Anti-abortion one-upsmanship will haunt Republicans in the election
Anti-abortion one-upsmanship will haunt Republicans in the election
Conservative presidential hopefuls are handing the future Democratic nominee a mighty large sword to wield against them in the general election
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The gift who keeps on gaffing. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
If 2012 was the year of Republican men saying stupid things – from “legitimate rape” to pregnancy from rape being something “God intended”– this must be the year of Republican men simply being stupid. There’s no other way to account for the complete meltdown that the party’s presidential hopefuls are having over abortion, racing to the right in a short-sighted effort to win the nomination while leaving themselves high and dry for the general election.
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When Ben Carson was asked if he supported rape and incest exceptions, Slate writer Amanda Marcotte pointed out that he claimed exceptions aren’t really necessary because women can just stop the pregnancy before it starts: “I would hope that they would very quickly avail themselves of [an] emergency room, and in the emergency room, they have the ability to administer, you know, RU-486, other possibilities, before you have a developing fetus.” Leaving aside the fact that not all rape victims are able to get to an emergency room – especially if the rapist is a family member – RU-486 is not the morning-after pill; it’s an abortion-inducing pill you take to end an established pregnancy. Perhaps a doctor should know this?
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As I find myself (almost) speechless in response to all of these men, I think Sen. Elizabeth Warren said it best: “Did you fall down, hit your head and think you woke up in the 1950s or the 1890s? Should we call for a doctor?”
It’s well-established that extreme positions against abortion simply don’t fly with American voters. Measures to give zygotes personhood rights have failed again and again, the majority of Americans don’t want to see Roe v Wade overturned, and most people believe in abortion exceptions. Jocelyn Kiley, associate director at the Pew Research Center, told me that about 75% of Americans believe abortions should be possible in the case of rape. “For and health and life exceptions,” she says, “there’s a broad majority of more than 80%.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/19/anti-abortion-haunt-republicans-2016-election
