3. Interception.

Maybe we adapt this for pregnancy: "Three things can happen when you are pregnant, and two of them are bad."

1. Successful birth.
2. Miscarriage.
3. Abortion.

I am Laslo.

Seeing Red said...

Are there separate rape rules in Europe?

If not, how do those women manage?

If a woman decides to have an abortion for the reason of rape, then a policeman should be called and charges filed.

You could probably get the DNA off the fetus, couldn't you?

richlb said...

-- "I'm no closer than I ever was to understanding why it would ever take a woman 20 weeks to figure out she's been raped."

It took a Columbia student 6 months.

Brando said...

"Who's being more glib..those who feel that rape is not a good enough reason to murder your baby, or those who think any reason is good enough to kill your baby?"

No one ever wins a "glib-off". Besides, while a sizable chunk of the country don't consider abortion to be killing a baby (and your argument would be talking right past them) there's no significant group of Americans that think rape is just fine (the Roman Polanski fan club notwithstanding).

Gahrie said...

there's no significant group of Americans that think rape is just fine

Tell that to the Democrats. They've been telling the country for decades that Republicans are fine with rape, and sadly it has been working.

Gahrie said...

Why does the "war on women" meme work?

Why is this lawmaker having to defend his remarks?

Anonymous said...

I take a different lesson from this.

They want you to apologize. Apologizing shows weakness, then they swarm and gang up on you.

Take a cue from Obama. In most things he's wrong but in this one area, he is right.

Push back. Punch back twice as hard.

Don't apologize. Go straight at your critics. Take a stand for your position and push back.

No one likes weakness in a politician.

jr565 said...

rhardin wrote:
The already been born argument doesn't work. Most people realize that they wouldn't miss being born if they weren't born.

But those who are born can realize that they were in a position that a fetus yet to be born is in, and reflect that if their mother chose abortion they wouldn't in fact be here.

Brando said...

"Tell that to the Democrats. They've been telling the country for decades that Republicans are fine with rape, and sadly it has been working."

They've overplayed their hand. Senator Uterus was a good example of that.

The theme on the Left was that the Right (dominated by men and women who just want to curry favor with men) doesn't take rape seriously, that they blame the victim for being raped, or deny rape happened when it did, and ultimately women can't trust such people in power. It's a false and offensive charge, but why play into it like Charlie Brown and the football? Simply make your own positions clear and call them out when they misrepresent you. Eventually people start to see the attacks as the hyperbole and lies they are.

SJ said...

I've never heard it phrased this way in the news...

Do we punish children for the crimes of their parents?

If not, then why do we allow abortion in the case of rape?

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

All the more reason why we have to insist that, no matter how hard it is for the woman and how much she wants to take a two hour shower and pretend it didn't happen (of course understandable) that rapes be reported to the police IMMEDIATELY and the victims go to the hospital. As wendybar said, they routinely give the morning-after pill to prevent conception.

Rape needs to be treated as a police matter even if it is sensitive and hard to do so. (Other sexual and domestic crimes are also hard to report to the police, but it must be done.) That would also end this campus-rape nonsense. If it isn't reported to the police and evidence is collected, sorry, it shouldn't be regarded as a rape criminally, socially or for as justification for abortion.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

SJ:

Actually, we do. The regressive religion includes a moral tenet of inherited or associated sin. It manifests under different labels including classes, diversity, social justice, quotas, feminism, phobias, etc.

The established secular religion or moral philosophy does not generally recognize the moral axioms of individual dignity, let alone intrinsic value. It characterizes a human life as disposable and interchangeable from conception to a natural, accidental, or premeditated death.

Its political counterpart is the DRAT (Displace, Replace, Abort, and Tax) policy that is a principle of Democrat governance and not a few Republicans. Whether they believe it or not is immaterial. They use it for leverage at the expense of individuals, society, and humanity.

