Since winning the Republican nomination in the Nevada Senate race Sharron Angle has drawn attention and controversy for a host of conservative policy prescriptions that seem well outside the political mainstream. Now, a Democratic source has passed along a radio interview she did back in January 2010 that could end up topping the list.TPM has a transcript:
In an segment that has gone unnoticed since it first aired, the Tea Party-backed candidate told the Bill Manders show -- a favorable platform for Republican candidates -- that she opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest. A pregnancy under those circumstances, she said, was "God's plan."
Manders: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?Let's imagine a pair of human beings; John and Joan. John's a pig and so he rapes Joan. One of Joan's eggs just happens to be in the right place and John's sperm are numerous and active and easily find it. You know what happens next. Joan becomes pregnant. But she's 14 and John is her step-father.
Angle: Not in my book.
Manders: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?
Angle: You know, I'm a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.
According to Sharron Angle, it's God's Plan for Joan to give birth.
But if her pregnancy is part of The Plan, then isn't The Rape? The Incest? The Child Abuse?
Or is He just interceding in John and Joan's bareback dance to make the best of a bad situation? But if He can do that, why didn't He do something about The Rape?
I know I am just an agnostic but can someone explain this to me?
It's Teh Crazie, tea party style.
I saw this at Think Progress right before I left for work and was going to blog on it when I got back because I had the same questions as you. But, I'll be charitable until someone explains it to me and assume that her god only finds out about the rape/incest after it happens and then makes a plan because a god who had rape/incest as part of his plan would be a sociopath.
ReplyDeleteI love this response from a commenter at Shakesville:
ReplyDelete"What's funny is how little faith people like Angle seem to have in God's omnipotence. Pretty wimpy god, don't you think, if his entire plan for the universe can be thwarted by a single doctor."
And I wonder about John. IF the rape is a part of God's Plan then should John even be prosecuted?
ReplyDeleteI mean, John's just playing a part of His grand design, isn't he?
Here are my two cents:
ReplyDeleteAnyone who says they oppose abortion "except in cases of rape or incest" is undermining their original position.
Why? Because the basic argument against abortion itself is that it kills a child.
You can't say THAT, and then qualify it with.....well, okay, sometimes abortion is okay.
Because if the underlying principle is that abortion kills a child, and killing a child is wrong, then there would never be times when it is okay to kill children.
My argument with this is that it is inconsistent and patriarchal: No, women cannot determine when it is appropriate to kill a child. Only I can determine when it is appropriate to kill a child.
Why do people feel they have the right to decide under which circumstances it is acceptable to have an abortion? Moreover, why do MEN feel they have that right?
I am staunchly pro-choice. Abortion makes me sad, but whatever. It isn't my decision to make. It is up to each individual woman to decide whether the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy warrant abortion.
Anyone who says "except in cases of rape or incest" is basically telling me that it is sometimes okay to kill children, but only when THEY say it's okay.
Please, please daddy, can I have one?
BQ,
ReplyDeleteOf course it's inconsistent! :-)
But anti choicers used to throw the rape/incest bone cause they wanted not to sound like meanies and they wanted more folks to come to their side.
What's especially frightening now is that not only are they trying to one up each other by no exception for rape/incest, they don't even want exceptions for LIFE of the woman.
Of course Dems have allowed them to chip away at Roe V. Wade so much that for big swaths of the country, abortion is de facto illegal.
The thing is, we (the vast public) like to be able to split the difference. I believe in polls a (relatively slim) majority of the public still supports abortion, and that majority gets larger if (in polls) you say abortion when it is necessary to save the life of the mother or in cases of incest. We (the vast public) is not sure what really constitutes murder, in part because we care about motive and intention. It's not murder if a soldier kills another soldier. It is probably not murder if a soldier kills an enemy civilian, particularly if the soldier does it accidentally or feels his life might be in danger. Self defense is not murder, assuming the killed also had a gun or you kill them accidentally, etc etc. There is literally a moral algorithm, and everybody's algorithm is slightly different. Or as Jeff Goldblum put it, rationalizations are more important than sex, after all, you can go a day without sex.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting about Sharron Angle is that she is trying to be consistent about this rule, as she understands what "consistent" is. A better question for her is whether Muslims or Hindu are going to hell, or for that matter whether they should be prohibited from having abortions since they are already breaking God's laws by worshiping a false god (in other words, non-Christians don't understand what morality is, breaking the big commandment).
BQ, I agree that it's inconsistent, but I come to a different conclusion. If a pre-natal child is a person, forbidding abortion is a logical extension of current homicide laws.
ReplyDeleteBTW, religion need not be invoked to come to this conclusion.