The “Show Me” State Shows the Way

Deborah Venable

08/25/12

 

The irony of this week’s political uproar shows just how far this whole country has drifted into the darkness of ignorance, the squalor of moral relativism, and the absurdity of American politics. 

 

Todd Akin, Republican candidate for Missouri’s Senate seat, previously unknown by most outside his state (and perhaps many Missouri voters) has made a name for himself now with a clumsy answer to an inquisitive Sunday morning local show host in St. Louis.  Pounce!  It was a mad rush for cameras, microphones, and keyboards all over the American media – and it hasn’t stopped yet.  The “in-depth, probing” question simply asked for a clarification on the staunchly pro-life Akin’s view on possible abortion exceptions – in this case namely, rape. 

 

Did I forget to tell you that candidate Akin is staunchly pro-life?  To most of us who understand what pro-life really means, it is a no brainer question.  If one feels that abortion is wrong and should not be legally sanctioned, there are no exceptions.  None.  No other issue needs to be brought into it.  If you arrive at a staunchly pro-life stance using logic and reason, throwing in the zinger of rape, incest, or threat to the mother’s life makes NO difference.  How can it?  It doesn’t change the fact that abortion is the taking of a human life.  Period.  This isn’t a radical stance at all – it is a consistent one.  Radical is thinking that the baby had anything to do with the circumstances of his conception.  Radical is thinking that abortion can make anyone feel better about a horrible crime such as rape having been committed in the first place.  Radical is thinking that abortion serves any purpose in promoting women’s health.  Radical is the misnomer of “choice” to replace abortion. 

 

Radical is a lot of things, but “stupid” is trying to justify protection of innocent life with a convoluted theory that was espoused and even taught in medical schools forty years ago, and in doing so letting your tongue slip around your eye tooth so you can’t see that “legitimate rape” doesn’t belong in the same sentence with such an explanation.  Stupidity.  That is what Akin is truly guilty of and nothing more.  Protecting innocent human life should never be viewed as radical, but that is what it has become.

 

I have been extremely disappointed in the words and attitudes of many people whom I normally admire on the right while commenting on Akin.  It seems they just allowed the left to write the script on the whole matter, and came up with one main goal – protect the party at all costs.  Actually this had the potential to cause the Democrats and the liberal media to do much damage to themselves if prominent Republicans and much of the conservative media had chosen to stay off the record on this one.  The left does it all the time. 

 

No, I am not naïve or uninformed about how important it is for Republicans to regain the Senate – and I do know exactly what a disaster Missouri’s current Senator McCaskill has been and will continue to be if she wins the race.  However, whether or not Mr. Akin was the most qualified opponent running against her in the primary, he was the one chosen, and what he said did not disqualify him.  He was just stupid to go into such a convoluted explanation to answer such a simple question, but politicians do that all the time. 

 

Technically it is rare when pregnancy results from a rape, (not because of the old trauma theory) but there are many folks alive today that would not have been if they had been sentenced to death because their fathers raped their mothers.  How do you think some of these people feel while listening to this garbage being blown up all over the country?  I am appalled that the question of exception is ever asked of a pro-life person myself, so why am I the radical or extremist?

 

I am tired of exceptions being made to what should be hard and fast rules.  If you are convicted of murder, rape or treason, then you are executed.  No exceptions for the fact you are obviously insane or young or make a deal for a lesser sentence.  If abortion is outlawed, then no exceptions for it - because it too is murder.  That isn’t an extreme or radical view.  It is simply a consistent one.  

 

Had Republicans chosen NOT to pile on Todd Akin, this serious social issue might have gotten the attention it deserved in a much more realistic light.  Had Todd Akin simply answered the question with another one (“How is murdering an innocent baby justified?”) the whole exception issue could be better discussed on the battlefield of ideas. 

 

The Show Me state could still show the way to a better understanding of what it means to actually stand for something.  Will it show us that political correctness and feigned outrage rules better than common sense, or will it show us that consistency still counts more toward political character than carefully scripted oratory?

 

 

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