The people will tolerate or advocate for it in exchange for a hit of opiates (e.g. dissociation of risk, instant or immediate gratification, status including leadership) and promises of material indulgences.

As for elective abortion in the case of rape, we allow and subsidize abortion for causes of wealth, leisure, and pleasure. An exception for rape is easily reconcilable with the national abortion policy of the State established religion.

n.n said...

I Have Misplaced My Pants:

That's a good place to start. Rape or involuntary exploitation is a crime committed against an individual and society. People should be taught this two-factor principle from an early age and understand their responsibility to report the violation. Society will then offer security, medical, psychological, and even monetary aid to the victim. As well as prosecute the perpetrator and, upon conviction, hand down an appropriate sentence. The trial aspect will bind both the alleged victim and perpetrator, so that the former will not have an incentive for casual exploitation, and will suffer repercussions if found to have perjured herself.

Wince said...

Somebody must have torn down all those "...cause God don't make no junk" posters once popular in social services offices.

Laslo Spatula said...

Never look into a stroller and say "ahhh, what a beautiful 'rape baby'". It will not come across how you intended it to.

I am Laslo.

Smilin' Jack said...

What's all this 20 weeks shit? Life begins at conception. It's science!

mgarbowski said...

You have to be quite a jerk to misconstrue his original statement into something offensive. It's not even inartfully stated. But the dehumanization of these children is necessary to sate Moloch.

CWJ said...

Right now Claire McCaskill is thinking. How do I get him to move to Missouri? And Why couldn't couldn't it be 2018?

CWJ said...

The argument that Republicans, conservatives, etc. need to be extra careful what they say is obvious. But how exactly do they do it? I think it's impossible in the face of an actively hostile press, and their ability to pick and edt what gets printed or aired. Who can be THAT on guard 24/7?

Sure Althouse can exhort, and the many commentors here can offer advice. But even the best of us have those moments where we've thought of what we should have said. And even if you managed to say only unspinable things, how much weaker and blander would your message be than that of your opposition?

So you fight back as someone above suggested. But your pushback has to be just as unspinable as your original statement. As we found out with binders full of women, even a gentle self defense could be cynically misconstrued and recast as part of the war on women.

You may be able to operate in a no margin for error environment if you know what constitutes an error. But if errors can be manufactured out of the thinnest of air ("What about your gaffes?"), then it becomes a no margin for any conceivable error environment?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brando said...

"Sure Althouse can exhort, and the many commentors here can offer advice. But even the best of us have those moments where we've thought of what we should have said. And even if you managed to say only unspinable things, how much weaker and blander would your message be than that of your opposition?"

It's not that you can ever say anything truly "unspinnable"--hell, you could take someone's comments about wildlife conservation and edit it in such a way that they are praising eugenics. The key is to keep it reasonable in the context of what you're saying, so that if it IS spinned, it's more easily refuted and comes back to bite the spinner.

So, someone asks a pro-lifer who wants no exceptions for babies conceived by rape what he would tell a rape victim who wants to abort? How about "I'm very sorry for what happened to you and want you to get the support you need. Experiencing a rape and then knowing you have a child as a result is a trauma I could never fully understand. As I believe life begins at conception, however, I think we're still talking about an innocent human being who is caught in between all this, and I would hope we could give this child a chance at life."

Sure, some would object--that it is no life at all, yet, or that it is a life but the trauma to the mother outweighs the child's life interest--but at least a statement like that demonstrates sensitivity to the rape victim while still asserting the right to life. Could that statement be misrepresented by opponents? Sure, but it would have to be so egregious a misrepresentation or half-quote that it can be easily fought back after.

On the other hand, once you start saying "rape babies are gifts from God" it's hard to make that look like you put any thought into the ordeal of the rape victim. You're just feeding the opposition there.

jr565 said...

SOJO you can say that because it can't happen. But if time travel were possible and peoples own existence were on the line, I doubt most peole would be for abortion of them.

jr565 said...

