Abortion and the radicalism of the Republican Party
August 24, 2012 3 Comments
One interesting thing about contemporary politics is that so many people just don’t appreciate how truly radical (not the least bit “conservative” in the classical sense) today’s Republican party is. One of the great things about this Akin imbroglio is it shines light on this fact. The Republican platform committee has re-committed to a platform that bans all abortions all the time.
The Republican platform committee approved language on Tuesday seeking a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to the life of a pregnant woman, a position Democrats quickly labeled the “Akin Plank,” after embattled Representative Todd Akin of Missouri.
The wording of the GOP’s call for a “human life amendment” is no different from what the party approved in 2004 and 2008, but proponents and opponents alike greeted it with renewed zeal two days after Akin said he “understand[s] from doctors” that rape-induced pregnancies are “really rare,” and that “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Got that– nobody was really paying attention before, but now Akin has really brought attention to this issue. I loved listening to the verbal gymnastics of a spokesperson on Dianne Rehm today saying, basically, “well, just because we don’t say anything about exceptions doesn’t mean we don’t support exceptions.” Ummm, no, that’s not how things work. If you support a ban of something, but believe there should be specific exceptions, than you say as much when you write the ban, e.g., North Carolina bans riding in the back of pick-up trucks except when operating in an agricultural capacity.
And here’s, the thing, this no exceptions policy is really unpopular even among Republicans! The following chart is 2008 National Election Study data:
Just in case you are not so good with charts– only 19% of Republicans support the no exceptions policy and only 14% of the general public. In short, Republican elites are just really, really conservative.
About Steve Greene
And you are a Catholic and going against your own church teachings. There is no medical reason to abort a baby to save a mother’s life. Abortion does not make a woman un-RAPED but in effect rapes her all over again. Think about it, she has to go through the humiliation of being stripped bare below the waist, have her legs spread wide apart and place her feet in stirrups. The doctor then forces her vagina open with a cold steel speculum. Then he forces her cervix open with a series of graduated rods that induced severe cramping. Then she has to listen to the scream of the suction machine and the slurping sounds it makes as it rips her baby apart piece by piece. ALL THIS PUNISHES THE INNOCENT CHILD FOR THE SIN OF THE FATHER. Sounds like Sharia Law to me where a father gets to kill his daughter because she dishonored the family. The only ones who are radical are those bent on killing innocent babies and yet if you break a bald eagle egg it is a $50,000 fine and serious jail time in the federal pen
And yet. Maybe this 15% of the public is right and everybody else is wrong. It’s happened before. But to suggest that the views of the 15% should trump the 85% is fairly radical.
By this insane reasoning a woman getting a pap smear would be “raped”.
A man assaulted, beaten bloody and broken would be, by the same reasoning, assaulted again by the doctors who mend his broken bones. The reasoning is absurd, even childish.
I find it amusing that a right winger talks about someone else going against their religion after saying the new testament was all about “love”, when one considers some of the truly ugly things they have said. Never mind ignoring feeding and clothing the poor, turning the other cheek, and all those other “Jesus” like sayings that the Republican party like to ignore.
The Republican party talks about Christianity, but they are nothing more then the lapdogs of the money changers.