5 ways the Republican party has magically removed women from the abortion debate

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I swear, if I hear one more GOP response to the Akin debacle that manages to replace the acknowledgment of women’s existence with meaningless jargon, I’m going to scream. But in the meantime, a roundup will suffice; let’s look at the ways our current Republican leadership has minimized the lives of women and other people with uteri when it comes to abortion:

1. Rape resulting in pregnancy is merely a “method of conception.” As Maya mentioned in WFR, Paul Ryan summed up pregnancy-by-rape not as a traumatizing and personal experience, but simply as a vehicle of which babies are made.

2. In fact, pregnancy from rape may not even happen! Because if Rep. Steve King has never heard of that happening, it therefore never has.

3. A health exception is just a “loophole.” Another Ryan doozy: In a debate on the House floor in 2000 when a late-term abortion ban was underway, Ryan argued that an exception protecting the woman’s health is merely a “loophole” and would render the ban “meaningless.” We repeat: This dude could be your Vice President.

4. The whole rape exception thing is just a “detail.” When questioned why the Republican Party just drafted platform language supporting a constitutional amendment banning abortion, GOP platform chair Bob McDonnell said those “details” would be left up to the states. (Though that’s a plainly false statement.)

5. Talking about these silly issues are below us.  In response to Akin-gate, Romney said this weekend: “It really is sad, isn’t it, with all the issues that America faces for the Obama campaign to continue to stoop to such a low level.” But wait a minute — aren’t abortion restrictions pretty much all the GOP have been focusing on for the last four years, leaving 55% of reproductive-age women live in states hostile to abortion access while intentionally blocking any laws that actually promote economic growth?

The GOP can distance themselves from Akin all they like, it’s not going to take away from the reality that the party and Romney (and why folks like former Florida Republican Governor Governor Charlie Christ are backing Obama) have made a very comfy, anti-choice bed of policies and rhetoric that denies women’s agency and yes, existence. In case you didn’t get the memo guys, women’s lives aren’t “loopholes.”