SOJO wrote:
It's not just "a beautiful baby", it's a walking DNA reminder of the rape. It's very selfish to demand someone do that.

whether you abort or don't abort you're still going to have constant reminders of your rape. Why compound your woes by also having constant reminders that you killed your baby because you couldn't deal with your rape.

Carl Pham said...

If only Normal Rockwell were alive, he could be made to apologize for his Saturday Evening Post cover glorifying the murder of a bird to provide a Thanksgiving meal.

Also, we need to turn July 4 into a national day of mourning. How could anyone celebrate independence knowing full well it came about only through the violent death of thousands? Celebrating Independence Day is celebrating murder.

Anonymous said...

"If every woman who was raped in all of human history and pre-history had had the ability to abort and had done so, not one single person who now lives on the face of the earth would exist."

So what? A completely different set of people would exist. Nothing wrong with that. Might even be better. No way of knowing.

Sure, we each want to think we're a special little snowflake, but we're all in the same blizzard.

Anonymous said...

SOJO wrote;

" It's very selfish to demand someone do that."

How dare someone demand to live. So selfish.

What can't people learn to be less selfish and just die?

CWJ said...

Brando,

I appreciate your commnentary, but even you managed to boil

"For somebody to take advantage of somebody else in such a horrible and terrifying and brutal way is absolutely disgusting," Kurcaba said. "But what is beautiful is the child that could come as a production of this."

down to "rape babies are gifts from God."

I don't see that quote in Althouse's link. If it's elsewhere, my apologies.

In fact, I don't see the extended quote as all that different from the reasonable quote you propose, and yet the headline writer paraphrased it negatively. I don't think acknowledging the victim's trauma will inoculate your hypothetical pro-lifer.

New headline: Hypothetical pro-lifer says regardless of the "trauma" of rape, victims should carry the fetus to term.

Revenant said...

Ok. Pro-lifers who oppose rape exceptions? Repeat after me:

"I don't think it is right to kill a baby girl just because her father was a rapist".

When pressed for further comment: don't.

CWJ said...

BTW, I'm not defending this guy. In fact, I would hope my McCaskill comment makes it clear that I think she would love to run against him given the chance. My first comment was specific; the second general.

Brando said...

"I don't see that quote in Althouse's link. If it's elsewhere, my apologies."

I was actually referring to the Murdouck quote from the 2012 campaign--in the course of his interview he used the "gift from God" line, which was unfortunate terminology (mainly because hey, how about avoid talking about rape when you're winning and can stick to the economy?). Anything sounding too silver lining, even enmeshed in a broader context, can look like you are overlooking the victim's situation.

"In fact, I don't see the extended quote as all that different from the reasonable quote you propose, and yet the headline writer paraphrased it negatively. I don't think acknowledging the victim's trauma will inoculate your hypothetical pro-lifer."

It's more in the focus on two things--the victim's trauma, and the innocence of life. Whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, you can see those as heavy concerns. But where it sounds as though you're like "hey, shiny penny!" about it, it can be just the quote that the other side will take out of context. Similarly, look how the Left used "now watch this drive" to make it look like Bush took terrorism lightly. That too was out of context (hell they asked him the question while he was golfing!) but it gave them ammo. It's all in the optics and the small tidbits.

"New headline: Hypothetical pro-lifer says regardless of the "trauma" of rape, victims should carry the fetus to term."

Sure, someone may try that--but then, when the full quote comes out it galvanizes even the middle roaders who like fair play. But there's less they can work with for that quote, that's the key.

Revenant said...

So what? A completely different set of people would exist. Nothing wrong with that. Might even be better. No way of knowing.

Given what twin studies have shown us about the heritability of personality traits, I suspect a world in which all rape-babies had been aborted would be a world in which violent crime was a lot less common and there were a lot fewer sociopaths running around.

That's not a "end justifies the means" argument. Just an observation that sociopathic behavior appears to be hereditary.

