Conceived in Rape

Please watch the video.  I am not a woman and furthermore not a victim of rape, so, if my comments are off, please forgive me my ignorance.



A child conceived in rape is automatically seen as someone who shouldn't exist.  Even this woman admits that when she found out the truth, she felt her "value" had dropped.  Children should be conceived in love.  That is the way things are supposed to be.  But children of rape are conceived in hatred, anger, lust, fear, abuse, etc.  Because their beginning is so far from where children "should" come from, they are worth less in our eyes.  The already enormous pain suffered by a victim of rape shouldn't have to be augmented by the physical and emotional burden of carrying a child conceived in such a way.  That is what many believe (I think).

Two things against that:

First, even if the human beginnings of a child conceived in rape are evil, the inherent worth of that little person as a child of God is never lost.  Just as God is my Father more profoundly than my biological father and mother (who in my case, conceived me in love), so God is the Father of a child conceived in rape, regardless of the despicable acts of that child's earthly father.  The child is good and unrepeatable, an object of God's love and attention, every bit as much as you or I.

Second, we are not meant for ordinary lives.  The ordinary choice is to abort the child of rape.  That's what is expected, because such a child shouldn't exist.  The victim/mother has suffered enough.  It's too much for her to suffer the stigma of carrying that child, to bear the physical burden of child birth, or to endure the emotional turmoil that no doubt such a pregnancy would bring.  That's too much to ask someone who has already needlessly suffered an awful indignity.

But I say that we need to stop settling for what is ordinary, for merely what is needed to get by.  Each one of us, in our own way, can be a hero.  Heroism is what our world needs--the hidden heroism of a victim of rape who chooses not to abort.  We need to stop encouraging one another to just get through crises.  Instead, it's time we began helping one another rise above them.  

It breaks my heart (not to mention angers me) that so many prominent pro-lifers out there say that God intends for women to be raped or that it is their own fault or anything of that sort.  It is a horrible poverty of mind and heart to say that because God is the creator of all life, even the child of rape, he must have therefore "willed" that the rape take place.  No, no, no!  That is stupidity.  That is blasphemy.

God is so good and so powerful that he relentlessly brings good out of evil and places a light even in the darkest of situations.  How powerfully and beautifully did love overcome evil the day this woman's mother decided not to abort.  What a brilliant light shining for all to see.

A life taking choice does not undo the outrage of rape.  It does not take away the evil committed.  It does not expedite a return to normalcy for the victim.  

Let us give life, not take it.