Burning, Acidic Lemonade
by digby
They’ve always believed this, it’s just that until now no cruel sadistic theocratic political “leader” had the nerve to say it out loud. Now they have permission:
While much of the 2010 election is focused on the economy, there’s another issue quietly simmering which underscores a shift in the Republican Party: abortion. Specifically, an increasing number of GOP candidates — especially ones receiving heavy support from the Tea Party movement — not only oppose abortion, but want to bar women who have been victims of rape or incest from having access to the procedure.
Dianne Edmondson of the Republican National Coalition (RNC) for Life told The Huffington Post that there are absolutely more candidates this election cycle opposing abortion without exceptions. Each election cycle, her political action committee, founded by Phyllis Schlafly, submits questionnaires to GOP House candidates about their positions on choice issues and then endorses candidates who advocate a strict no-abortion platform. “I know that we have many more candidates responding to us this year than we did in the last election cycle — probably about three times as many — and I’d say at least half of them do meet that criteria,” she said. “The rest are pro-life to one extent or another.”
RNC for Life has endorsed 63 House candidates who are “pro-life without discrimination” and heading into the general election. Edmondson pointed to Bill Flores (TX-17), Stephen Broden (TX-30), Rocky Raczkowski (MI-9) and Sandy Adams (FL-24) as especially exciting candidates to watch. Incumbents endorsed by RNC for Life include Michele Bachmann (MN-6), Jean Schmidt (OH-2) and Duncan Hunter (CA-52).
The candidates getting the most attention, however, are on the Senate side: Sharron Angle (Nev.), Ken Buck (Colo.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Joe Miller (Alaska), Christine O’Donnell (Del.) and Rand Paul (Ky.). All of them oppose abortion even in cases of rape and incest.
Angle received significant national attention in July when she advised young rape victims to make “a lemon situation into lemonade” — the “lemon situation” being the rape and the “lemonade” being giving birth to, and raising, the child. Buck has said, “I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest” and backs a constitutional ban on abortion. The progressive group Campaign for a Strong Colorado held a press conference on Tuesday with rape and incest survivors who oppose Buck’s stance. “Ken Buck is in a luxurious position of not seeming to care of the permanent impact of rape can have on a woman’s life,” said one rape survivor at the event.
Even several high-profile gubernatorial candidates such as Carl Paladino (N.Y.), Bill Brady (Ill.) and Nathan Deal (Ga.) hold these views.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has prominently backed and helped launch some of these conservative candidates this election cycle, so it’s perhaps not surprising that this position on abortion is one she helped elevate. In 2006, Palin said she opposes abortion in all instances except when a mother’s life is at risk. “I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society,” she wrote in response to an Eagle Forum Alaska questionnaire, “we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.”
But they do condone forcing a 14 year old girl to gestate her rapist father’s child inside her body for 9 months and then face the prospect of either giving it up for adoption or raising her own sibling as her child. Maybe in Sarah Palin’s family that’s not a big deal, but most of these little girls will be scarred for life. (As will rape victims of all ages.) But hey, these girls and women have to take responsibility for their actions. After all, if they’re old enough to get raped and pregnant, they’re old enough to make their own lemonade.
This, by the way, is a perfect example of the Overton window in action. Every capitulation to their position brings a further move toward outright prohibition. As these people come to national prominence, watch the polls move on this question, now that the wingnuts and fools have been given permission to think this way.
Here’s a good primer on the right’s ongoing anti-choice campaign on rape and incest. It’s usually cast as the “two wrong don’t make a right” argument but they have a newer more clever line of nonsense that says forcing girls to bear their father’s child is the compassionate thing to do. This way they don’t have to bear the stigma of abortion (which, if they have anything to do with it, will be severe and painful.)
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