January 27^th

 Today we have a column by Cal Thomas on the issue of abortion legislation. Cal is the perfect conservative to write about this issue; he is an old (72) white male. At issue is the rebellion of republican women when faced with voting for a bill which required raped women to report that crime to police to be eligible for an abortion. It does remind one of Todd Akins’ comments about “legitimate rape” wherein he claims that the female body has ways to “shut down that whole thing.” Meaning of course if the woman fights her assailant hard enough she won’t get pregnant. Akins was leading in the polls at the time but hopeless lack of compassion, political smarts and biological knowledge lost him the election. These republican women, unwilling to support this version of Akins’ insanity, sabotaged the bill.  

Why were only women republicans this savvy politically? Is it possible that these republican women were also tired of men grabbing at issues about women’s bodies that should be left to women and their physicians? The 20 week limit proposed by this bill is based on the assumption that after 20 weeks the fetus can feel pain. The evidence for that is disputed. What isn’t disputed is that many developmental problems do not manifest themselves until after 20 weeks. The hydrocephalic fetus diagnosed at 25 weeks will, if carried to term carry hospital bills that would be unpayable even for the fabled top one percent. So why don’t our conservative friends, so concerned with “life,” initiate bills that would provide free medical care for the first five years of life for all infants? Conservatives are all for legally deciding the abortion issue as long as they don’t have to deal with any of the consequences.