John Avlon has a piece on the growing acceptance in the GOP of the cruelest and most extreme positions on abortion: The Palin abortion standard makes GOP inroads.

Call it the Palin Standard, the new normal creeping into Republican abortion politics—opposition even in cases of rape and incest.�When Sarah Palin was plucked from obscurity two years ago to become the VP nominee, McCain’s senior policy aides did not know that she held this extreme position, which is shared by only 15 percent of the population, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll.

Now at least six Tea Party-backed statewide GOP candidates—Nevada’s Sharron Angle, Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell, Colorado’s Ken Buck, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, Alaska’s Joe Miller, and New York’s Carl Paladino—back this absolutist stand.

That’s twice the number of GOP Senate candidates who are broadly pro-choice this year—Illinois’ Mark Kirk, Connecticut’s Linda McMahon, and Oregon’s James Huffman.� And it’s telling that Mike Castle and Lisa Murkowski—two centrist GOP candidates who were RINO-hunted in closed primaries—were both pro-choice.

It’s worth pointing out the obvious hypocrisy given the Tea Party’s views of government—it’s hard to imagine a more direct imposition on individual freedom than for the state to force a girl to carry her rapist’s baby for nine months.� It’s even crueler if that baby is her father’s child.