For Rick Santorum, a Pregnancy That Is the Result of Rape Is a ‘Broken Gift’

Some gift, Ricky.  You shouldn’t have.  No, you really SHOULDN’T have.

GOP: Small government so it can fit inside a woman’s uterus.

This is so absolutely disgusting, I can’t even find words……

Look what he’s called his new fundraising campaign:

Rick Santorum’s CUM

😀

 Santorum: It’s not a matter of religious values…

 Santorum:but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. 

So… it IS about your religious values. Geez, own up to it already.
And researching the facts, Rich? Life begins at conception… technically, yes it does… sort of, in the very broadest sense. But “life” =/= personhood.
Maybe you should do some research with actual scientists, not just positions that’ll back up  your already established religious views. Just a thought.

It’s not a matter of religious values…It’s just a matter of accepting God’s gift.This is like a Christian saying Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a personal relationship with Jesus.

He is just a disgusting little turd. There is no polite or courteous way to describe this despicable “man”. Santorum, F-U-C-K  Y-O-U-R-S-E-L-F you repugnant piece of shit.

I think it’s time to put the old, tired chestnut to rest that women who have abortions suffer some sort of emotional trauma as a result. Yes, some women do come to deeply regret making that choice, but the vast majority of them are just deeply relieved that the option was available to them. No woman wants an abortion, but most women who have them are not as conflicted about it as religious conservatives would have you believe.

And if Santorum is saying that women should “accept what God has given you,” in the form of an unwanted pregnancy as the result of rape, then he IS basing his anti-choice stance on his religion, and he would enact and vote on any abortion legislation based on his religion. Anti-choicers have always been careful to claim that their opinion on the matter isn’t related to their religious beliefs because they know that the separation of church and state (or federal government) would prohibit legislation based on their religious dogma. Well, lying is a sin too Ricky, and your god won’t like the fact that you won’t just own up to working in his name. He can’t smite you soon enough for me.

How does this put pro-choicers at odds with science? I wasn’t aware that there’s any definitive scientific answer to the question of when an embryo becomes human, which is really a philosophical question.

In fact, I remember that Carl Sagan once proposed a cutoff for abortions at five months, when the fetus starts to demonstrate distinctly human brainwave patterns, arguing that this is when the fetus becomes a human being as opposed to a mass of tissue.

 Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum continues to be a despicable, disgusting person.

What does atheism have to do with abortion? Can you scientifically prove when an embryo/fetus/infant/toddler should receive full rights under the law? Of course not. It’s always going to be a matter of opinion. 

I’m an atheist, but I am annoyed to no end by secular people claiming that being pro-life is simply a religious thing. I even think women should be allowed to have abortions in the first trimester. 

Try to imagine what it’s like if you believe that a person becomes a “person” at conception. Then abortion, regardless of rape or incest, is murder. Those who claim that life begins at conception but that abortion is okay in the case of rape or incest are the ones being morally inconsistent.

Anyway, this is one of the reasons I only occasionally check this blog. Mr. Mehta seems to often confuse his atheism with his statist and prochoice agendas.

First of all, I wrote this post, not Hemant (check the bylines- he has a lot of contributors these days). Second of all, everything Santorum in the portions I quoted wreaked of God-bothering.

The reason that he wants to ban even the first trimester abortions you support, even in cases of rape, is that he believes that a personal God, responsible for all the lives created in this world, must also cause conceptions that are the result of rape. And God can never be wrong, and every life is a gift, so a woman who gets an abortion is turning down a gift. This is, as you put it, “morally consistent.” 

If you have a secular view on abortion, then of course you’re free to share it. It may be different from mine or Hemant’s, but it will also be different from Santorum’s. His view on abortion come from his belief in God- a Biblically justifiable, Judeo-Christian version of God. Repudiating such an opinion has EVERYTHING to do with atheism. 

“I wasn’t aware that there’s any definitive scientific answer to the
question of when an embryo becomes human, which is really a
philosophical question.”

Check with just about any human embryology textbook. They state that the development of a new human organism begins at conception.

I realize there’s a vernacular use of “human” which can be used like “He’s so horrible, he’s not even human!” But, biologically, he would still be a human. Likewise, human embryos are still biologically humans, whatever our policy toward them might be.

Pro-lifers are very much correct in pointing out a conflict when some folks advocate human rights as intrinsic to all humans…but then deny human rights to humans in an early stage of development. This incoherent position is not the only option for pro-choicers.

