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To judge by just the headlines from the last few months, you'd think our election was not taking place in enlightened America, where women have been able to vote almost 100 years, but in some distant country that's still struggling with the idea that you should punish rapists, not rape victims. What makes the headlines seem so absurd is that they state what should be the glaringly obvious, so it's a little unsettling that what we all thought was agreed upon by civil society turns out to be controversial enough to be worthy of a headline. Ideas like, rape is not God's gift to womankind. Or, that rape "is rape" and not some other thing. Or that national elected officials strongly disagree with any suggestion that it might be some other thing.
The most recent—and without context, totally absurd—headline was from The Hill: "Santorum: Mourdock 'didn't say rape was a gift from God.'" The story was former presidential candidate Rick Santorum's explanation to CNN that "What the Senate candidate [Richard Mourdock] said is that the child is a gift from God and whether it's conceived by rape or not, it's still the gift of human life is a gift from God, and that's what he said." Thank you for clarifying that, Mr. Santorum. Rape is not God's gift to womankind, but a rape pregnancy is kind of like His get-well card.
