NOw GOP senatorial candidate from MO believes that a woman can't get pregnant if she's a victim of "legitimate rape".
The GOP vice Presidential candidate believes that the term should be "forcible rape". Otherwise, he pretty much agrees.
The GOP party platform states that abortion should be illegal, with no exemptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. That is the current platform defining what Romney-Ryan stand for.
Think about what that means. Think of a 9 year old girl raped by her stepfather who would be killed if she carried a child to term. The Republican party shrugs. So sad. We'll send flowers to her funeral. (In Brazil, where this happened, the girl had an abortion to save her life. The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated her and her mother for this grave sin. The raping stepfather? The Church had nothing to say about that. Boys will be boys, and every sperm is sacred. )
GOP party members in Virginia believe a pregnant woman seeking a (legal) abortion should have a hard plastic object thrust inside her for a medically unnecessary ultrasound. We call that rape, too. And the list goes on.
Candidate Akin is not an anomaly. He is the honest face of the modern Republican party.
If you are voting Republican this fall, you are voting for a party that sees every woman as a walking womb that is owned by the state. That believes all women lie about rape. That if you're pregnant, you really wanted it. Or if you dressed in a short skirt, you were asking for it. That has an ancient view that a woman is either a Madonna, or a whore, and either way can't be trusted with a decision.
Kinder, Küche, Kirche.
If you are not outraged you are not paying attention.
Stop the War on Women
Updated: Andrew Sullivan pulls no punches.
Until this incarnation of the Republican party is destroyed at the polls, we live in its thrall. We have in this election an opportunity not just to re-elect a president capable of making the Grand Bargain we all need; but to punish and humiliate the most extreme, irrational, hateful version of Republicanism that now stalks the land, led by a brazen liar and fathomless cynic.
It's an opportunity of a lifetime: to use this election to try and destroy the fundamentalist insanity that has effectively destroyed any American conservatism worthy of the name. Former Republicans, Independents and all non-fundamentalists, Christians and Jews and Muslims, have a chance to excise this metastasizing cancer from our politics.
6 comments:
I am outraged. (last night on CNN International I heard a perky little blond Republican mouthpiece say that the ¨abortion¨ plank wasn´t the standard of Romeny or Ryan but only the Republican Party (she loved pointing out the difference)...sick, sleazy people (and I´ll call them any name I like)
I am outraged! I am so tired of the republican party making rules and regulations for the bedroom and none to curtail the monolithic multi-national corporations rapes of the middle class and the poor.
I'm outraged too. And worried because it's obvious too many are not paying enough attention.
Lou, in Sunnyvale CA
St. Louisan here, familiar with Akin's district and career.
Akin still has a realistic chance of winning a Senate seat.
Akin's district is comprised of the wealthiest and whitest suburbs of St. Louis, some newer exurban development which may be financially 'underwater', and a geographically larger rural area providing a significant minority of votes. The wealthy suburban voters consistently vote for the Republican (any Republican will do) in hopes of preserving favorable-to-them tax rates. The exurban and rural voters are mostly religious and predominantly conservative evangelical Protestant, with a few Catholics. These voters vote for the Republican for "moral" reasons, and often for racial animus (anyone but Obama). The "country club Republicans" speak the language of the conservative evangelicals and in many cases are conservative evangelical. Missourians tend to be publicly pious - this is a Southern (Confederate) state after all.
I think that Akin has a real chance in Missouri. Only St. Louis City and Kansas City, MO are reliably Democratic-predominant. The exurban and rural population is very strongly Republican and religious in ideology. Missouri country club Republicans such as former Senator Danforth have been calling for Akin to step down, but I see no sign that Republican and Republican-leaning voters are unhappy with Akin's recent outburst. I might point out that Akin was helped in the primary by the presence of a "right to pray in school" * amendment (amendment 2), which received almost as many votes as actual candidates received. The state vote was 85% yes, 15% no; the two urban Congressional districts, St. Louis City and Kansas City minus exurbs, voted 70% yes, 30% no, and 75% yes, 25% no respectively. Most rural areas ran 90% to 95% yes, 5% to 10% no - effectively 100% yes public opinion, since historically a significant number of voters (5%) get confused by wording on the ballot and vote opposite to their intention.
* "Right to pray in school" actually meant the right of students (and teachers, possibly) to use class time for organized spoken prayer. Furthermore, students are to be allowed to skip "religiously offensive" (my quotes) school subjects without penalty. Obviously this would include evolution, but not so obviously, the "religiously offensive" subjects include (some) history, (some) literature, and some maths. Apparently one of the bigger home schooling and Christian school publishing houses considers mathematical set theory to be ungodly (reason ?????).
Nice to see you nancy p, even if your report is very depressing.
To follow Thomas Franks, NancyP, I think you need to pen a sequel: "What's the Matter with Missouri?"
Pollsters are giving a lead to McCaskill now (vs Akin), so I *hope* you're wrong...
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