CWJ said...

New headline: Hypothetical pro-lifer says regardless of the "trauma" of rape, victims should carry the fetus to term."

"Sure, someone may try that--but then, when the full quote comes out" When? How? Followup question Mr Hypothetical Pro-lifer: "You acknowledge that rape is traumatic, but why should your personal belief that life begins at conseption override a woman's right to choose? Aren't you just needlessly adding to the victimn's trauma?

"it galvanizes even the middle roaders who like fair play." It's pretty that you think so. I don't associate the word galvanize with the middle.

"But there's less they can work with for that quote, that's the key." That's only because YOU find your argument convincing. To be fair, I also fall for this as well.

But we are clearly in the realm of differing opiunions at this point. So I'll shut up now.

CWJ said...

Sorry for all the misspellings and typos. I was working on my tablet which goes nearly dark when it runs low on charge.

jr565 said...

Revenant wrote:
That's not a "end justifies the means" argument. Just an observation that sociopathic behavior appears to be hereditary.

How many babies are actually born because of rapes? How many people commit crimes? Of those that commit crimes how many were born because of rapes?
IF sociopathy is hereditary it's hereditary despite the fact that the child was conceived through rapes. Since most people who commit crimes were not in fact born from rape.

Michael K said...

"Women are under no obligation to instantly go to the police in order to have their allegations taken seriously."

"I'm no closer than I ever was to understanding why it would ever take a woman 20 weeks to figure out she's been raped."

The first line is from a thread at Jezebel about the
"mattress girl" at Columbia.

Neither of us are any closer to understand young women of the rape culture.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

We can't say a child born from rape is beautiful; that would disrespect the Vagina, the Vagina that confers righteousness and wisdom on all who possess it.

Revenant said...

How many babies are actually born because of rapes How many people commit crimes? Of those that commit crimes how many were born because of rapes?

I'm not sure it is possible to dumb down a statement to the point where you'll understand it. But here's a try:

1. Some rapes result in pregnancy (especially back in the days before reliable birth control and abortion).

2. Therefore, rape allows men an extra chance to pass along their genes.

3. Most rapes -- real rapes, not SJW "I had drunk sex and regret it" rapes -- are committed by sociopaths.

4. Sociopathy is at least partly genetic.

5. Points 3 and 4, taken together, mean that rape allows sociopaths an extra chance to pass along their genes that is not afforded to most men.

6. Had all rape babies been aborted -- the thought experiment here -- sociopaths would have been denied that extra chance to pass along their genes for the last hundred thousand generations or so.

7. Less reproductive success by a gene times thousands of generations equals less representation of a gene in the gene pool.

8. Therefore, had all rape babies been aborted, sociopathy would be less represented in the gene pool than it is today.

Revenant said...

We can't say a child born from rape is beautiful; that would disrespect the Vagina, the Vagina that confers righteousness and wisdom on all who possess it.


You can say that all children are wonderful and beautiful gifts. You can say the sky is made of green cheese too, if you like. the reality is that not all children are wonderful. The reality is that some kids are worthless little shits pretty much from day one.

People are not blank slates. Most of what we are, we inherit from our parents. There is no reason to assume the child of a nice person and a vicious rapist is going to turn out to be a precious snowflake full of rainbows and bunnies. Sure, they might, but they might not. Picture being raped, then forced to raise a kid who takes after his dad. What a wonderful "gift from God" that would be.

"You shouldn't kill someone because of who his/her dad is" is a fine moral argument. "The baby is a gift" is full-on retarded. Pro-lifers need to stop saying it.

jr565 said...

Revenant wrote
:How many babies are actually born because of rapes How many people commit crimes? Of those that commit crimes how many were born because of rapes?

