Category Archives: abortion

Rape Theology

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The Missouri Senate went after the legislature’s favorite annual punching bag the other day—Planned Parenthood.  It argued about a bill that would keep the organization from collecting Medicaid reimbursements for dispensing family planning and other women’s health services including cancer screenings.

Planned Parenthood hasn’t provided abortions for a couple of years in Missouri.  But that’s not enough for the PP-haters who don’t want the folks working for the organization to even say the word. And suggesting someone who has thought through the issue and still wants an abortion to places in other states, well, that is calamitous.

One Senator wants to make it a crime for a woman to seek an abortion—although she’d have to leave the state to have it.  He also would have rapists castrated or shot.

Apparently the Senator is not familiar with Article 1, section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution that gives Congress exclusive power over trade among the states. It also limits state powers to limit interstate commerce. And abortions ARE interstate commerce. But ignoring the U. S. Constitution has not been a problem in the legislature on the hot issue du jour for some time.

Another Senator says rapists should get the death penalty and suggested forcing the victim to carry the fetus to term created by the rapist who should be executed “may even be the greatest healing agent you need in which to recover from such an atrocity.”

Still another suggested that rape might be “mentally taxing…(but) it doesn’t justify an abortion.”

Missouri Independent reports she continued, “God does not make mistakes. And for some reason he allows that to happen. Bad things happen. I’m not gonna be able to support the amendment because I am very pro-life.”

I have often remarked that nothing screws up faith more than religion, or as one of my favorite cartoonists expressed it a few years ago:

To describe rape as “mentally taxing” is completely inappropriate.  So is the idea that executing the rapist would be a great healing agent. An African-American member of the senate attributed her existence to the rape of her great-grandmother, a slave, who by her white master.  The event was “mentally taxing” enough that the victim killed herself.

Several years ago, a similar argument against putting rape and incest exemptions into the abortion was pushed by a woman state representative who argued that it is God’s will that  something beautiful (the birth of a child) could result from something so bad as rape or incest.

I wrote in the old Missourinet Blog that, that kind of reasoning argues against rape being a crime. If God intended something beautiful, a baby, to result from something so ugly as a rape or incest, then God must have intended for the rape and incest to happen—especially since God is perfect.  And if that’s the case, rape should be considered an Act of God, not a crime.  After all, God does not make mistakes.

This is why we have, presumably, a separation of church and state.  Religious Dogma should not replace a law of humanity.  But it does and there are many who want to erase that separating line entirely. To do so would thus make one religion more free than others. And that would mess up the idea that this is a nation that practices religious freedom.

My theocracy is better than your theocracy. My God is better than your God. That’s what it all boils down to.

The major flaw in the “God does not make mistakes” argument is that God created people who make mistakes because God gave people free will.

So we live in an imperfect world and reconciling the imperfections in a way that makes living more humane is a never-ending argument. Killing others in the name of God has only produced never-ending wars.

Killing the rapist raises questions about the entire right to life philosophy. Would it be a “healing agent” to kill the rapist of a pregnant ten-year old girl who will likely not understand why she is left to bear what some consider God’s Gift? And if the product of a rape is a gift from God, how can killing the bearer of that gift be considered correct policy?

It is not our intention here to argue whether there should be abortions. But there are two innocent lives involved, not one.  And to try to make rape a theological issue is a political Gordian knot.

If we accept that God is perfect then we must accept that it was God’s will that we mortals are imperfect. And as imperfect creatures we make imperfect decisions. The challenge is in determining the fairness of the way we deal with those imperfections.

Maybe some issues are beyond the law and ongoing gyrations trying to make them fit within a law that carries equal rights and compassion for everyone the law touches is beyond human capabilities.  In those instances, the decision should rest with the individual, their doctor, and God.

Turn to faith, not religion, for the ultimate guidance.

Taking the Initiative (Away)

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Ohio residents voted a few days ago on a proposition that would make it harder for citizens to enact laws if the legislature refuses to do so.  Or to correct a legislative enactment many think based on something other than the general public welfare.

Ohio voters approved initiative and referendum in 1912, about the time Missourians approved it.  In the recent statewide Ohio vote, 57% of the voters rejected an effort largely led by those who do not want to see a pro-abortion amendment added to the Ohio Constitution.

