I have some common-sense, but apparently very sorely needed, advice for Republican lawmakers: You have one position and one position only on rape: it is bad. That’s it. If anyone asks you, you say it is a tragedy that no woman (or man, for that matter) should live through and your prayers go out to victims. Many on the right are, justifiably, frustrated that reporters continue to ask questions of candidates and lawmakers on rape, but, in the media’s defense, when Republicans keep giving answers as stupid as those of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, it’s hard to blame them.
Unfortunately for Republicans, another lawmaker has weighed in the rape issue, this time Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia. The Marietta Daily Journal reports:
“And in Missouri, Todd Akin … was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation’ — and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that’s pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.’ That’s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don’t find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that.”
Gingrey pointed out that he had been an OB-GYN since 1975.
“And I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak. And yet the media took that and tore it apart.”
In all three instances, Republican lawmakers were trying their best to justify their opposition to abortion in the cases of rape and incest. The media’s double standard here is clear. While Akin, Mourdock and Gingrey and other Republicans have been asked to defend their positions, Democrats with equally “extreme” positions on abortion never are. During the last election, Paul Ryan was repeatedly asked to explain his stance on abortion in the instances of rape and incest by a hostile media anxious to trap the vice presidential candidate in the same “gotcha” moment that ended Akin’s and Mourdock’s runs for the Senate. Fortunately for the national ticket, Ryan stuck to a very rehearsed and well-thought out script each and every time he was asked and started to sound like a broken record on the subject by the end of the campaign. His Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden, was given a pass on favorable comments made in China about their one-child policy (that is often enforced by forced abortions and infanticide). President Obama’s incredibly controversial votes on the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act were also ignored by a media set out to trap Republicans fumbling over the issue of rape and abortion.
While this media double standard is incredibly unfair to Republicans, the deck has been stacked in this manner (against Republican candidates and politicians) for some time. It’s time for Republicans to practice the restraint that Rep. Paul Ryan did during the most recent election and decide on a script and stick to it. Continuing to talk off the cuff about abortion and rape has already sunk the careers of two senatorial candidates. One would think other Republicans would have learned from their mistake.
Conservative politicians should be prepared to ask a controversy question (relevant to the interviewer) as an answer to the unnecessary question that they don't need to answer.
One would think . . .
"Candor" is to be appreciated, not to be chided or regretted, most especially coming from politicians these days. Let those who will be voting on abortion-related matters,, should be applauded, not chided, for making their thinking about abortion explicit so voters can be informed when they make their choices. I don't see anything "unfortunate" about those R losses after the candidates make clear how absolutist they are in their anti-abortion stances. And if fewer of these types make it to Congress, that would be a good thing. (BTW, it appears that Gringrey is not a board certified Obstetrician/Gynecologist.)
it would also be helpful if Republicans could bring themselves to agree that a woman who's been raped should have the right to terminate a pregnancy that results from it. then they wouldn't have to twist themselves into pretzels trying to defend an indefensible position.
can't have that. it would be too close to accepting human rights ahead of myths.
@Rulieg…..You are absolutely correct. I am more or less Pro-Life, although honestly neither pro life or pro choice really describe me I can tell you a very small minority of the pro life movement hold to such an extreme position. Mainly Catholic. They really need to drop the extreme positions that very few of their own party or ideology actually hold. I think the media intentionally gins up the debate and tosses gasoline on the fire. I have friends on both sides and none are as extreme as what is showcased by some pundits and the press.
Except that they DON'T agree to that. They are maintaining that child conceived in rape is still a child, and if you believe (like they do) that a child is a child from conception, it would be incongruent to have them say that child A can be killed because his dad is a scumbag, but child B cannot. While you may disagree with their conclusion, they are being consistent. UNLIKE many pols who would pick and choose which children should be protected.
I would rather see Republicans get Democrats/the MSM/but I repeat myself to twist themselves into pretzels trying to defend the indefensible position that if Party A harms Party B, then Party B gets to execute Party C.
Party C doesn't exist as part of the party till at least 5 months down the road.
And we immediately see how it back-foots them, forcing them to deny (A) the very humanity of people they define as inconvenient, and (B) the scientific reality of the DNA molecule.
that's piffle. no one is "back-footed" by denying that personhood exists early in a pregnancy…..molecules are not human persons. any more than acorns are oak trees.
Everything that distinguishes you as an individual person is coded into your DNA. There is no magical stage in utero where you have any DNA but the DNA that you have now. Destroying that entity after it's created means that individual ceases to exist. n nAbortion should follow the logic of homicide. There are lawful homicides and unlawful homicides. Lawful homicide or death by misadventure are justified in extremis, as in killing in self defence, or by circumstances beyond one's control. They are not "choices". There are abortions that are imposed in extremis or by misadventure. The overwhelming majority of the ~1.3 million abortions per year in the U.S., however, are not among them. Abortion after rape does not meet the criteria for a lawful homicide. Party A harming Party B does not justify Party B executing Party C.
so, then you accept that each skin cell is legally a person……….. as I said, piffle. a necessary condition does not equate to a sufficient one. n nthe law of homicide has long recognized that murdering a pregnant woman is a single act of homicide unless the fetus was, at the time of the murder, was viable outside of the womb.
