Aiken's rape views are mainstream in the GOP

Recall in the last post Todd Aiken's views on rape. Republicans are condemning him in droves as if he's some kind of anomaly. But not so. He's actually in line with typical regressive views on rape. Rachel Maddow, in her usual and inimitable style, reports on this. The facts are as follows. James Leon Holmes, former President of the Arkansas Right to Life group, headed a state amendment to ban all abortion, even when it threatened the mother or was the result of rape or incest. He too has this infantile notion that women cannot get pregnant from rape. Dubya Bush gave him a lifetime appointment as a Federal Judge. Clayton Williams is a former gubernatorial candidate of Texas. He thought that as long as rape was inevitable one may as well "just relax and enjoy it." It does on.

In 1988 Stephen Freind, a long-leader of the Pennsylvania House wanted to criminalize abortion even for rape victims arguing that the odds from getting pregnant from rape are in the millions. Why? Because the trauma of rape causes a woman "to secrete a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm." A former State representative in North Carolina, Henry Aldridge, also think the abortion should be a crime, including for rape victims, because during rape "the juices don't flow...and they don't get pregnant." That requires "cooperation."

She goes on and on with numerous other examples, up to and including Romney and Ryan, so please see the link. These notions are far from the fringe of the GOP; they are standard agenda items for regressive cave men who want to take us back to a time before science and women's rights. They are however smart enough to know that if they admit this it won't play well with most women (those with brains, which is most women) so they denounce the likes of Aiken. But underneath the bluster they go right along with this agenda and with only enact it further it they remain in power.

Update: note that the 2012  GOP platform calls for a federal ban on all abortion, including for rape and incest victims.