I'm not sure it is possible to dumb down a statement to the point where you'll understand it. But here's a try:

1. Some rapes result in pregnancy (especially back in the days before reliable birth control and abortion).

2. Therefore, rape allows men an extra chance to pass along their genes.

3. Most rapes -- real rapes, not SJW "I had drunk sex and regret it" rapes -- are committed by sociopaths.

4. Sociopathy is at least partly genetic.

5. Points 3 and 4, taken together, mean that rape allows sociopaths an extra chance to pass along their genes that is not afforded to most men.

6. Had all rape babies been aborted -- the thought experiment here -- sociopaths would have been denied that extra chance to pass along their genes for the last hundred thousand generations or so.

7. Less reproductive success by a gene times thousands of generations equals less representation of a gene in the gene pool.

8. Therefore, had all rape babies been aborted, sociopathy would be less represented in the gene pool than it is today.

except, the number of pregnancies conceived through rapes is very small, especially when compared to pregancies not conceived by rapes. Assuming then thst most pregnancies are not in fact thr product of rape, thst would mean most sociopaths are not the product of rape.explain why they are sociopaths. It would suggest there are other things in play than whether your dad raped your mom.

jr565 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jr565 said...

And so if you aborted fetuses conceived through rapes you'd barely be cutting into the list of sociopaths. And if we're going to go that way, why not sterilize rapists instead of aborting fetuses. After all, a rapist should be the one that pays for a rape, not his progeny.

Anonymous said...

OK, now I'm closer to understanding why anyone would want a rape exception. I'd agree that the rape should have been reported to the police for the exception to apply, or it ends up swallowing the rule.

Daniel said...

"all descended from rapist" somewhere along the line.
Damned if he ain't got me there!

Jason said...

Kurcaba shouldn't have apologized for shit.

He should have said "I said it, and I meant it," and went on the attack.

Starting with the lying liar who wrote the headline for the article.

Proceeding next to the muddleheaded mush who write things like "this might be precisely the person you would want to protect from having to go through with a pregnancy."

Gaslight said...

If one in five women are raped, and with reliable abortion and birth control only becoming available within the past hundred years or so, then it's basically a statistical certainty each one of us has a rape in our genetic line.

Or maybe it's only in modern America 20% of women are supposedly getting raped... Progressives are so schizophrenic in their moral judgments about the people of past eras. (History is a one-way street of progress where humanity inexorably advances and this means all prior generations were at best fools and at worst evil. Also, all people used to live in perfect harmony with themselves and with nature until white male Christian capitalists screwed everything up, and barbaric acts are excusable on the basis of cultural tradition.)

Pettifogger said...

Gahrie said most men easily control emotions and make rational decisions.

Oh, come on.

Michael S. Kochin said...

To quote Liam Neeson in Rob Roy, "It is not the baby who deserves to die."

UrbanBard said...

There many cultures in this world at different levels of civility. In some of them, every sexual engagement is rape, because a woman is considered the property of a man.

Child marriage is a typical example. A forty year old man marries a 6 year old child. Then, he exercises his marriage rights and this kills the girl from internal damage. The man simply does not care about much pain he has inflicted on her.

Western, Christian culture considers that behavior heinous. A Leftist would claim that all cultures have value, but I judge each on its results.

Synova said...

20 weeks is long enough to figure out if you've been raped or not, if you became pregnant or not, and if you need an abortion or not.

If one were listing reasonable exceptions to a post 20 week abortion ban, rape wouldn't make the cut.

wildswan said...

It's a known fact that most people don't oppose abortion in the case of rape. Consequently supporters of abortion frame the issue that way when they ask questions.

Other question that will be asked someday:
how many abortions were there? 54 million How many were consequent on rape? 1%
What about the black genocide resulting from abortion?
How many black children were aborted? 13 million. In NYC in 2012 there were more black babies aborted (31,328) than were born (24,758). Black children are now 36% of those being aborted while blacks are 12% of the population. The black birthrate has fallen below replacement level. Black lives matter and this destruction is wrong.