In Missouri, constitutional amendments proposed by the people need only a simple majority to be approved.  This year, the Missouri House voted almost two-to-one (Republicans control the House by about the same ratio) to require 57% approval for any amendment proposed by the people.  Only another end-of-session mud fight in the Senate kept the proposal from a vote there sending the issue to the ballot.

Abortion was (is) the principle issue behind the failed legislative effort in Missouri. One major House supporter of the increase went on record during the session admitting the increased threshold was intended to keep a petition allowing abortions from being sent to the voters for their approval. The people, in turn, sent a message back to the legislature.

One of the key arguments for the supermajority threshold is that the change is needed to keep the state constitution from being further cluttered by amendments that should be only statutes.

The concern is legitimate. The proposed means of answering that concern, though, are questionable—and the legislature largely is to blame for the situation to begin with.

Some amendments have been added to the Missouri Constitution because the legislature has refused to pass a statute to address an issue.  The legislature has at times rewritten a statute approved in an election, a perceived rebuke to the will of the people who then can petition for an amendment to the constitution that is harder for the legislature to alter. The legislature cannot, on its own, rewrite a provision in the constitution. It can, however, suggest a replacement amendment that takes the place of the citizen-adopted language inserted into the constitution.

Government can be a little dizzying sometimes but at least the governed and the government are on the same level playing field. A national movement has materialized to tilt the field, however.

The initiative process does need some changing.  But making it harder for the people to propose and pass a law or an amendment on an issue the legislature has ignored, fumbled, or is not favored by the majority (or supermajority) party is not the proper approach.

There is a hypocrisy in this proposed change of the political process. Members of the legislature elected by a simple majority can pass a proposed law or amendment with a simple majority, even a proposal to require the people to get a supermajority to propose or pass a measure the legislature has ignored or bungled.

This is a philosophical problem that is often lost in the different worlds of politics versus popular sovereignty.  Benjamin Franklin defined popular sovereignty when he wrote, “In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.”  Or as the Declaration of Independence reminds us, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

A simple majority governs.  A super majority dictates within the political system.

There are two kinds of supermajorities.  The human first one is a legislative majority capable of enacting laws with no regard to the presumed political equality of a minority. The second is an  entity on paper that keeps a simple majority from speaking or acting.

Supermajorities in their different forms are dangerous because they can ignore the unalienable mutual right to, in particular, liberty.

In this case, the Missouri legislature has a supermajority that wants to ban abortions with a fifty-percent-plus-one vote while requiring those who oppose the ban to get 57% support.  Changing the constitution to tilt the table against the minority is a tilt away from democracy.

There is an argument that the proposal likely to be back in the legislature next year will infringe on the right of citizens “to petition the Government for redress of grievances.”  That’s a basic right in the U. S. Constitution.  Although the document does not specifically address what it takes to petition government, our history has established the simple majority as the rule.  Making  it harder to petition for a redress of grievances hardly seems to keep faith with the founders.

The process needs improvement.  But limiting access of the people to an original right in our national charter is not the best way to handle the issue.

Here are some things—top of the head thinking so take it for what it’s worth—that could be done to improve the process. You might have others or prefer others:

—Limit the number of proposed propositions by one organizaiton to one.  Too often, petition campaign organizers file multiple versions of a proposal that vary only slightly, a process that places an unnecessary burden on the Secretary of State’s staff that has to review each proposal.

—Require clear reporting of the source of funding for the petition, identifying by name the donors and any organizations through which the financing is delivered. If someone wants to buy a part of the constititon or a state statute, voters need to know who it is and why.

—Require pre-filing public hearings in x-number of locations throughout the state so the people have chances to hear the specifics of the proposal and to criticize it within an audience of their peers, giving an early public airing of the issue which otherwise might go to the ballot with a well-financed and heavily one-sided campaign.

—-Require a hearing by a joint committee of the legislature before circulation begins. Neither the House nor the Senate could change the proposal but the hearings could explore shortcomings in a process that could be made by petition sponsors.  One of the major—and justified—criticism process is that petitions lack the refining process that legislative review offers for issues recommended for the ballot by the General Assembly.

The petition process is a right that is to be reserved and preserved for the citizens.  To limit citizens’ right by forcing on them an obligation not forced upon the people who purportedly represent them is to repudiate Franklin’s idea of a republic in which “the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.”

We hope Missourians are as cognizant of their rights and responsibilities as citizens as the good people of Ohio are—regardless of any measure the Missouri General Assembly might try to enact that makes citizens lesser participants in their own governance.