re: #2 Targetpractice

Mr. Plaats, I think you need to take another look at the GOP. Because every time it tried to “celebrate life,” it did it in a fashion that scared the ever-loving shit out of the electorate. Ask Mr. Akin or Mr. Mourdock what “celebrating life” did for their campaigns.

A very good article on that very point:

Abortion and rape: Of all the facets of the abortion debate, the most difficult ones for pro-lifers are the cases of rape or incest or where the life or health of the mother is at stake (a small percentage of all abortions). Many self-described pro-lifers are justifiably hesitant to legally require a woman who has been raped to bring the child of her attacker to term.

Todd Akin and then Richard Mourdock confirmed every wavering woman’s suspicion of pro-life conservatives when the former suggested that he understood nothing about the biology of human reproduction and when the latter contended that rape-generated pregnancy “is something that God intended to happen.” Yes, some women who have been raped have carried the child to term and wonderful people have been born as a result. But many women, maybe most, are horrified by the idea that the law could require rape victims to bear the children of the men who assaulted them. For a pair of aspiring GOP senators to utter awful comments, colossally devoid of empathy for the victims of rape, cemented the image of a party so mean they couldn’t even remember to mention the plight of the mother.

(Italics in original.)