There's nothing prolifers can do about the determination of the press to ignore black genocide and talk about rape instead because the press is a bunch of lying, posturing Brian Williams.

wildswan said...

One thing I used to ask was: should the man who commits the rape suffer capital punishment? And liberals say "no,because capital punishment harms society by brutalizing it." OK so then why does child suffer capital punishment? Might not that brutalize society also?

But it's like slavery. When slavery was going on you just could not get its supporters to acknowledge the humanity of the slaves because that tore up too many associated social and economic positions. The abolitionists were as detested as prolifers are now. And for the same thing - standing up for human rights for human beings

cubanbob said...

@Revenant you do realize that most criminals are sociopathic. Perhaps we should routinely execute all criminals to thin out sociopaths out of the present and future population. We would also need very stringent immigration controls.

Perhaps we should go back to the past before the courts mucked it up: and execute the father and spare the child. Split the baby so to speak.

@SOJO, really? You would be fine with your mom aborting you if she was raped? Is there any other reason you would be fine with for your mother to have chosen to abort you? Are there any reasons you would be against her aborting you?

openidname said... since so much of human development is resulting from war the answer is no as in we would not be here as we are or as in any form.

TomHynes said...

When is rape relevant in whether abortion is right?

We all agree that killing a child is wrong, and that removing a clump of cells is the mother's right. We disgree on the line. If it is a child, it doesn't matter if the father was a rapist, you can't kill the child. If it is a clump of cells, it also doesn't matter.

Can you define a middle ground "In this case, we can kill it IFF the father was a rapist".

WhatWasLost said...

Again with the abortion business?

When will conservatives understand that the women having their womb roto-rooted aren't conservatives?

Conservatives are spending their political capitol to protect the unborn offspring of our mortal enemies.

Imagine for a moment that we as a nation were at war with a country called Badlandia. Not just a war based on who was in charge of that nation's government at the moment and the temporary policies they were pursuing, but an existential war. One in which one nation or the other was going to utterly annihilate its rival, or die trying.

Now imagine that we are told that women in Badlandia are murdering their children in large numbers.

What would be the most logical reaction? Would we want to protect our future enemies from being murdered? Or would we instead laugh at the foolishness of our enemy, knowing that sooner or later we would have had to face those murdered children on the field of battle, but now won't?

This isn't just a hypothetical, it is in fact the reality of political warfare in America today.

Every conservative couple who has a child and raises that child properly literally creates the future of conservatism. Every irresponsible leftist who destroys her child in the womb destroys the future of her tribe.

Instead of trying to manipulate laws in order to protect our mortal enemies, how about we address abortion as a social issue, through social means? Discourage it in the strongest possible terms. Create and support organizations that promote alternatives to abortion and provide women with resources. Stop using abortion as a political football.

The only thing politicizing abortion does is give ammunition to the left.

Moneyrunner said...

@ Lee Reynolds, good points. I'm in favor of having Liberals wipe themselves out, or produce offspring who marry their same-sex partners. The children who are aborted are the unfortunate collateral damage. Who wants Columbia's Mattress Girl to reproduce?

Brando said...

Lee Reynolds raises an interesting point--one would think that if America expanded access to abortions (or even subsidized them) we might see a generation later a solid pro-life domination of this country.

The thing is, though, there's a lot of political differences between generations, as well as people whose political views change over time. Who's to say that the women having abortions today aren't aborting future pro-lifers, or that women choosing not to abort today are going to end up raising pro-choicers?

Brando said...

The fact that many pro-lifers favor an exception for rape demonstrates that the pro-life/pro-choice divide isn't a simple, stark divide. Within those camps are those who:

1) Think abortion is just fine, as it takes no human life, and in fact should be encouraged to prevent unwanted children from being (later) formed.
2) Think abortion isn't great, but it's murder either, and should be neither encouraged nor discouraged by society or government.
3) Think abortion is bad, but not murder (some gray area of "life, but not fully formed life") and should not be illegal though should be discouraged or restricted in some ways.
4) Think abortion is bad, not murder, but close enough to it that it should be illegal in most circumstances except extreme cases (health of the mother, trauma of giving birth after being raped).
5) Think abortion is murder, and should only be legal if necessary to save the mother's life, or if the child could not survive the birth.