If a gift is broken, dont you usually return it or throw it away? Abortion is not murder. I think its actually the opposite; saving one from whatever the mother feels is a threat from having a quality life. Its her decision. Why is abortion a political issue?
Theres so much horror, hate, abuse, autism, downs syndrome, psychosis, and on and on, not to mention parents are clueless on how to take care of kids and end up screwing them up anyway..Who would want children nowadays anyway?
Dont get me wrong, I do not condone abortion as birth control. But in the event pregnancy happens from whatever circumstances, I dont think an unwanted child stands a chance for proper development.
The only reason these brainwashed deluded bible thumpers think abortion is murder stems from the religious belief that people need to create as many souls as possible to give to jesus’ army for the rapture before the final battle against the devil. Are you kidding me? So beyond ridiculous. Religion is the root of all ignorance. It creates evil.

In Medicine class they teach you that there isn’t a single answer as to when life begins and certainly not all books say that it’s at conception (perhaps metaphorically some can point that at the moment it passes from n to 2n you can say it has the potentially for being a complete human being). I’m the kind of person that believes you can only be considered a human being at birth, Neurologists tend to consider when the fetus starts having brain function, … In science, as far as I’ve been taught there’s not a fixed moment on ehich life starts.

I think it would have been better to ask “what would you do if your wife was raped?” Because that saddles him with the responsibility of raising the child of a rapist just as he’d expect a woman to.

that said, I am in the akward position of being a pro life atheist liberal T.T its hard disagreeing with the crazy God people and also holding an unpopular position with the people I usually agree with 🙁

“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. ”

Ricky appears to have impressive control over his gag reflex, I find it hard to believe anyone could use the words rape, gift, and god in the same sentence without choking on the impossibly large turd coming out of their own mouth.

Yeah, that moment where he said it wasn’t about religious values was such total BS, and I love how he made that crystal clear in his own response later. What a liar. But as to life beginning at conception, I don’t think we can draw such a clear line. As Larry points out, the sperm is already alive. More to the point, I think, the egg is already alive. A more reasonable question might be when some living subset of cells within a woman’s body becomes something other than a part of her body. But even that doesn’t work. We can talk instead about viability, but again, there’s no hard line, it’s all a continuum. It makes the most sense, to me, instead of setting a number of cells of a certain type beyond which life or personhood exists, or a particular set of functional organs, to let women and their doctors make the decision about what’s right as long as it’s living in the woman’s body, supported by her digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and excretory systems.

First, I was well aware that he did not write the post; I was commenting on the content of this blog in general.

If there ever comes a time when this blog criticizes a Democrat for using Jesus’s message of helping the poor as a justification for some social program, then I’ll believe it isn’t promoting a separate agenda from atheism. But seriously, you can’t see how selective you’re being when you go after the abortion issue but leave that kind of thing alone? Democrats talk about God all the time too, they just use him to justify different policies, ones that Mr. Mehta generally supports.

So much for Ricky’s mom making the right decision in choosing to give birth to this abomination. The best part of Ricky ran down his momma’s leg.

This is such shitty rhetoric.  You know what?  If Santorum, or anyone else, wants to “counsel” rape victims to not have abortions, that’s great.  Go nuts.  That’s not what the pro-choice/pro-life debate is about.  The question is whether all rape victims should be legally forced to carry all pregnancies to term, and asking Santorum about his feelings rather than what he wants the law to be is a disgustingly softball question. 

If someone else wrote the kind of article you describe, I would be likely to comment on it in the manner I recommended you comment on a liberal atheist’s writing: I would explain from a secular perspective why programs that help the poor are a good idea, perhaps using data taken from the social sciences. I would not tell the author or the publisher of the blog that their atheism has nothing to do with their libertarian or conservative opinion. 

I don’t see myself writing getting in the habit of writing “this person I otherwise agree with said something about Jesus” pieces, because I’m more interested in those whose religion has really poisoned their way of thinking. A few months before Hemant invited me to contribute here, I did write a critical piece which hardly anyone read about Chris Hedges and Jeremiah Wright on my own blog.  
http://zyxek.blogspot.com/2011/09/chris-hedges-and-rev-wright-were-made.html

There is no neat separation between political views and atheism. That’s true of liberals, conservatives, moderates, and libertarians.  

Dont get me wrong, I do not condone abortion as birth control.

And you are being just as paternalistic and wrong as the bible thumpers. Abortion is birth control. And it’s none of your or anyone else’s business what motivation or reasons a person has for their own medical decisions.

Thanks for the laugh 🙂

How can I conflate humans and persons, without mentioning persons?

And if human rights are for persons rather than humans, why not call them personal rights?

Some of them are consistent in opposing in-vitro fertilization on just those grounds. Others, not so much.

If you want to get some atheist perspectives from a more Libertarian/Conservative (at least fiscally) source, I’d suggest The Thinking Atheist. Seth (aka The Thinking Atheist) doesn’t hide that he’s basically a gun-owning, fiscally conservative Libertarian (although still a bit more liberal on social issues) with no high regard for President Obama.