No one said anything about cells. The skin cell in question only exists if the person with that unique DNA does. We know scientifically that the fetus and the mother are two distinct biological entities. If a mother carrying a three-month old fetus died in a plane crash and the remains of the mother and fetus were recovered, DNA testing would distinguish between the two distinct biological entities for identification purposes. There is no ambiguity here. n n
you continue to ignore the difference between DNA and a person….and you ignore the law and the legal definition of a person. n n nshould your airplane with a woman carrying a three-month fetus be blown up in an act of murder….there will be charges lodged claiming that the mother was murdered and no homicide will be claimed on behalf of the fetus….or its DNA. n n
You continue to ignore the science which proves that our individuality is defined and coded at conception at the molecular level and that said individual is destroyed when aborted. Bottom line, you think inconvenient people are expendable. I don't.
do you know the difference between potential energy and kinetic energy? n n nand, BTW, you really don't know my bottom line on abortion on demand.
What's happening today with this sudden media fixation on these sidebar matters is their desperate realization that broader trends toward the pro-life position have been weakening their basic arguments, so they come up with these straw men areas of distraction. The media deserves to be called out for it, and the next time a candidate who has a strongly felt position in the Reagan tradition is asked about it, he shouldn't give a canned answer he should turn the tables on the inquisitor and say,"I'll answer that question on the day you ask Barack Obama and Joe Biden to explain their extremist positions that don't even pass the smell test for many people who call themselves pro-choice." And they should keep that up and make the issue of Media bias the central issue, and not resorting to canned speeches designed to make them sound like a squishy Mitt Romney moderate.
Maybe because I just can't get too fired up by the abortion issue (I'm pro-life to the extent that I care about it, but I cannot imagine a scenario in which a candidate's position on abortion would determine my vote), I see a different hypocrisy here. What these comments reveal is that, ahem, some Republicans aren't, you know, that (whisper) bright. But so what. There are clearly more Democrats sitting in Congress who are complete idiots. The hypocrisy, then, is when some buffoon can fret about Guam tipping over, just days after casting one of the decisive votes for Obamacare, and nobody seems to care. And wasn't it Pelosi who demonstrated profound ignorance about the meaning of "fossil fuels" (amongst other things)? nThe media is out to make Republicans look stupid, and since there will, inevitably, be some dumb pols out there with R's after their name, they will always be able to do so. If they ever turned their fire on the Democrats, though, the public might be in for a real treat.
Religious believes for some or many prevent reasonable thinking. Pr. OBAMA IS AN EXTREMIST IF HE DOES NOT IMPOSE SOME LIMITS ON 2nd & 3rd TRIMESTER Abortions
The writer correctly points out that some Republican candidates have been colossally stupid on this issue. They are tone-deaf, un-scientific, and easily made to look contemptuous of women. n nI don't know why the Republican Party is so plagued by these dolts. From Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell, to Sarah Palin's appalling admission that she could not name one magazine or newspaper she regularly read — the Party looks like it has been kidnapped by imbeciles. n nWe must bring back the great days of Barry Goldwater, William F Buckley Jr, and Richard Nixon — people who read books, and wrote books. None of these great conservatives would ever have blundered like Akin, Mourdoch and Gingrey.
Perhaps Palin should have asked her interlocutor precisely which newspaper was supposed to be worth reading, and also if she was such an imbecile, how come she had such a strong performance record as an actual chief executive, certainly compared with Bathhouse Barry. n nAnd does anyone know of anyone who was the product of a rape who wishes they'd been aborted? I don't. I do know a woman who was impregnated via date rape, and I never heard her describe her daughter, who grew up to have a career as a medical assistant in the military, as an expendable lump of cells. n nI'm also reminded of a cartoon I once saw where a bleeding heart liberal is lamenting the existence of poverty and a host of other ills, and crying out to God "Why didn't you send anyone to do anything about these evils?", and God responds, "I did, but you aborted them." I'm agnostic, by the way, but I think it neatly encapsulates the casual squandering of human capital implicit whenever people define certain sub-groups of other, more inconvenient, people as automatically expendable. I thought conservatives were supposed to know better.
You mis-state the content of the CBS interview. Perhaps you never saw it. No one asked Ms Palin "which newspaper was supposed to be worth reading". n nHere is what she was ACTUALLY asked, on 30 September 2008. You will find zero reference to "worth reading". n nCOURIC: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world? nPALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media, coming f— nCOURIC: But like which ones specifically? I’m curious that you— nPALIN: Um, all of 'em, any of 'em that, um, have, have been in front of me over all these years. Um, I have a va— nCOURIC: Can you name a few? nPALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where, it's kind of suggested and it seems like, 'Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C. may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?' Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America. n——————- n nAnd that's it, Mr Rogue. It was a pitiful response, and made Ms Palin look exactly like who she is: ill-informed, ill-educated, and utterly unfit for higher office. Considering that she held her state office for only two years before she quit, it's difficult to document a "strong performance record". n nThe Republican Party is ill-served by having dunces lead it. Bring back Richard Nixon! He actually read books, and wrote them.
I guess my original point was made too subtly. She should have said none of them are worth reading. Judging from the circulation numbers, more and more people agree every day.
which abortions approved and performed by an MD are restricted under federal law?