The sliding scale explains why anyone would favor a rape exception, or illegalizing late term abortions or abortions for the "wrong" reasons (sex selective abortions, etc.). It also explains why each side points to polls that, depending on how the questions were asked, could suggest that America has a pro-life and pro-choice majority at the same time.

And this is why it is important to argue not just to your choir but to those in the "middle" if you want to win majority support for what you want to do.

Anonymous said...

Some might find the premise "people who (potentially) disagree with me should get the death penalty" a bit excessive.

Steverino said...

I suspect that rape was the original method of human mating, a method which still has social artifacts in modern marriage. Early humans practiced marriage by capture, kidnapping their brides from other villages. Carrying your bride over the thresh hold is a relic of that. So is the habit of having a best man, ie your best buddy who acts as lookout during the kidnapping.

Marriage by capture is still practiced in some places in western Asia.

Bruce Hayden said...

Is it really ethical to kill a kid who, given a few more weeks on the inside, will be born and adoptable?

This is where I, and I think a lot of the American public, draw the line. I may not like abortions, but accept that early in the pregnancy that the woman's wishes are paramount. Esp. since some half of all pregnancies spontaneously abort anyway, mostly in the first trimester (i.e. miscarriages). But, after about half way, the fetus is now viable, given modern American medical technology, and is a couple minutes away from babyhood (and full legal rights) via an emergency C-section.

Bruce Hayden said...

So, why do we have rape in the first place? Obviously, it furthers the male sexual strategy for sowing the most oats. But, I think another part of this may be that historically children of rape often had superior genetics. The conquerors were stronger, faster, smarter, etc., and were able to defeat the mates, father, brothers, etc. of the women raped as a result. And, to some extent, that extended to regular society, where rape somewhat indicated an inability to protect female relatives or mates. The problem today is that we no longer live in tight kin groups and so rape no longer has those Darwinian properties.

Jason said...

The 'best man' is a relic from a rapists' lookout?

You're really stretching with that one, dude.

Ann Althouse said...

"So, why do we have rape in the first place? Obviously, it furthers the male sexual strategy for sowing the most oats."

You should take that back to an earlier point in time. What you call "the male sexual strategy" is simply the behavior of males that turned out to be successful in creating offspring. There were other males, with other patterns of behavior, but they were less successful in spreading their genes.

It's not really a strategy. It's a propensity that produces offspring and is therefore passed on.

By the same token, a woman's propensity to care for a child, to refrain from abortion, works along with the rapist's propensity to create offspring who live to pass on their genes.

What I'm saying is that these genes are, necessarily, in all of us.

What should we do about that? I recommend using what little brains we have, after all that marauding, to discern virtue and to behave ethically.

Jason said...

Let's take a closer look at that history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZyMc29QQK8

Celebrim said...

There is a good scene in the movie Rob Roy.

Rob's wife, who has been raped, is unsure whether the father is her husband or her rapist, but the odds are on the rapist. She's been concealing this from her husband because she knows she was only raped to get him killed. Finally, she's forced to confess, and she's ashamed and she tells him, "I tried to kill it."

And he says, "It's not a baby that needs killing."

Jason said...

Chances are very good that many of the redheads now in Ireland are descended from Irish women raped by Viking raiders.

Naturally, libtards who believe this guy was in the wrong, that the children conceived under duress are a lick less worthy than any other for any reason, MUST believe that the rapists stigma is visited upon the red-haired population of Ireland and possibly much of England and Scotland. The cailin rua.

This is the inevitable result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUhLIjlTNSk