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The Spectacle Blog
Judge Andrew Napolitano has a thoughtful column in The Washington Times on Todd Akins’ “leigitmate rape” comment. While calling Akins’ remark “absurd,” “bizarre,” “offensive,” and “incorrect,” Napolitano supports the implications of Atkins’ comment that rape is never a moral justification for the taking of an innocent human life through abortion:
…. isn’t a baby in a womb a person? Of course a baby in a womb is a person. A baby is produced by the physical interaction of two human parents, and every unborn baby possesses a fully actualizable human genome: all the material necessary to grow to adulthood and to exist independently outside the womb.
What about rape? Rape is among the more horrific violations of human dignity imaginable. It is a crime committed by the male, not the female — and certainly not by the child it might produce. When rape results in pregnancy, the baby has the same right to life as any child born by mutually loving parents. Only the Nazis would execute a child for the crimes of his or her father.
Every abortion ends the life of an innocent unborn human being. When politicians in both parties claim to be pro-life but favor abortions because of the criminal behavior of the father, as in rape or incest, they are politically rejecting that hard truth. What other violations of the natural law will they condone for political expedience?
It’s a shame that this truth has gotten lost in the maelstrom of vitriol directed at Akin. The sad fact is that Republicans are held to a wildly different standard when it comes to these matters than are Democrats, as Jeff Lord writes about Slick Willy today. A man accused of rape is lauded in Democrats’ eyes, while a man who chooses unwise words on the matter is vilified. The difference, of course, is that Akin is staunchly pro-life while Bill Clinton is not. Democrats won’t stand for their sacred idol of abortion to be defiled.
View all comments (17) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by David N. Bass
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/08/23/napolitano-on-akins-legitimate
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Mender| 8.23.12 @ 9:51AM
I oppose abortion in most cases, but...look. A newly fertilised egg is a blob. It may contain a human genome, but DNA testing is pretty much the only way to tell it from a mouse embryo of the same age. It can't think, feel, or know pain. I simply can't convince myself that forcing a woman to spend nine months carrying her rapist's baby to term (a huge physical commitment, which can screw up someone's education and employment forever) does anything but increase the misery in the world.
C. Vernon Crisler | 8.23.12 @ 12:48PM
Well Mender, we're all just blobs -- variously configured -- and some are more blobby than others. Does that mean you should not have a right to life? And is that all a baby's life is worth to you? 9 months, and some lost educational or employment opportunities?
Mender| 8.23.12 @ 9:08PM
Don't be stupid. Saying that there's no difference between killing people and killing a dot distinguishable from a mouse embryo only using:
i) in-situ DNA hybridization
ii) immunostaining
or iii) high-performance PCR
is nuts.
C. Vernon Crisler | 8.24.12 @ 7:58AM
I ask again, is a baby's life only worth 9 months to you? Your claim that a human and mouse embryo cannot be distinguished is just Haeckel's biogenetic law nonsense. Even responsible Darwinists no longer accept it.
Derek Leaberry| 8.23.12 @ 10:04AM
When I read the headline, I first thought that Homeland Security boss Chuck Napolitano had decided to comment on Akin. But the statement of Judge Napolitano made too much sense.
sam1953| 8.23.12 @ 12:31PM
amen
Albert Constantine Jr.| 8.23.12 @ 12:34PM
"Only the Nazis would execute a child for the crimes of his or her father."
I don't think that "only" the Nazis is accurate. I seem to recall some varieties of Communists (Pol Pot, Mao perhaps) that would among their atrocities execute a child under such circumstances. Am I remembering this wrong?
Quartermaster| 8.23.12 @ 8:29PM
No, you are correct. Stalin did it as well.
Oldefarte| 8.23.12 @ 4:41PM
I understand the learned judge's rationality, but slightly disagree to some extent. In many cases, and abortion as cruel and inhumane as it is, can be possibly preferable to the lifetime of inhumane, cruel and sadistic occurrances that might await the unaborted child. Physical/sexual abuse, molestation, etc often await children born unto individuals who neither want or truly care for same. These children become punching bags and sexual objects to the animals that bring them into this world sadly, and their lifetime of psychological imbalances produce the resultant animals that attack/kill innocents within movie theatres, campuses etc, that rape/kill/attack others as adult perpetrators within society. If/until society produce safeguards that definately extract these children at birth from their animalistic birth parents and transfer same into loving/caring environments where they can become normal and productive adults, the question of the rights and wrongs of the abortion issue will remain a gray area of discussion!!!!
aware| 8.23.12 @ 7:00PM
And I suppose you have a fool proof way of discerning which ones are the keepers?
