>>> Unreservedly. When you begin by recognizing that God is the author of life, then the rest becomes academic. That child did nothing to warrant being murdered. The actions of the rapist are the criminal ones. The mother is the victim. The child is a precious gift from God, a new life given unto the mother and her family.
>>>
>>>
>>>Rick, this is inhumane. I'd even go so far to say this is a cruel and vicious position.
>>>You're denying the woman the choice of determining who will be the father of her baby.
>>
>>The philosophical and ethical question is not whether she should be able to choose the
>>father.. of course Rick would want her to.
>Sure about that???

Yes. "He" (meaning me) would always rather that things go according to the will of the individual, as that individual is also following the will of God (i.e. marriage before sex, children only in wedlock, no divorce, and so on).


>>He's talking about how she will deal with an event that she had no control over.
>>Life is full of those choices and what we call "character" is largely defined by the way a person
>>handles them.
>
>That's rich, Bill, really rich. Every year, roughly 25,000 or so women - raped, brutalized, traumatized,
>will probably never be the same again....and carrying a rapist's baby. A rapist, possibly carrying a
>disease, a chemical imbalance with a propensity for violence....and your answer to a woman making
>possibly the most intimate, crucial, and tragic decision of her life is the "character-building" line.

Were more people to turn to Jesus Christ, and follow and teach what He teaches, and to do so rightly, in submission, in truth seeking, then there would be less of that which you hate in the world. Such events will always be with us until the end because we live in a fallen world, evil is here, demonic spirits exist, and we have fallen flesh which is susceptible to the call of evil. But it doesn't have to be that way for those who will hear the truth and come out and be saved. For them, the pursuit is of God's Holy Spirit, and a life lived in service to their fellow man.

What's going on here in this world is type of proving grounds. Each of us will demonstrate unquestionably before God, even in these totally fallen circumstances, the full extent of our character. When good things happen how do we respond? When bad things happen how do we respond? It isn't always a bad thing that happens, but an opportunity given to us to rise above and walk the right path of holiness God would have us walk, to "make lemonade out of the lemons," as you put it.

We cannot control the things we cannot control, but we can always control our responses to them, and we can always submit our will to God's.


>People will call you many things for this "character" comment (and you'll likely deserve every one of
>them). For me, I'll simply say that if you truly believe that, you are not a defender of individual rights.

There is a completely innocent individual in the equation that your ideals deny flatly, Kevin. You are willing to allow the female victim to satiate her personal emotional need to be free from the trauma of having to raise a baby she didn't plan or intend at the expense of another human life. You are willing to deny the completely innocent everything they could've ever attained in this world had they been given the chance. You're saying to that child that the X years they would've lived are not worth the woman going through some emotionalism and possibly more hard times (though, as I say again, when a person turns to God they are provided for in this world by the army of helpers that would come forward, as being drawn by God's Holy Spirit from within to reach into their own bosom and provide).

Yours is an exceedingly inhumane position, Kevin, and one which God flatly abhors (hands that shed innocent blood).