GOP Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock: Pregnancy After Rape Is God’s Will

October 23, 2012

Comments

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Indiana’s version of Todd Akin:

NEW ALBANY, Ind. (AP) – Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Tuesday when a woman is impregnated during a rape, “it’s something God intended.”

Mourdock, who’s been locked in a tight race with Democratic challenger Rep. Joe Donnelly, was asked during the final minutes of a debate whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.

“I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happened,” Mourdock said.

(…)

Indiana Republican Party spokesman Pete Seat referred comment to the Mourdock campaign. A spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a spokeswoman for Romney did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday night.

National Democrats quickly picked up on Mourdock’s statement and used it as an opportunity to paint him as an extreme candidate, calling him a tea party “zealot.”

Mourdock further explained after the debate he did not believe God intended the rape, but that God is the only one who can create life.

“Are you trying to suggest somehow that God preordained rape, no I don’t think that,” Mourdock said. “Anyone who would suggest that is just sick and twisted. No, that’s not even close to what I said.”

In response, Donnelly said after the debate in southern Indiana that he doesn’t believe “my God, or any God, would intend that to happen.”

Seriously, is there something in the water out there in the Midwest?

33 responses to “GOP Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock: Pregnancy After Rape Is God’s Will”

Anon

October 23, 2012 at 10:22 pm

But isn’t this just another way of saying that God is omnipotent, and that everything happens according to his plan. I think a lot of people believe that.
swbarnes2

October 23, 2012 at 10:37 pm

Sure, highly amusing. Women’s lives are ruined by these Republican policies, but what really matters is that it’s a golden opportunity for you to post that cute picture of Captain Picard with his head in his hand. Do you giggle over the hilarity to come when you support this thinking, and the policies that spring from it, by voting for people in this party?

Seriously, is there something in the water out there in the Midwest?

Seriously, no. But there is something wrong with Republicans and the people who support their policies with their votes.
Pablo

October 23, 2012 at 10:40 pm

@Anon:

“a lot of people” representing all of the tea party and others clinging to their guns and religion.
al-Ameda

October 23, 2012 at 10:45 pm

Here’s the deal: vote for Romney and you’re voting for everything that comes with him – the Republican Party and nutcase guys like Murdock, Akin, Jan Brewer, Allen West, Joe Arpaio and on and on and on.

People who say that both parties are the same are willfully ignoring the fact that about half the GOP base believes as Murdock and Akin do. The Democratic Party has no real equivalent to these people on their side of the aisle.
KansasMom

October 23, 2012 at 10:49 pm

Are you sure you want to put the Republican party’s platform regarding women’s rights solely on the midwest Doug? Yeah, we’ve got our wackos, but so do you and I seem to recall you voting for a governor who had no problem with state mandated ultrasound wands being forced up a woman without her consent. Mourdock, Akin, Walsh and Paul freaking Ryan are all cut from the same cloth, the Republican party cloth. Save your sanctimony, it’s condescending and quite frankly pathetic.
David M

October 23, 2012 at 10:49 pm

Hmmm, Akin, Mourdock and Smith. I’ve probably even missed one, and there will probably be another before the election. At some point these are no longer fringe beliefs.
swbarnes2

October 23, 2012 at 11:10 pm

@al-Ameda:

Here’s the deal: vote for Romney and you’re voting for everything that comes with him – the Republican Party and nutcase guys like Murdock, Akin, Jan Brewer, Allen West, Joe Arpaio and on and on and on.

Yes, but you know Doug’s counterargument here…he’s not going to vote for Romney.

(He’s just going to vote for every other Republican running for office)
KansasMom

October 23, 2012 at 11:29 pm

@swbarnes2: Exactly. He’ll vote for Allen, who will vote for McConnell as leader and the entire Republican agenda, including sub-committee appointments that could place loons like Akin or Mourdock in charge of health issues. These guys aren’t fit to serve on any committee that touches science, math or logic in any way. If you so much as vote for a Republican for city council you are enabling this shit. Own it, live with it, love it or STFU about it.
ernieyeball

October 23, 2012 at 11:44 pm

…but that God is the only one who can create life.

No, Mr. REPUBLICAN Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock, human beings create life when they have sexual intercourse. There is nothing supernatural about it. There is no Divine Intervention involved.

Indiana Republican Party spokesman Pete Seat referred comment to the Mourdock campaign. A spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a spokeswoman for Romney did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday night.

