GOP: Female body has natural defense against pregnancy in case of legitimate rape

Breaking news. He has written a column clarifying what he really meant, but it is not really safe for work.

 

Is that all you got?

:grin:

 

Well, yeah he should stop talking. But, I understand what he's driving at. If you banned abortions but allowed a rape exception, you'd create a moral hazard in which a woman would have an incentive to make an accusation of rape to obtain an abortion.

The moral hazard opens the larger logical hole in a ban with exceptions. If the opposition to abortion is that you are killing a human without due process, then having exceptions for the babies of rapists or incestuous parents makes no sense. The babies of rapists are just as human as other fetuses and deserve as much protection -- however much that is.

A pro-life position that does allow for these exceptions (like Romney's, as I understand it), isn't much of a pro-life stand. It says you shouldn't kill babies unless it's one of those 'untouchables' -- born out of rape or incest -- in which case please just get rid of it so we don't have to think about them. Either that or you'd like to be pro-life but you don't want to risk your political fortunes standing up for what your believe in so you'll take a wishy-washy and contradictory philosophical stance in a lame attempt to please everyone. I'd rather go with a pro-choice position than that. Akin is consistent in being pro-life; he's just not smart enough to make a coherent argument.

 

very funny but they kinda ruined it by rambling- edited for brevity, it would've had more impact. still, funny.

 

He's running against Christie Vilsack, who is Tom Vilsack's (former Gov. of Iowa and current Ag Secretary) wife.

King is still the favorite as its a district that does lean Republican but his old district used to lean heavily to the right. Plus its an entirely new set of people who have never voted for Steve King before so he doesn't gain quite the advantage that a normal incumbent would get.

That said, Steve King can raise infinite sums of money (like Michelle Bachmann who also got thrown into a new district) So I'd still call him the favorite but saying stupid **** constantly can actually hurt him. That said, Vilsack has been damn good at fundraising as well from national groups. This will in all likelihood be one of the most expensive Congressional races in the country on both sides.

Also like King, Michelle Bachmann will really have a lot on her hands as well. Her district changed pretty substantially as well and that presidential race really hurt her in terms of her popularity back home. The latest poll in her district only has her up by 4 points on a guy no one has really heard of yet. Also the guy running against her is a multi-millionaire who can basically self-fund his own campaign which should mitigate some of the normally gigantic money disadvantage Democrats have against her. Plus Bachmann's unfavorable numbers are absolutely abysmal back home. If her opponent can generate any solid name ID, he can pull this off even though its a decently Republican district. (albeit a district that for the most part has never voted for Bachmann since she got thrown in there this year)

Should be an interesting year for the crazies. They've not done themselves any favors lately.

 

Rep. Steve King: I’ve Never Heard Of A Girl Getting Pregnant From Statutory Rape Or Incest

Rep. Steve King, one of the most staunchly conservative members of the House, was one of the few Republicans who did not strongly condemn Rep. Todd Akin Monday for his remarks regarding pregnancy and rape. King also signaled why — he might agree with parts of Akin’s assertion.

King told an Iowa reporter he’s never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest.

full article

 

If you are going to accuse a large group of people of having such an awful view on rape, you might want to have some proof...oh yeah...the proof does not exist.

Your assertion, in a word, is crap.

 

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/raped-and-pregnant.html#more

Holy heck, how can this be true?

Who voted for this?

 

Probably because in many cases, the grandfather would want to see his spawn.

 

There are numerrous GOP guys making similar statements about rape and abortion. After all Tte GOP platform is against abortion even in the case of rape. They want to make pregnant rape victims have to be reminded daily of their rape when they see their child This type of exremism is reminiscent of the Taliban.

It is more accurate to call these folks "anti-abortion" since they are in favor of lots of excess deaths, by handguns, elective wars, polluted air, lack of healthcare, capital punisment etc. The want to use state power to force their religous views on the rest of us.

Granted it is highly embarassing for many members of the GOP, who are just the traditional wealthy, though the party is happy to use these religious extremists and their all time greatest wedge issue to get ordinary folks to support the 1%.

It is a problem for the traditional GOP, the Romneys etc. for the public at large and especially independents and many women to realize exactly how extreme these fuandmentalists, who are starting to exercise veto power within the GOP, actually are.

 

The GOP just added a Personhood Amendment to Their Party Platform

I think that's proof enough

 

I think we all need to keep some perspective here. It has been my opinion for a few years now that the Republican Party is in the grip of an extreme minority. That has become only worse after the GOP deliberately grabbed the "Tea Party" and folded it into their own. There are many GOP leaders, congressmen, senators, many of the former variety, who deeply regret that action. Before, the powerful minority with influence all out of proportion to their numbers were the religious fundamentalists/"pro-lifers" calling far too many of the shots. Now it is twice as bad as before. They've added a host of clueless "Tea Party" guys in the House, and a strong "sucking up to the "Tea Party" faction" has allowed those people influence, as I said, all out of proportion to their numbers.

I'm still standing here, a Democrat of long standing, telling you that the majority of the GOP are not those people. The problem? That majority can't be bothered to become involved in the running their own party. They don't go the precinct meetings, the county conventions, where they could beat back the extremists and bring sanity to their own leadership. Just can't be bothered. There is the problem, and the GOP is in danger of becoming a pariah in the eyes of the American public if that majority of Republicans don't take back their party.

