The next question is who and how many traditionalists embrace these archaic perversions. Much of the political right including the Mitt-Paul duet is has fled like a herd of panicked wildebeest from the looming electoral disaster that is Akin's politically stupid, stupid outing of what so much of the right really thinks smack in the middle of the election cycle, right before the glorious GOP convention that was supposed to be all about jobs, jobs, jobs, not rape, rape, rape and abortion, abortion, abortion. And the big-mouthed idiot refuses to abandon his race for Congress (it only makes it worse that Akin has since whined that his only mistake was using the "legitimate" word, he stands by all the rest of what he said). The conservative establishment such as it is, including Romney, now want the majority of voters to imagine it is just some fringy guys and gals way over there on the hard core right who have been for treating pregnant rape victims as complicit sinning fornicators who got what they deserve. Just as they want us to pretend that the right that loathes Medicare and Social Security and always will is all set on doing all it can to preserve Medicare and Social Security for generations to come. Fortunately, before the current stampede the theocons were kind enough to leave lots of tracks of their actual opinions via recent electoral actions.
Because the rape exclusion for abortion is such a stumbling block to their ultimate goal of an abortion-free theocon utopia, the right has been slyly trying to legally redefine rape. This has forced the right to resort to three electoral "tells" that let the rest of know what they are actually up to. Earlier this year House Repubs tried to rewrite the definition of the crime when it pertains to what procedures federal tax payers will cover. Had it gone into effect then only abortions resulting from "forcible" rape could have been paid for with federal monies. This crude attempt to restrict rape to only acts that Akin and company think cannot result in pregnancy raised enough outcry that it was dropped. But the revised bill was still boorish enough to exclude pregnancies resulting from statutory rape -- that 14 year old being bounced by the 19 year old musta kinda been OK with it since her hormones or open did not reject his sperm. Every single House member of
Which, as big as it is, is an electoral minority. Over three quarters of voters want post rape abortion to be legal. Fortunately for Romney who is already facing a scary gender gap of 20+%, his Mormonism (being an outgrowth of the Protestant tradition) he has some wiggle room to allow for abortion due to rapes, and to call for Akin to withdraw. Less fortunately for him he happened to make his absolutist anti-abortion Catholic running mate choice at the worst moment as his party exhibits similarly bad timing by proclaiming that post rape abortion is a no-no. Ryan co-sponsored with Akin and others the psychopathic House bill to bar statutory rape from being a reason for poor girls to get a subsidized abortion, and favors an amendment making fertilized eggs people. Ryan -- who if he becomes Veep will be one step from the presidency he is shooting for -- is Akin in a much more politically pleasing and savvy form. One so unprincipled and self serving that he is demanding that Akin quit his Senate race even though the two of them agree on how raped women have to put up with any pregnancy that the Lord Creator saw fit to come to pass (the anti-abortion vote ratings for Ryan are actually higher, to be specific perfect, compared to Akin who slipped up a few times).
And there is the Willke-Romney tie this affair has wonderfully turned up. In 2007 the quack doctor said about Mitt's running for Prez, "Unlike other candidates who only speak to the importance of confronting the major social issues of the day, Governor Romney has a record of action in defending life. Every decision he made as Governor was on the side of life. I know he will be the strong pro-life President we need in the White House. Governor Romney is the only candidate who can lead our pro-life and pro-family conservative movement to victory in 2008." Instead of recoiling in disgusted horror Mitt replied that "I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement in our country. He knows how important it is to have someone in Washington who will actively promote pro-life policies. Policies that include more than appointing judges who will follow the law but also opposing taxpayer funded abortion and partial birth abortion. I look forward to working with Dr. Willke and welcome him to Romney for President."
The anti-abortion movement IS a faith-based war on women, one that echoes the more extreme cultural wars on women being waged in many traditional religious 2nd and 3rd world countries. And it is not just a man against women thing. Many American females, Phyllis Schlafly (who is backing Akin) being the leader of the pack, are all for keeping themselves and their sisters from being full sovereign citizens. I have heard theocon women happily state that they want their government to protect them from the choice to have an abortion lest they succumb to the terrible temptation. It is all too similar to how so many women are actively striving to limit their own rights in
It is not possible for women to be first class citizens if the culture and their government treat them as lacking sufficient mature judgment to decide how to handle their reproductive activities before and after impregnation. All the more so when nonchaste conservative men are free from the pernicious slut charge, and don't have to fret about whether or not to continue their pregnancy whether accidental or criminal in origin. Not when getting pregnant would constitute evidence that the man she charged with the crime was not guilty. Open access to contraceptives and safe and legal abortion is a fundamental liberty that a nation must honor if it is to be truly democratic and prowomen.
The real problem is not that the Republicans are working towards banning abortion outright as much as many of them want that. Despite decades of hysterical theocon propaganda and agitation, a Pew poll this year found that half of Americans think the Dems best handle the abortion issue, a third the Repubs. If abortion actually became illegal so many women would turn against the GOP that the issue would become an electoral albatross on the national a scale, rather than the regional fund raising goldmine and base motivating machine that the issue as long as it remains technically legal. The real problem is how access to what is a constitutional right is being effectively denied to a growing portion of the population as many hundreds of laws are passed to "regulate" it out of practical existence in as many places as possible (much as blacks' constitutional right to vote was denied to most of them in the south by voting "regulations," a project being revived in the form of suppressing voter "fraud"). In southern
The best thing about the Akin fiasco is that it is a huge national learning experience. It is giving a heads up to a lot of uninformed folks about just how barbaric and venal the anti-abortion zealots truly really are. It will never be their twisted little under the radar secret again. Until now the right has given most of the nation the impression that they want a post rape abortion to be a criminal murder because of their concern about the little life. Now that they have been outed we all know they also think that women who cry rape to get an abortion are ungodly sluts. The right wing war on women is correspondingly less deniable. Hopefully it will help wake up millions to how the anti-women movement has been succeeding in slyly succeeding in denying abortion to millions. The theocon project has worked because progressive women have been slack in organizing and especially in voting for prochoice candidates especially of the female variety. There is reason to think that Akin has done more than anyone in decades to get a lot of women madder than hell and get the electoral job done. It could be that Akin has lost the election for a party that should sail into the White House and capture the Senate on the back of a slowly recovering economy. Stopping the theocons can happen if women get to the polls to defend and improve the ability of women to safely control their own bodies. If progressives sit on their hands they will be inviting the theocons to use the law to run their lives.
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