It might work out a little better if we waited until someone actually commits a crime before we kill them. It has been tried both ways, you know.
This may be the towering all time crowning monument of stupidity in a landscape strewn with previous achievements in banality, pigheadedness, cognitive dissonance, and pure unmitigated ignorance you have already erected.
My congratulations. You have a hard time rising above this one.
Oldefarte| 8.23.12 @ 10:23PM
UNDERAWARE, you are typical of most of the dumbassedly anti-abortionists [and no doubt are awaiting at your nearest abortion clinic to perform your cockeyed distortion of justice to whichever physician or clinical worker exits into your pathway]. However, I have a only one question for you and your NO-SHUT-UP-AND-NO-PUT-UP friends: ARE YOU OR HAVE YOU EVER STOOD IN LINE FILLING OUT THE REQUIRED PAPERWORK AND WRITING THE NECESSARY PERSONAL CHECKS FOR THE ADOPTION OF ANY OF THESE CHILDREN WHICH YOU LYINGLY PROFESS TO WANT TO SAVE FROM ABORTION AND/OR A LIFETIME OF CRUEL AND INHUMANE TREATMENT FROM THE HANDS OF THEIR ANIMALISTIC HUMAN PRODUCERS? Yes or No? [none of your usual and typical BS needed or wanted]!!!!!!!
aware| 8.24.12 @ 5:36AM
Pathetic attempt at distraction. Let's see if I get you, one who hasn't adopted can have no opinion on your incredibly stupid post?
So to "save" the children you advocate pulling them out of the womb and sticking scissors through their heads. You're so humane.
I still want to know how you know which ones get the scissor treatment, for their own good of course.
Oldefarte| 8.23.12 @ 10:38PM
Oh and PS to you [genius]: Above you asininely and incorrectly used BOTH of the words "stupidity" and "ignorance" for descriptive purposes. You're so f*&king; dumb that you don't understand that they are contradictory of each other, and to apply both simultaneously is beyond the bounds of proper English usage. Go obtain a GD DICTIONARY and learn the difference and why they cannot be properly used both at the same time [OMG you're imbicilic]!!!!!
aware| 8.24.12 @ 5:57AM
You have just proved that not only are the 2 terms NOT contradictory but are a perfect description of you. While anybody can be both ignorant and stupid, few can make it the high standard you set.
And if you even had a layman's grasp of conversational English you would have comprehended that the words "previous achievements" makes each of my descriptions individual, stand alone monuments.
Again, just tell the nursing home director to substitute remedial English classes for bingo night and a whole world you never dreamed of will open up for you.
Mick Lee| 8.24.12 @ 8:08AM
I am as close to an abolitionist on abortion as one can get--believing nearly all abortions are profoundly evil. Yet as a political reality, I also acknowledge that the American people will not countenance any pro-life legislation without exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother.
Exceptions for rape and incest are morally inconsistent with the Pro-life overarching brief against the willful destruction of the unborn, but there you go. Nobody ever said the American people have a Constitutional obligation to put cold logic over sentiment--nor should they.
It is not about controlling women's lives. (I for one wouldn't want THAT responsibility!) The point is that aborting the weakest, voiceless among us is unjust. The Pro-life cause will have to proceed in baby steps (pun intended)--most of the time winning hearts and minds. Although winning Oldefarte’s liver and brain would be a lost cause. His self-description as a noxious wind is apt. (By the way, Oldefarte, plenty of Pro-lifers do adopt your “unwanted” children. And it is well established in crime stats that the most dangerous person to any mother’s child is not her or the biological father—it is her boyfriend.)
TinaB| 8.25.12 @ 9:16AM
As a woman who had an unplanned pregnancy at 24, and chose at the last trimester to find adoptive parents, I can speak to part of this. It was not a matter of rape, incest or my health so I can't address those issues. The adoption was my finest hour, before or since. Wally and his parents, wife, children and friends, his bandmates and my two adult children and their children, all appreciate his life, and his wit. Had I aborted, so much would have been lost.
I thank my Lord that He guided my choice then, and gave me a healthy baby to bring so many others joy. And all it cost me was 9 months of inconvenience and a few, extra pounds. Small price to pay.