Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized
Palin: Raped Women must bear Child

Palin: Raped Women must bear Child

Juan Cole 10/02/2008

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Palin explains that she thinks women raped, even by their fathers, should be “encouraged” to bear the child.

Although Palin says she doesn’t want to send anyone to jail for having an abortion, the policies she advocates would do just that. She has already admitted that she wants justices and judges to be appointed on the litmus test of being against abortion. If Roe v.Wade is overturned,then likely each state will have its own abortion law, and certainly women would be going to jail in Alabama for violating that state’s prohibition of it.

The irrationality of the American religious right is demonstrated by their attempt, in Louisiana, to make rape a capital crime. So let me get this straight. Respect for “life” means a raped woman can’t have an abortion and must bear her attacker’s child for nine months of her life and then risk being responsible for it for a lifetime.

But the religious right wants to kill the child’s father (that is absolute respect for life?) and make sure that the child has no one who could be made to provide child support and ensure the child gets a proper education.

I wrote on a different occasion:

‘Anti-abortion activism is essentially patriarchal. It insists that the woman’s egg, once fertilized, is immediately a person and that the woman loses control over her body by virtue of being impregnated by her husband’s sperm. It is men who dictate to the woman that she must carry the fertilized egg to term, must be a mother once impregnated by a man. For extreme anti-abortionists, even a woman who has been raped or is in danger of losing her life if she tries to give birth must be forced to bear the child. A rapist can make a woman be a mother whether she likes it or not, because his maleness gives him prerogatives not withdrawn by his mere criminality.’

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Top Things You Still Think You Know About Iran that are Not True
  • Why Trump Bombed Iran: Preserving US and Israeli Nuclear Supremacy in the Middle East
  • Colonial Logic, not Jewish Wisdom Guides Israel's Wars
  • Trump's contravention of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal Led to Israel-Iran Escalation
  • Israel's Attacks have Exposed Iran's Weaknesses, but it is in Little Danger of Collapsing

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved