The Republican Party has at least 80 candidates for national office who say that if a woman is raped, she should not be allowed to get an abortion. So much for mainstream values, and so much for all the big talk about defending Americans freedom against government intrusion.
In August, MSNBCs Rachel Maddow started drawing attention to this issue, calling the GOPs group of anti-abortion extremist candidates the "Bear Your Rapist's Baby Caucus." Now, additional research, from the Little Green Footballs and Raw Story websites, shows that the caucus contains at least 80 members. In the Carolinas, Rep. Patrick McHenry of N.C.s 10th District is apparently the only candidate who thinks he should be able to decide what a woman does with her body after shes been raped.
Charles Johnson, at the Little Green Footballs blog, compiled candidates answers to a questionnaire from the Republican National Coalition For Life, a group led by longtime anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly. Her group sends out questionnaires every election season to GOP candidates, asking them, among other things, whether they are "pro-life without discrimination," meaning they dont believe in allowing any exceptions whatever to a ban on abortion. Johnson found 112 candidates who think if a woman is raped, she should be forced to have the rapists baby. Some of those candidates lost in the primaries, so the number is now down to around 80.
Some of the more prominent GOP candidates in the "Bear Your Rapist's Baby Caucus include U.S. Senate candidates Roy Blunt in Missouri; Christine ODonnell, Delaware; Rand Paul, Kentucky; Sharron Angle, Nevada; Ken Buck, Colorado; Joe Miller, Alaska; and, of course, U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachman of Minnesota.
Tea Party defenders say they represent mainstream America and are strong defenders of freedom just not womens freedom over their own reproductive system, I guess. As Maddow reported, these are supposed "small-government conservatives," but who nonetheless think "government should at least be big enough to monitor every pregnancy in the country so that all pregnant women are forced by the government to carry their pregnancy to term."