It is apparent that Mr. Seat and the Spin Doctors for the National REPUBLICAN Senatorial Committee and the Romney Campaign are too spineless to even take a stand let alone condemn Mourdock’s position.
A few posts back, someone, I believe it was Timmy, chastized me for “trying too hard to use Google, of all things, to paint Republicans with a broad brush.”
Well this time it is not Google. It is the ignorant, inane and dangerous words of a REPUBLICAN candidate who calls upon the Will of God to justify public policy enabling his political party to control the lives of American women and girls.
Are you out there Timmy?
I want to hear you justify this craven lust for power.
Jr

October 23, 2012 at 11:46 pm

Some how this doesn’t surprise me anymore.
Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker

October 24, 2012 at 1:48 am

If I were God, I think that I’d be pretty tired of those who claim to be “my servants” defaming me by now. As a Christian who is sick and tired of it, too, allow me to make the following comment:

I DO NOT (!!!) believe that men (or women) such as Mourdock, Aiken, Smith, and their ilk should be taken as speaking for God or Christianity. Their beliefs are an affront to religious thought, are not well thought out, ill spoken, theologically ill-founded, and unbiblical in that their statements are usually based on some single notion in the Bible–frequently taken out of context. They can call themselves Christian if they want to–such is the nature of free speech in America–but I refuse to call them by that identity and remain offended and truly embarrassed that I should be counted among their ilk. I am genuinely sorry that such people are allowed in my religion and would stop the practice if I could.
legion

October 24, 2012 at 3:42 am

@Anon: If that were the case – and I’d pay good money if someone would ask this of Mourdock to his face – should the rapist be prosecuted? If everything that happens is just a part of “God’s Plan”, then how exactly does he define concepts like Good and Evil at all? To be in any way consistent, Mourdock and his ilk must also believe there is no such thing as Free Will.

Of course, that assumes he’s thought that deeply about his own beliefs, and I’m comfortable taking the position that he hasn’t. He’s just another shallow, thoughtless, self-centered twit: pain that happens to someone else is God’s Will. Pain that happens to me must be the work of Satan. Bah.
superdestroyer

October 24, 2012 at 5:03 am

@al-Ameda:

What would you call the Democrats who support race-based reparations? What would you call the Democrats who call for open borders and unlimited immigration? What would you call the Democrats who call for the nationalization of energy, health care, transportation, or any other facet of the economy? What would you call the Democrats who want school discipline to be based on a quot system?

There are many crazies inside the Democratic Party. It is just that does not matter.
swearyanthony

October 24, 2012 at 5:49 am

@superdestroyer: really? Name some senate candidates running who have expressed these beliefs?
Neil Hudelson

October 24, 2012 at 6:18 am

Almost every poll that has come out in the IN-Sen race have had the two candidates in a dead heat. How can a little know democratic representative in a solidly red state be doing so well against a well know republican senator? Simple. Indiana voters are actually fairly moderate. Until recently the indiana Republican Party was as well.

Donnelly has run as a moderate democrat. Mount dock has done everything possible to show that he is a true believer with te extreme right. What should have been a race in the bag for him has become a truly tough slog.

I think if the state dem party is at all decent at their jobs (and that’s a big if), then ensuring this quote is well publicized will win the election for Donnelly.
Anon

October 24, 2012 at 6:50 am

@legion: Not being Christian myself, I don’t know how inconsistencies are resolved (or not). I suppose he would say that the prosecution is God’s plan too. In that case, the appropriate response would probably be that so is an abortion.

I also don’t know how a Christian that believes everything happens according to God’s plan resolves that with the issue of free will and salvation. Of course, such a question likely never occurs to the Mourdock crowd, but there are intellectual religious thinkers who I’d guess have considered this question before.
God

October 24, 2012 at 7:42 am

Mr. Mourdock does NOT speak for me…

… and Akin? He’s a moron.

That is all.
superdestroyer

October 24, 2012 at 7:43 am

@swearyanthony:

Most of the Congressional black caucus supports race-based reparations. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr40
The entire Congressional Hispanic caucus supports open borders and unlimited immigration. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR04321:@@@P
Here is the list of Medicare for all http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:H.R.676:@@@P (a version of nationalized healthcare that would cause health insurance companies
EddieInCA

October 24, 2012 at 7:44 am

@superdestroyer:

Ooooh. Ignore the crazy Republican. Look over there!! Shiny!

Squirrel!!!!
grumpy realist

October 24, 2012 at 7:51 am

…and you want to know why we need to keep abortions legal? Because of bozos like this one.

I guess, by his logic, cancer is God’s Will as well. So is plague.
Kylopod

October 24, 2012 at 8:06 am

Not being Christian myself, I don’t know how inconsistencies are resolved (or not). I suppose he would say that the prosecution is God’s plan too.

Remember that he later “clarified” that he didn’t think the rape itself was part of God’s plan, only the pregnancy was. So apparently he’s leaving some room for free will.