Why are you choosing to draw the line at the point in which the person is living within the woman’s body. It seems that you are interjecting your opinion as to when the woman and her doctor can make that decision.

You said it is all a continuum but this “continuum” has a beginning. There is a distinct difference in personhood between the mother’s egg, the father’s sperm and the person within the mother. The moment that this distinction is created is the moment that this “continuum” begins and the moment a separate human life begins.

Perhaps you are over-analyzing. By gift from God he likely does not mean that God has actually implanted a gift in her uterus at some point after being raped. I believe he is likely referring to the fact that all life can be seen as a gift because all life is precious even if it came from a violent act.
Maybe you are not giving him enough credit. It seems that this is a small part of a complex belief system and he is left to give you a snap shot of part of that system.

“How many angels can dance on the head of a spermatozoa?”
Just one, doing the gavotte; the rest don’t dance.  

(What?  It’s just as accurate as any other possible reference on angels!)

This typical use of the phrase “all life is precious” is sanctimonious hypocrisy. Or maybe you’re claiming that Santorum is a staunch antiwar activist, an opponent of the death penalty, an unwavering advocate for the homeless, a campaigner for the preservation of endangered species, and a strict fruitarian?

Complex belief system? Give me a break. He’s trying to channel the pope and pander to clueless religionists who don’t have the time to think outside their indoctrination.

I’m interested in specifics. What is he really saying?

But there are possible side effects. I have read studies of spinal headache lasting 2-3 days, loss of sensation, spinal cysts, PPD, permanent back pain and even death. So………what now?

Try looking at an ultrasound and THEN proceeding with the abortion. Do you have a cited reference to show what % of women suffer from depression afterwards?

@mommaj
I’ve never heard anyone from my church say that about a person. And yet supposedly we are both supposed to equal in moral or even less moral according to some on this board. Yikes! 
Well you could just have a look at what al of your lovely Christian brethren post regularly to people like Ms Watson, PZ, Richard Dawkins – or that brave young woman, Ms Alquist, recently.  It is an awful lot more serious that anthing posted here: many, many threats of rape and murder – by professing Christians.

So while they may not have sa it to you – they do say it al the time.

I don’t think anyone her would claim moral equality with Christians. More they woul challenge the often repeated lie that people of faith have better morals than those who don’t.  The opposite seems to be true in aggregate if we look at crime statistics.  But of course you can find some people of no-faith to feel smug about if you want to.

Doesn’t demonstrate much but a little insecurity on your part though: right?

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/09/3/gpr090308.html

The history of “post-abortion syndrome” is similar to the rise of the anti-vaxx movement–that is, perpetrated on frauds with vested interests.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/09/3/gpr090308.html

The history of “post-abortion syndrome” is similar to the rise of the anti-vaxx movement–that is, perpetrated on frauds with vested interests.

some evidence

The history of “post-abortion syndrome” is similar to the rise of the anti-vaxx movement–that is, perpetrated on frauds with vested interests.

I HATE Disqus!  Sooo much!

Hey, Hemant, any chance of deleting extra posts?

It’s pretty damn obvious he’s a sanctimonious hypocrite.  I’m pretty damn sure he’s not anti-war or anti-death penalty or anti-poor people dying of starvation or preventable health problems and, as an extension of that, not anti-children who are the product of forced birth starving or dying due having been forced to be born to a woman who can’t afford them (hello, Republican?  It’s their Holy Standard!).

I’ll be damned if some santorum-faced panderer is going to force me to carry a blob of cells to term against my will due to his magical beliefs that it has some mystical soul or his conviction that I will somehow “find the silver lining” or “make the best of it” or that I somehow have “some lesson to learn”.  How fucking generous people can be when they are imposing this on other people’s lives and bodies–“oh, I’m sure Jebus just has magical lessons for you to learn from this!”  Kind of like how my mom argued that we should stop trying to find cures for diseases because “God sends that pain to us so we can learn spiritual lessons”.  I told her she was a hypocrite to her face, because the moment she feels any pain she does whatever she needs to to fix it rather than suffer through it and find this purported spiritual truth, and if I had cancer she wouldn’t be vacillating about “spiritual lessons”–she’d want a damn cure!

Makes it even more nauseating when the ass in question is talking about a condition that will never actually affect him directly, and even if his daughter got preggers out of wedlock he’s rich!  It’s like Sarah Palin touting how her daughter kept her pregnancy, as if rich-white-girl situations are exactly the same as poor-black-girl (or poor girl in general) and that if her rich princess’s life wasn’t ruined then no one else’s would be either.

Scientifically – it is not life until there is a hearbeat and there is not a heartbeat until day 21… just saying

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