Note to Richard Mourdock: Your God's an Asshole:
Let's just follow the bouncing ball of illogic, not just of the "gaffe" (if by "gaffe," you mean, "saying exactly what one believes") in what Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock of Indiana said, but also his subsequent statements, which are a reflection of the anti-abortion movement at large. Mourdock said, "I know there are some who disagree and I respect their point of view but I believe that life begins at conception. The only exception I have for – to have an abortion is in that case for the life of the mother. I just – I struggle 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 happen."

Parse that out for a moment or two. For Mourdock, "life" or, you know, "pregnancy" is a "gift from God," but if that gift, which is from, as mentioned, God, might harm the mother, it can be returned or aborted. You'd think that God, being, well, shit, God would know better than to gift a woman who might die from childbirth or pregnancy. But, wait. If God gave this gift, then didn't God intend for the child to be born and the woman to die? And if you believe, as Mourdock just said he does, that a woman can get an abortion if her life is at stake, is not Mourdock for undoing the will of God?

To his credit (no, really), Dick Mourdock didn't back down from his beliefs and apologize, like Mitt Romney eventually did from his 47% speech. Nope, he just doubled down. He issued a statement: "God creates life, and that was my point. God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that he does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick." Quick piece of advice to politicians: if at any point, you need to assert that rape is bad, you have fucked up, whether you wanna admit it or not.

Again, let's do a thought experiment: If your god has the capability of making the rape sperm invade the egg and create a zygote, then that god is probably capable of, say, giving the rapist the flu so he stays home and eats soup rather than rapes a woman. Or your god should be able to shove him out of a window in a tall building. Either way, your god would be a good guy, a mensch, and a woman would not get brutalized. (Note: insert your own snarky line about "forcible rape" here.) But if what you're saying is that your god decided to go ahead and let the woman get raped and beaten and psychologically damaged because he has this plan for her to get knocked up, then your god is an asshole. You wanna worship an asshole?

The ideologically inconsistent icing on this cake of religion and politics and the well-being of women? If that pregnant rape victim's life is in danger, then, according to Mourdock, she should be able to abort the fetus, God's rape gift be damned. If you point this out to Mourdock or any of the Jesus's wound-lickers of the evangelical right, they would say that we cannot know the ways of God or that everything is part of God's plan or some such shit. And then you might say that if we cannot know God's ways, then how do they know that the rape baby is a gift. And then they'll just give you that look that says they think you're crazy, and it just makes you wanna kick 'em in the taint. Hard.

The amazing part here is the number of conservatives who have said they stand with Mourdock, probably having used up all their outrage on Todd "Avenging Vaginas" Akin. An unsigned editorial in the National Review (motto: "A chronicle of the degradation of conservatism from intellectual Buckleyism to self-fellating Steynosity") says that while Mourdock may have expressed himself "clumsily," his "position is, however, more than defensible, and it follows logically from very widely shared pro-life premises." Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin does her usual schtick of trying hard to be loved, attacking the attackers. And Mourdock's website lists others who have come out in support of the Republican's hardline stance (which will not be linked to here because fuck that guy).

By the way, Mourdock's Democratic opponent, Joe Donnelly, is a big time Blue Dog who opposes abortion with exceptions for rape, incest, and the mother's life. He's being attacked by anti-abortion groups and children of rape victims, who should be told that no one is saying that abortion should be forced on rape victims who get pregnant, just that the choice should be there, as it should be for all women.

We used to consider Donnelly's position pretty radical. Now, we've reached a point where Indiana will be lucky if it gets the guy who doesn't want to make rape victims get back alley abortions or carry unwanted pregnancies to term.