The question I have is, what about disease? Is that part of God’s plan too? Then are we not entitled to visit doctors? I’m not a Christian either, so maybe he thinks disease is the work of the Devil or something. (Can someone help me out here?) He wasn’t simply making the theological point that things happen because God wills them, he was also suggesting we have no right to try to stop them.
bookdragon

October 24, 2012 at 8:15 am

In light of his ‘clarification’, what I’d like someone to ask him is how he explains God’s intentions wrt a pregnancy that threatens the mother’s life. I’m really surprised that he’s willing to allow abortion in that case, given that he seems to think that it’s God’s will that the woman is pregnant.
OzarkHillbilly

October 24, 2012 at 8:49 am

@superdestroyer:

What would you call the Democrats who support race-based reparations? What would you call the Democrats who call for open borders and unlimited immigration? What would you call the Democrats who call for the nationalization of energy, health care, transportation, or any other facet of the economy? What would you call the Democrats who want school discipline to be based on a quot system?

Can you name one? Please? If you do, I will know what to call them.
OzarkHillbilly

October 24, 2012 at 9:05 am

@grumpy realist:

I guess, by his logic, cancer is God’s Will as well. So is plague.

It is. So are holcausts, torturing babies, Down Syndrome, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hard winters, conjoined twins, Lou Gehrigs disease, childhood cancer, and Celine Dion.
OzarkHillbilly

October 24, 2012 at 9:09 am

@Kylopod:

The question I have is, what about disease? Is that part of God’s plan too?

For all of you who have questions for God, you can go straight to the Deity himself and just ask….
Argon

October 24, 2012 at 10:08 am

With omnipotent beings or omniscient beings that are ‘first causes’ one can’t have things that are in “God’s plan” and others that aren’t. There is no logical halfway about it.

“I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.
And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, “I’m sorry, but I never could read one of those things.”
Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God,” I said, “and, when God finds a minute, I’m sure he’ll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even YOU can understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
Franklin

October 24, 2012 at 10:10 am

God is the only one who can create life

I think it comes down to this sentence. Some people believe it; others don’t.

Pretending that Mourdock and Akin are “every Republican” is a little ridiculous, but the actual belief here is somewhat pervasive, even among Democratic voters.
legion

October 24, 2012 at 10:51 am

@Kylopod:

Remember that he later “clarified” that he didn’t think the rape itself was part of God’s plan, only the pregnancy was. So apparently he’s leaving some room for free will.

The problem is that that statement makes absolutely no sense – it’s completely irrational. If the _pregnancy_ is God’s plan, then so is the _method_. If the _ends_ are part of the Plan, then so are the _means_. You cannot build a sane belief system where those two things are separated like that. Even being able to say that belies the shallowness of his belief and the utter lack of thought behind it.
LCaution

October 24, 2012 at 11:25 am

OTOH, if the race is close – and I’m not following Indiana politics – either lots of its citizens support that position or identify so strongly as Republicans or hate paying taxes so much or simply assume rape is something that will never affect them that, like the bloggers here, it simply does not matter when it comes to voting.
Rafer Janders

October 24, 2012 at 11:29 am

@Anon:

But isn’t this just another way of saying that God is omnipotent, and that everything happens according to his plan. I think a lot of people believe that.

A lot of people believe that in the abstract. But then, when you confront them with a real world example of what this belief would actually logically lead to, they recoil.
JohnMcC

October 24, 2012 at 3:21 pm

42
gVOR08

October 24, 2012 at 3:52 pm

It is unremarkable that many Christians do believe that everything happens according to God’s plan, so it’s understandable that Mourdock would sincerely believe a rape was God’s will. And if his religious beliefs are going to drive policy, I’d much rather he run on them honestly rather than as a closet Dominionist. And hopefully the voters of IN will reject him. What’s inexcuseable is his immediate retraction once he realized there might be negative political consequences for him.

“Are you trying to suggest somehow that God preordained rape, no I don’t think that,” Mourdock said. “Anyone who would suggest that is just sick and twisted. No, that’s not even close to what I said.”

(Sounds pretty close to what he said to me, but at least we agree on the sick and twisted part.)

The thing I’ve never understood is how they can be so sure the rape and pregnancy were part of God’s plan, but not accept that maybe the abortion was too.
ptfe

October 24, 2012 at 7:41 pm

@legion: One of my friends had the money quote on this one:

“Let me see if I understand how this is supposed to work then: some sin-powered force (maybe Satan, maybe not, but definitely not God, because that would be sick), caused a rape to occur, but then during the rape God stepped in and said, ‘You know what would make this rape better? A baby.’”