Posted on 08/20/2012 5:17:54 AM PDT by xzins
Odious remarks by GOP Missouri Senate candidate Cong. Todd Akin about how few pregnancies result from "legitimate rape" have done more than outrage people across the country and doom Akin's bid to move up from the House.
It motivated the Romney campaign - - already trailing among women voters in recent polls - - to distance itself from Akin by assuring voters that Romney and Paul Ryan - - the "Romney-Ryan administration" - - should they win in November, would not oppose raped women's access to abortion.
"Governor Romney and Congressman (Paul) Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin's statement, and a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape," Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said.
You'd probably say that sounds reasonable and humane - - except it was just three days ago that PolitiFact devoted a lot of space to this issue and found that while Romney backed abortions in cases of incest and rape, Ryan did not.
And had been an abortion opponent throughout his entire political career - - backing an exception only when the life of the mother was at stake - - thus earning a perfect score from a leading anti-abortion organization on this basic tenet of conservative ideology and practice.
News coverage of Ryans first congressional race in 1998, as well as statements he made to the National Right to Life Committee, a leading anti-abortion group, show Ryan has taken a stricter anti-abortion view than Romney.
The only anti-abortion exception Ryan favors is situations where an abortion is needed to save the life of the mother, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The National Right to Life Committee concurs, based on information the group says it collected in 1998 and 2000 from Ryan as a candidate.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
this feels like the Lord putting the sin and crime of convenience abortion front and center. Akin needs to ride this dragon for us conservatives.
Any country which would elect a Presidential candidate who promised to use the 14th amendment as a tool to end all abortion by executive order would be a country that would not need to do so.
For a nation which would elect a Goode or a Hoefling would have already ended legal abortion, the right way, through legislation and the overturn of Roe.
The best answer to a direct media question like this is, in my opinion, something like this: “We don't have capital punishment for rapists or for men who commit incest; in fact, under current laws they'll usually be out of prison in only a few years. Why have capital punishment for the innocent baby involved?”
23 posted on Mon Aug 20 2012 07:52:23 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by GlockThe Vote: “That jerk needs to step down asap and let Steelman run and win.”
What Akin said about the physiology of fertilization and implantation in rape cases, even if true, is irrelevant to the moral issues involved. That was a dumb statement.
Now as for who the best candidate was — I live in Missouri. I've interviewed Sarah Steelman and Todd Akin. Sarah Steelman was my state senator before she was elected to statewide office.
Republican voters had reasons for rejecting Steelman and Brunner and voting instead for Akin. Among them were Akin’s strong Christian conservative position. We knew what we were getting and now we need to deal with it. You may not agree, and that's fine, but Akin is the nominee so your choices are McCaskill, Akin, or a third-party vote for a candidate who has no chance of getting elected.
How you decide is up to you.
But they do.
And judgment will not forever be withheld. For we all must stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Do you think an unborn baby is a person?
...but he has, again, moved the focus to the War on Women and forced Romney to comment on this...You say that like it's a bad thing. Why? Pro-lifers ought to know just what he believes ... today that is. And now Mitt's brought Ryan into the sewer with him.. That's the biggest tragedy of all. So maybe Christ, in a sense, was using Akin to bring forth an important message (from Him).
What pro-lifers need to do is to keep making their case with those who are on the other side or who are ambivalent. It's starting to work. American opinion, especially among the young, is moving in the pro-life direction.
On the other hand, preaching only to the choir has proved to have zero long term effect.
Not true. This is a gift for freepers like xzins to help Dummy Waterhead Schulz to find a new way to tear down Republicans.
Romney and his establishment buddies want to eliminate social conservatism from the party. That will happen if Romney is elected and knows that social conservatives will vote for him no matter what, which is what most are doing.
Stupidity and the lesser-of-two-evils nonsense is killing the conservative movement.
The Republican party can lose the White House until hell freezes over unless it nominates someone that is pro-life and opposed to the homosexual agenda.
