Here’s Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan in an interview last week with a horrifyingly calloused comment about rape victims, explaining why he would force women to bear the children of rapists — because “the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.”

A transcript:

Interviewer: Abortion now… something we’re talking about and I think our viewers want to know exactly where you stand, specifically, you’re pro-life, Catholic…

Ryan: Oh yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: But specifically where you stand when it comes to rape, and when it comes to the issue of, should it be legal for a woman to be able to get an abortion if she’s…

Ryan: Yeah, well, so, I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.

But let’s remember, I’m doing the Romney-Ryan ticket, and the President makes policy. The President, in this case, the future President Mitt Romney, has exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, which is a vast improvement of where we are right now.

In other words, Ryan sees Mitt Romney’s already extreme anti-abortion positions as a good start.

Last week, Paul Ryan gave an interview in which, defending his position that there should be no excuses for abortion, he referred to rape as a “method of conception.”

Wow, right? Talk about a benign euphemism. Rape — RAPE! — is now a “method of conception.” You know, like love-making, just without the love.

There could be no greater testament to the utter abdication of responsibility by what passes for a “news” media in America in 2012 than that, despite the grotesquerie of this cavalierly callous comment, chances are better than good that this is the first you’re hearing of it.