Idaho Taliban claims God’s support for pregnancy due to rape

Ear­li­er this week the Ida­ho House passed a bill to out­law abor­tions after 20 weeks on the basis of a dis­put­ed sci­en­tif­ic report that claims that a fetus can feel pain at that point. The bill, which does not have an exemp­tion in cas­es of rape, incest or fetal abnor­mal­i­ty, now goes to Gov­er­nor Butch Otter for his sig­na­ture. Rea­son­able peo­ple (and unrea­son­able ones too) argue all the time about whether or not allow­ing a woman to ter­mi­nate her preg­nan­cy should be allowed. That is not the issue I’m writ­ing about here.

What is the issue is that the bil­l’s prime spon­sor, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Brent Crane (R‑Nampa) has crass­ly sug­gest­ed that if a woman is raped and becomes preg­nant, that it is God’s will for her to have a child.

The Ida­ho bill’s House spon­sor, state Rep. Brent Crane, R‑Nampa, told leg­is­la­tors that the “hand of the Almighty” was at work. “His ways are high­er than our ways,” Crane said. “He has the abil­i­ty to take dif­fi­cult, trag­ic, hor­rif­ic cir­cum­stances and then turn them into won­der­ful examples.”

It would­n’t be sur­pris­ing to me if Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Crane feels the same about  sick patients in the hos­pi­tal. Who needs doc­tors any­way? If it’s God’s will that sick peo­ple die, under Crane’s log­ic, they most def­i­nite­ly will. Sounds like Mr. Crane has been attend­ing ser­vices at the West­boro Bap­tist Church.

Such per­ver­sion of reli­gion to fit ones polit­i­cal world­view makes Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Crane no bet­ter than the Tal­iban or Osama bin Laden.