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Mourdock, abortion, and 'God-intended' rape

Question: How many candidates for office can make incendiary remarks about abortion in a single election season?

Answer: One more than we expected, apparently.

From The Hill:
Republican Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Tuesday night that pregnancy caused by rape can be "something God intended to happen."  
"I struggled with it myself a long time but I came to realize that life is a gift from God, that I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that God intended to happen," Mourdock said during a debate with Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.). 
Mourdock attempted to clarify later:
"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," he said.
Even if one accepts this modification, Mourdock's statement is contemptible. What is Mourdock saying? Does he mean that God does not intend a given rape to occur, but in select cases of sexual assault, decides to impregnate the rape victim out of a love of life?

One of the reasons why so many people, even self-identified pro-lifers, support a rape exception to a general abortion ban is that having to endure a rape-induced pregnancy would compound the trauma of the rape victim. Therefore, the idea that God would in essence try to make lemonade out of lemons is offensive.

The larger issue that this raises is one of theology: Assuming the existence of a God who makes things happen in the world, why does that God allow evil to occur? It is so common for people to say, "everything happens for a (God-driven) reason." Taking that trite phrase and applying it rigorously leads to offensive and absurd statements like Richard Mourdock's.

UPDATE: Pro-lifers back Mourdock.

UPDATE II: Ross Douthat, columnist for The New York Times, notes that this is just standard Christian theology, and wonders why pro-choice politicians aren't pressed on their similarly out-of-the-mainstream positions on abortion (like abortion on demand in the second trimester of pregnancy).

Links:

Article in The Hill (October 23, 2012): Mourdock: Pregnancy from rape can be 'something God intended to happen'

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