Legislator's abortion "special punishment" claim highlights implications of some faith-based logic

A Virginia legislator’s candid comment has highlighted an inevitable outcome of faith-based reasoning regarding illnesses and natural disasters. In a statement that outraged advocates of the disabled, Virginia state delegate Bob Marshall said recently that disabled children are “special punishment” for women who have abortions, particularly in their first pregnancy.

In a story first reported in the Gainesville Times, he made this statement to a group of clergy gathered at the Virginia General Assembly building to oppose perceived government funding for Planned Parenthood, a national family planning organization that permits the performance of abortions at its facilities. Although audio of the whole discussion is not available, Marshall did not clarify his remarks for several days. It seems safe to assume, therefore, that none of the clergy present that day voiced objection to his statement.

The February 18th quote, as recorded, was as follows:

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”

Marshall tried to clarify his remarks later, telling a Washington NBC station  that his remarks had been taken out of context. Further explaining on his website that his earlier words had been poorly chosen, Marshall said that he did not believe any children were divine punishment.  

"A story by Capital News Service regarding my remarks at a recent press conference opposing taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood conveyed the impression that I believe disabled children are a punishment for prior abortions," he said. "No one who knows me or my record would imagine that I believe or intended to communicate such an offensive notion…”

Marshall’s denial is more puzzling than his original statement. He stated the inevitable outcome of reasoning based on the belief that “everything happens for a reason.” Any philosophy that gives credit to a deity, or a spiritual principle, or astrological destiny when good things happen, must also assign blame when the bad times come. This is true even if the blame is assigned to spiritual “mystery,” which is a catch-all non-explanation for when bad things happen to people we like. Most often, however, believers are going to blame the victim, as happened after the New Orleans Hurricanes, the earthquake in Haiti, and an earthquake in China. In every case where believers blame the victim, it conveniently suits the believers’ political agenda. One can hardly find a higher endorsement for his or her political positions than that of a bedrock spiritual principle or supreme being.

To be clear, Marshall did not say that any god had singled out the children of women who had undergone abortions. According to Marshall’s words, it was “nature” who did the deed, even if nature was acting according to the Old Testament. The implication is that Marshall applies the hair-splitting reasoning that God did not directly punish these children, but that their suffering was a consequence of the abortions their mothers had in prior pregnancies.

In essence, it’s a distinction without a difference if one believes in divine intervention. Whether Marshall’s deity smote the children himself or simply refused to intervene on behalf of the children, the result is effectively the same. (He offered no explanation for what sins explain disabilities that result when mothers have not aborted an earlier pregnancy.)

If they are to have integrity, those believers who think everything happens for a reason should be unapologetic about it. Blame gays for society's problems, parents for their children’s illnesses, and civil libertarians for 9/11, and do it in the name of belief.  Anything else is false advertising.   Or...perhaps they could consider that sometimes things just happen, through no fault of anyone's but the laws of physics.