In a historic move this week, Uruguayan President José Mujica has signed into law a bill that waives criminal penalties for abortion in the first 12 weeks of gestation, with certain procedural requirements, and in the first 14 weeks of gestation in the cases of rape.
The law marks a significant development in realizing women’s human rights and preventing unsafe, clandestine abortions in the region.Read more after the jump.
© 2012 Reuters
A huge development on the women’s rights front.
I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, diving headfirst into controversy with the above remarks on abortion, just weeks shy of Election Day. Mourdock was asked to explain his views on abortion by a questioner during his final debate against Rep.Joe Donnelly, and Libertarian candidate Andrew Horning. All three of them oppose abortion rights, but neither Donnelly or Horning went quite so far — Mourdock’s policy position on this issue, setting aside his highly incendiary language, is in step with the GOP’s party platform, though not with the Romney campaign’s recent claim of support for rape and incest exceptions. source
Walsh said he was against abortion “without exception,” including rape, incest and in cases in which the life or health of the mother was in jeopardy.
Asked by reporters after the debate if he was saying that it’s never medically necessary to conduct an abortion to save the life of a mother, Walsh responded, “Absolutely.”
“With modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance,” he said. “… There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing.”(via Walsh, Duckworth clash on Medicare, abortion - chicagotribune.com)
From a practical policy standpoint, firebrand Rep. Joe Walsh’s “no exceptions” attitude is in step with the GOP’s party platform, though out of step with the Romney/Ryan ticket’s newfound claims to support such rape and incest exceptions.
Yeah, he’s getting investigated for ethics violations. Apparently, doctors aren’t allowed to sleep with their patients (original story here).
The above Romney campaign mailer has been releasedin Virginia, bearing this rather counter-intuitive slogan on the front – as CNN’s Peter Hamby observes, the language is straight out of what you might find on, say, a flier in support of abortion rights. The Romney campaign is anything but supportive of those rights, however. As the inside of the mailer reveals, the slogan seems to serve as a politically clever appropriation of left-wing rhetoric on women’s health, applied to the right’s battle to repeal the Affordable Care Act. source
Some context: 1) The revelations stem from a recently-obtained phone transcript; 2) the congressman, Scott DesJarlais hasn’t denied the allegations (he did that annoying politician non-denial thing, calling it a “desperate personal attack” but not actually addressing whether or not the charges are true); 3) DesJarlais used to be a doctor, and met the woman when she came to him for treatment; and 4), he’s currently leading his Democratic opponent in the polls. source
Akin, who has until Oct. 15 to report his quarterly fundraising figures, was in Washington on Wednesday for a series of fundraisers. But his campaign was again beset by remarks he made about abortion — this time, as video of a 2008 speech Akin delivered on the House floor was recirculated online.
In that address, Akin equated abortion providers to terrorists and suggested that it was “common practice” for them to be “giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant.” On Wednesday, Akin’s critics sought to link the remarks to his “legitimate rape” comment, which he made while explaining his opposition to abortion.
Someone get this man to a human anatomy class, stat.
The National Review ran a magazine cover in which they Photoshopped signs at an Obama rally to read “ABORTION” instead of “FORWARD” as they originally did.
The top image shows the October 1, 2012 cover of “National Review” magazine.
The image at the bottom shows another photo taken at the same rally.
When Photoshop is used for evil.
Through Obamacare, the current Administration has promoted the notion of abortion as healthcare. We, however, affirm the dignity of women by protecting the sanctity of human life. Numerous studies have shown that abortion endangers the health and well-being of women, and we stand firmly against it.The 2012 GOP platform • Laying out the party’s official position on abortion rights, which RNC chairman Reince Priebus sought to distance from the Romney campaign last week. As had been reported in the days leading up to the platform’s release, it includes no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, but this was the first glimpse of specific language – claiming a protection of the “dignity of women,” and referencing health risks from abortion, albeit in an entirely non-specific manner (to be sure, any medical procedure has some degree of risk involved, but scientifically unfounded claims about abortion and breast cancer have been common for years). source (via • follow)
He advised me that it would be good for me to step down. I told him that I was going to be looking at this very seriously, trying to weigh all the different points on this.Rep. Todd Akin • Discussing the phone call the embattled Missouri Senate candidate took from Paul Ryan recently, urging him to quit the race after Akin made controversial remarks on abortion. Despite reports that he would quit, Akin chose to stay in the race, ignoring a deadline to drop out. However, Akin, who will not go to Tampa for the convention, said he will not apologize for the fact he’s pro-life.
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» The party is to the right of their top dog on this one – though Mitt Romney’s political positions on abortion have been rather fluid over the long haul of his political career, the campaign’s most recent statement is that his administration would not oppose abortion, in cases in which the woman is pregnant due to an act of rape or incest. The platform committee is helmed by Governor Bob McDonnell, former VP hopeful and Romney surrogate, and is tasked with adopting the party’s official policy positions, in advance of the GOP convention in Tampa.
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Dr. Willke is a leading voice within the pro-life community and will be an important surrogate for Governor Romney’s pro-life and pro-family agenda.A statement from the 2008 Mitt Romney presidential campaign • Lauding the endorsement of Mitt Romney by Dr. Jack Willke, the former president of the U.S. National Right to Life Committee, and a vocal advocate of a certain theory about rape and pregnancy that got Rep. Todd Akin in hot water this week. Subsequent to Akin’s big fail on reproductive biology, the Romney campaign of 2012 has gone to great pains distancing itself from the Missouri congressman – Romney himself turned up the heat in the days following the remarks, condemning Akin and urging him to withdraw from his Senate race. As the quote above illustrates, however, the Romney campaign was undeniably pleased to receive the endorsement of Dr. Willkes four years ago, who pioneered his belief that rape victims rarely become pregnant in a book all the way back in 1971. source (via • follow)
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Missouri Rep. Todd Akin said in a Sunday interview. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Akin, who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill in November, then claimed that even if these biological mechanisms don’t work, the perpetrator, not the child, should be punished. Kind of tough to defend that.
UPDATE: Akin has apologized for the comments.
The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.Rep. Paul Ryan • Speaking to The Atlas Society back in 2005 about Ayn Rand, the late novelist and philosopher. It’s important to remember that promoting Rand’s Objectivist philosophy is the primary mission of The Atlas Society, and politicians are occasionally known to tell a crowd what they want to hear. In Ryan’s case, though, his fondness for at least some of Rand’s views (she was an adamant atheist, as well as agressively and unapologetically pro-choice) is no secret — back in 2003 he told Reason magaine that he tried to get his staffers to read her work, and handed out copies of her laissez-faire free-market novel Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents. In recent years, though, perhaps sensing the reputational trouble her views posed for him when taken in total, he’s qualified himself, distancing from her stridently anti-faith stance. Whatever you may think of her philosophical outlook, politically speaking, her views are intensely heterogeneous. In a political reality driven by polarization and fealty to party platform, that’s a quite dangerous thing. source (via • follow)
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