Actually, SP, it’s a gift to Akin who just made it possible for Romney to move to the left on the issue and get away with it, furthering his appeal to disenchanted Obama liberal-lites and moderates.
He already owns ABOs. They told him: “Heart, soul, and mind, Mitty, we have no place else to go.”
Actually, SP, it’s a gift FROM Akin who just made it possible for Romney to move to the left on the issue and get away with it, furthering his appeal to disenchanted Obama liberal-lites and moderates.
He already owns ABOs. They told him: “Heart, soul, and mind, Mitty, we have no place else to go.”
Amen.
Excellent post, Kazan
“Thanks to Akin, sitetest, Romney had to go from near silence on the subject of abortion to a door cracked open in public to state his support for rape and incest exception.”
This is both false and misguided.
It's false because Gov. Romney hasn't “hid” his views on the subject. As demonstrated in the links I provided, he said in an interview to the Boston Globe in 2007 what his views were, and that he would prefer the law to allow for exceptions in cases of rape and incest. These views have been noted elsewhere, and he has affirmed them since then.
In that this is actually the position of the LDS church, it's entirely unsurprising. I suspect that this is actually as close to the real Mitt as we're going to see because my perception is that Gov. Romney is not anything if he's not a devout member of the LDS. I think he feels most comfortable expressing a public position on abortion that closely lines up with the teachings of his religion.
But if you think he's trying to hide his belief in these exceptions, that's really misguided. Rep. Akin gives him the opportunity to SHOUT TO THE WORLD that he accepts these exceptions. That's where the votes are!
Prohibiting abortion except in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother (and possibly serious fetal abnormalities) is the single-most commonly-held position on abortion held by folks in the United States.
Rep. Akin’s words didn't make Gov. Romney go from “near silence” to a “door cracked open.” Rather, Rep. Akin’s remarks were the perfect foil for Gov. Romney to demonstrate to all that he is a “moderate pro-lifer,” wishing to significantly restrict abortion, but not one of us crazy extremist, “purist” types, LOL.
It blunts the attack from folks like NARAL, who want to paint him as entirely outside the mainstream on abortion.
Far from forcing the governor to do things he didn't want to do, he probably secretly welcomed this opportunity to come out as the “good guy,” protecting women against the extremist, “purist” crazies like me! Win, win, as they say.
Video: Unimpressed. Nothing I didn't know about already, but itself leaving out many of the details, and thus making a caricature of the whole topic.
“Now we hear Pro-abortion exceptions widely disseminated.”
They were out there as far back as 2007. Just because you may not have been paying attention doesn't mean the rest of us weren't.
“Mitt will slide further left.”
Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. Neither do you.
What I DO know is that at this point, there is room for Gov. Romney on the left to slide to. I know that the Kenyan anti-Christ is already as far left on abortion as is metaphysically possible.
And since the next president will either be Gov. Romney or the Kenyan anti-Christ, my picks aren't between broken-down, double-speaking, used-car-salesman Mitt Romney and some morally-decent, intelligent, competent exemplar, but rather between broken-down, double-speaking, used-car-salesman Mitt Romney and Satan's personal representative on earth.
I'll take the used car dude.
sitetest
Your argument doesn’t seem sensible to me. Why would we expect the President’s views on abortion to correlate with how many abortions are committed in the country?
I don't have to decide because I don't live in MO and I don't know enough about the primary race to comment on what you should do directly.
But I can tell you that if ‘strong Christian conservative positions’ like abortion was the primary reason they voted for him then they should more upset than others,
This guy will the Dems poster boy for ‘free taxpayer abortions by the federal government’ and every Republican who opposes free abortions will be dragged down by his stupid comment and accused of being a 'Akin like' woman hater.
Didnt he ever hear of TV and other electric media? Did he think the interview/he was in a closed forum anti-abortion fundraiser?
It was not the main stream media who changed the subject. It was Akins.
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