Free Will

Saturday, February 25, 2006

This morning's paper front-paged the South Dakota legislative ban on abortion. As Alito and Roberts settle into the Supreme Court the next few years will be interesting as the cat 5 political hurricane swirls around the abortion issue.

But what I'm wondering about at the moment is free will. Every religion that I know anything about touts man's free will. It's a big deal. Our exercise of our free will over the course of a handful of years will, according to most religions, be the trigger for either eternal happiness or eternal pain and suffering. Humans have free will.

The new South Dakota bill outlawing abortion allows an exception if the mother's life is in peril. South Dakota has decided that if it comes to either the fetus or the woman, but not both, then they will go with the woman. But that's the only exception. If a woman is raped then she would still be bound by South Dakota law to carry the child to term.

While not every pro-lifer is pro-life for religious reasons, I think it's fair to say that the bulk of them are. The bulk of those against the right to an abortion are against abortion for religious reasons. Every conceived child is made by God.

Rape is outlawed by most religions (though killing a woman for being raped seems to be all the rage to Islamic extremists). God is against rape. If a man rapes a woman he's committing a sin, and he's probably going to get damned for it. He used his free will poorly.

But here's where I start to get to get confused. If a woman gets pregnant from her rapist was this child blessed and created by God? If so then God must have meant for her to get raped. And yet that can't be since the rapist must have had a free will in the matter. So in that case the child would not be blessed by God. But if that's the case then why do the pro-lifers want this fetus saved?