The small number of fools and trolls who litter this forum with their extremist trash are not of that majority. Fox "News" does not reflect that majority. If there is a ""Silent Majority" in this country, they are made up of the silent Republicans. Not the majority of the American electorate, by a long shot, but the majority of the members of the Republican Party. In my opinion.

 

I see what you're saying, and I think I agree, but at a certain point when referring to the GOP it might be fair to be talking about the leadership and decision makers in the party.

It's true that it isn't all of the GOP but if it's the people that drive the machine, then it's a minor point.

 

Yes, Personhood is such an awful declaration!

I read some stats yesterday that reported about 17% of people supported this kind of ban while 19% opposed any kind of restrictions on abortion. That leaves the vast middle 64% somewhere along the continuum.

Check out this compilation of 2007 Ontario stats; these are only the births/abortions reported at area hospitals with no data from abortion clinics which is where most go:

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/0...-show-reality-of-a-land-without-restrictions/

"

Abortion is a topic few Canadians want to discuss, and abortion statistics rarely come up around the water cooler. So when an Ontario group, Project for an Ontario Women’s Health Evidence-Based Report (POWER), released a study last week on Ontario abortion rates for 2007, nobody seemed to notice. But they should have.

No matter what your position on abortion, the study reveals unsettling facts about abortions in Ontario, and by extension, in Canada. For example, we learn that for every 100 babies born in Ontario, 37 are aborted.

The ratio for teens aged 15-19 is even more shocking. For every 100 babies born to Ontario teens, 152 are aborted.

The study noted that teens “were by far the most likely of any age group to have an abortion rather than a live birth.” And since it excluded abortions for girls under 15, the teen abortion rate is even higher.

It also revealed disturbing data about repeat abortions in Ontario hospitals. As many as 52% of women had one or more previous abortions. Even more disturbing, almost one fifth of teens aged 15-19 said they had already had at least one abortion. The study even cautioned that the percentage of repeat abortions was likely higher due to under-reporting.

And that’s just for hospitals. Abortion clinics were excluded from the repeat calculations even though they perform more than half the province’s abortions. And teens don’t need parental consent for clinic abortions (though they may at some hospitals), so more teens may go to clinics.

Even fairly liberal parents might squirm to think that their child, aged 14 or younger, could walk into a clinic to have an abortion — more than once — and they would never know.

Most Canadians are unaware that teens don’t need parental consent to have an abortion. They don’t even have to inform their parents. In fact, most Canadians — 80% according to a 2010 Angus Reid poll — don’t even know we have no legal restrictions on abortion.

For the record, abortion is fully legal in Canada at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason, and for any Canadian citizen, and taxpayers pay for almost all of them.

LifeCanada, a national organization educating on the value of human life, has commissioned Environics to poll Canadians annually from 2002-2009. Each year, a large majority, anywhere from 60% to 66%, supported some legal restrictions on abortion.

So even though most Canadians don’t know the facts or statistics on abortion, they don’t support the current legal vacuum in Canada. Imagine if they actually knew something about the subject.

Why don’t they?

In the past, Statistics Canada collected abortion data through the Therapeutic Abortion Survey (TAS), but when the abortion law was struck down in 1988, some provinces interpreted the decision to mean they no longer had to report abortion data to Statistics Canada. Since that time, abortion statistics have become increasingly scarce.

In recent years, Statistics Canada deemed abortion data “unreliable” because too few clinics and hospitals reported. They even noted the absence of abortion data was “definitely a concern.”

In British Columbia, a law even prohibits citizens from accessing any statistics about abortions performed there. This in democratic Canada.

More recently, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) took over responsibility for abortion statistics. Their report for 2007 and 2008, released last December, is riddled with categories labelled “unknown” because so few hospitals and clinics submit complete data.

By comparison, the new POWER study uses OHIP billing records and several different databases, making it more reliable than other recent data. This may account for a large discrepancy between the study’s and CIHI’s figures. The study does not give absolute numbers for abortions but it does provide the abortion to live birth ratio. Since Statistics Canada reports the number of Ontario live births as 138,000, this would suggest the number of Ontario abortions in 2007 may actually be around 51,000, much higher than CIHI’s figure of about 32,000.

However, the study is not without biases. It classifies some second trimester abortions as “early abortions” though it is doubtful most Canadians would agree.

Nonetheless, any data about abortion in Canada is valuable and welcome. One can’t help but wonder why all the secrecy if there is nothing to hide? For a cause that has always been championed as a woman’s right, it is ironic that information about something exclusively relevant to women’s health is ignored, or worse, suppressed. Shame."

- Anastasia Bowles is the acting executive director of LifeCanada

 

None of that changes the fact that it is none of your business.

 

The GOP just approved the most conservative agenda in history.

Akin is the GOP




CHART: Akin’s Views On Women’s Health Are In Line With GOP

Republicans have distanced themselves from Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) “legitimate rape” comments, arguing that his insulting remarks are an embarrassment to the party. But peel away the outrageous rhetoric, and Akin’s policy positions on women’s health — his opposition to a woman’s right to choose and support for restricting access to contraception — are in line with GOP orthodoxy:

 

When our nation legalizes unconscionable things it becomes all of our business .... otherwise why would you be concerned about collateral damage in the Iraq War?

 

When a nation legislates based upon a single religious morality then that government becomes useless to its people.

I understand how you feel - I just don't want government to legislate based upon those feelings. You have no right to dictate your beliefs to the rest of the country or anyone's vagina.