The Republican Party swears it’s not waging a war on women, and claims to be trying to bring female voters back into the fold. Somehow, repeatedly telling women that getting raped isn’t all bad doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.
First, there was former Sen. Todd Akin’s (MO) remark about how women don’t get pregnant from “legitimate” rape. Then there was Richard Mourdock’s (IN) comments about how pregnancy as a result of a sexual assault is “something God intended.” Ron Paul (TX), who has two daughters and many granddaughters, tried to make the distinction between rape and “honest rape,” whatever that is. And let’s not forget former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who voted in favor of a bill that would allow rapists to sue their victims and called sexual assault “another form of conception.”
The latest rich, white man who thinks he knows what it’s like to be a woman who gets pregnant as a result of rape is West Virginia state legislator Brian Kurcaba.
Kurcaba, who so kindly admitted that “rape is awful,” doesn’t think that sexual assault victims should be exempt from any ban on abortions because “what is beautiful is the child that could come from” being attacked.
The rape and anti-abortion rhetoric has gotten so bad with the men in the GOP that even their female counterparts have started to revolt against them. Republican Congresswomen managed to stop a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy over its requirement that rape victims would have to report their attack to law enforcement before being exempt from the ban.
Exact statistics on sexual assault are hard to figure out because most women don’t report their attacks for a myriad of reasons. But having a bunch of men who have no, and will never have any, idea what it’s like to be pregnant (let alone pregnant as a result of rape) tell women what’s best for them certainly isn’t winning the GOP any new friends.
