Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
They just can't help themselves. Despite GOP attempts to 'rebrand" after the 2012 election, their Tea Party radical extremists keep shooting off their mouths pursuing their misogynist war on women. Arizona's right-wing anti-abortion zealot, Rep. Trent Franks, was channeling Todd Akin (legitimate rape) in a committee hearing today. Rep. Trent Franks: Rate of pregnancies from rape ‘very low’:
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), whose measure banning abortions after 20
weeks was being considered in the House Judiciary Committee, argued
against a Democratic amendment to make exceptions for rape and incest by
suggesting that pregnancy from rape is rare.
“Before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to
make rape and incest the subject — because, you know, the incidence of
rape resulting in pregnancy are very low,” Franks said.
* * *
Democrats on the committee, including Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.),
responded by pointing to similar comments made by then-Rep. Todd Akin
(R-Mo.) in his 2012 Senate campaign. Akin suggested that the female body
can prevent pregnancy from occurring after a “legitimate rape” — a claim that is not backed up by scientific research and for which Akin apologized.
“I just find it astonishing to hear a phrase repeated that the
incidence of pregnancy from rape is low,” Lofgren said. “There’s no
scientific basis for that. And the idea that the Republican men on this
committee can tell the women of America that they have to carry to term
the product of a rape is outrageous.”
As the Post’s Sarah Kliff noted at the time of Akin’s comments, a 2003 study from St. Lawrence University actually found that pregnancy results from rape significantly more often it does in other cases.
A 2011 study from San Francisco State University
found that, in Colombia, “female youth who have experienced sexual
violence report significantly higher levels of unintended pregnancy and
unmet need for contraception and lower levels of current modern
contraceptive use compared to those who have not experienced sexual
violence.”
Can't we please rid ourselves of this embarrassing ignoramous?
Blast from the past: “Half of all black children are aborted. Far more of the
African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today
than were being devastated by policies of slavery." (Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, sponsor of House bill which would criminalize abortion services after 20 weeks of pregnancy, on February 26, 2010.)
h/t crooksandliars.com
UPDATE: From The Hill, House panel advances national late-term abortion ban:
The House Judiciary Committee sent a national late-term abortion ban to the floor Wednesday on a vote of 20-12.
The
ban is among the most expansive anti-abortion measures offered by
Republicans since they claimed the House in 2010. It is expected to pass
next week over the objections of Democrats.
And then die in the Senate.