Letter to the Editor: Listen up
BY Wanda Jo Stapleton, Oklahoma City
Friday, November 02, 2012
11/02/12 at 2:40 AM
Banning abortion for impregnated rape victims has become mainstream in the Republican Party - now controlled by tea-party extremists. Latest justification for this phenomenon came from Republican Richard Mourdock, the U.S. Senate nominee in Indiana. Mourdock described pregnancies resulting from rape as a "gift from God, something that God intended to happen."
Recently, Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin explained his anti-abortion stance for rape victims. "If it's a legitimate rape," he said, "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
Vice presidential candidate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., co-sponsored a bill in Congress with Akin to explain "legitimate rape" in order to oppose federal funding on abortions for rape victims. Also, Ryan's stated belief that "life begins at conception" influenced him to co-sponsor "personhood" legislation that gives a fertilized egg the rights of a person.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has made only one ad endorsing a Senate candidate in 2012 - namely Mourdock. Although Romney says that he doesn't support Mourdock's notion that a pregnancy from rape is a "gift from God," he stands by his ad and endorsement of Mourdock.
Finally, Oklahoma's Republican platform declares: "We believe that at the point of conception, a person is granted the rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." To protect this fertilized egg-person, all abortions and most birth control would be banned.
Warning to women: Are you listening?
Editor's note: Stapleton is a former Oklahoma state representative.
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