Via: Daily Kos: Straight Talk on South Dakota?.
John McCain, that self-styled "maverick" of Republican politics, continues to try to have it both ways, this time on the politics of abortion and specifically, the South Dakota ban.
A spokesperson said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would have signed the South Dakota legislation, "but [he] would also take the appropriate steps under state law — in whatever state — to ensure that the exceptions of rape, incest or life of the mother were included."
Well, Senator, the problem is that the South Dakota bill specifically ruled out exceptions for rape or incest, allowing only an exception for the health life of the mother, and by golly, the women of South Dakota were damned lucky to get that. I guess it’s small comfort to know that their own lives rate just a little bit higher than a fertilized egg.
McCain has tried in the past to distance himself from the Party of Dobson, but the allure of those hard-core, dedicated votes just keeps bringing him back.
And McCain isn’t the only one.
Virginia Sen. George Allen’s (R) chief of staff, Dick Wadhams, a national GOP strategist, said Allen "has consistently supported the rights of the people in their states to pass laws which reflect their views and values."
A spokeswoman for Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) said that if Romney were the governor of South Dakota, "he would sign it. [Romney] believes that states should have the right to be pro-life if that is the will of the people."
Just to be clear, here is what McCain, Romney, and Allen are associating themselves with:
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls "convenience." He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother’s life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.
BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
Ah, the Sodomized Virgin Exception, a la Digby (if you haven’t read the post, you really must). If you’re not a sodomized (and religious, as many commenters have pointed out) virgin, well then you’re deserving of a forced pregnancy. For anyone else, well an abortion would be a convenience.
How comforting that, now that we seem to have an anti-abortion majority on the Supreme Court, all the major GOP Presidential contenders are also pandering to, or actual members of, the divinely-inspired anti-woman caucus. McCain is trying to be seen eating his cake and pointedly tipping it in the trash after taking a little taste, too.
Hattip to McJoan.