The media, for some reason, is reporting unquestioningly Paul Ryan’s statement during the vice-presidential debate last night that he supports a rape and incest exception to abortion ban.
NO HE DOESN’T.
Here’s what he said last night:
“Our little baby was in the shape of a bean, and to this day we have nicknamed our first born child, Liza, ‘Bean’. Now, I believe that life begins at conception … those are the reasons why I’m pro-life. Now, I understand this is a difficult of issue, and I respect people who don’t agree with me on this, but the policy of a Romney administration will be to oppose abortion with the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”
No. No. No.
Paul Ryan co-sponsored a federal ‘Eggs are People Too’ Personhood Bill. That means a ban on abortion without exception, as well as a ban on certain forms of contraception (the pill, IUDs) and a ban on IVF (which is how one of the Romney brood conceived their spawn, by the way.)
Paul Ryan lied yesterday. He lied. And the media that continues to report this lie is complicit in it.
[read full post at ABLC]
Jonny Scrum-half
I don’t see how that’s a lie. He described the position “the Romney administration” would take, not the position that he’s taken in the past. He’s the VP candidate, not the head of the ticket.
There are enough real issues to argue about without making stuff up.
In any event, I’ve thought about how to discuss issues with people who support the Republicans. I’ve concluded that my argument is going to be short on specifics, and instead I’m simply going to state that I can’t believe that anyone would even consider putting Republicans back in power after what happened during Bush’s term.
Mike in NC
Yeah, whocodanode?
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
These people don’t care what the truth is. It means nothing to them. They say whatever they think will help them most at that time. I don’t understand how people can live like that, but they do. I don’t get how anybody can go through life without any morals or decency at all, but they seem to do it. That they tout themselves as these upright arbiters of what’s right and wrong, while we’re bestial, hell-bound scum makes it all the more galling.
guachi
Surprised Biden didn’t point out that Romney supports a person-hood amendment and that would mean no abortions. Period.
Also, I said in comments yesterday that we’d see Romney over 50% in the ‘now-cast’ on 538. I was off a bit. He’s at 43.9%, his highest ever. He’ll probably be over 50% tomorrow, however as he gained 9.1% in one day.
It isn’t that I don’t think Obama will win the election, it’s that I think his horrid performance will cost the Dems House and Senate seats that were otherwise winnable.
northquirk
@Jonny Scrum-half: Ryan was asked to describe how his faith as a Catholic influences his political views not the position of the Romney administration. His answer is at best evasive.
What I really don’t understand though is how exactly a policy that only allows abortion in cases of incest, rape, or the health of the mother would actually be regulated. Would it be a new jurisdiction of federal law enforcement? A special form you have to fill out? Would it be determined state-by-state? As a policy analyst, I just don’t get how this could be effectively administered, which is completely separate from the issue of how incredibly shitty the impact of such a policy would be for women who would might try to get an abortion in these circumstances.
Steve
Romney and Ryan are liars through and through, but I don’t think I buy the argument that the policy of an administration is determined by every bill the vice-president once co-sponsored.
danimal
Not sure this is a lie. I think Ryan’s principled “eggs are people, too” position is just different than Mitt’s “I am
pro-choicepro-life but don’t really mean it except when I’m being a severe conservative” abortion position. IOW, the two have different positions and Ryan was proclaiming Mitt’s position as it exists today.Gretchen
I noticed that he couldn’t bring himself to say “health of the mother”. He has previously called health of the mother exceptions as big enough to drive a truck through, and he doesn’t approve of them – that’s on videotape, and said in an incredibly callous way. If carrying out a pregnancy would wreck your kidneys, or worsen your lupus, or delay your cancer treatment, too bad. I know in his heart he doesn’t approve of life of the mother exceptions (except of course for women he knows and cares about – that’s different), but he’s on videotape saying he doesn’t care about her health.
Yutsano
@Gretchen: Well now why should he care? After all if Invisible Sky Daddy had wanted the mother to be healthy during the pregnancy He would have made it so right? Why sacrifice the precious snowflake for the mother?
Redshift
@Jonny Scrum-half:
Romney has also explicitly endorsed the personhood amendment. (In at least one of his nine different positions on abortion, that is.)
If we accept that “the Romney Administration” could have a position different from that of both its presidential and vice presidential candidates, we’d basically have the same sort of amnesia most of the media have.
Smiling Mortician
If anyone is in need of a Friday evening “chill the fuck out” resource, I suggest electoral-vote.com, where you can scroll down and see some reasonable, reality-based numbers on post-VP-debate opinion polling as well as the latest presidential swing-state polls and senate polls. Note that although swing states are close, the OMG-Romney! polls are mostly the usual suspects — and the senate looks as strong as it did before the latest National Democratic Panic. Not seeing any evidence to support the “Obama killed the senate!” narrative.
Yutsano
@Smiling Mortician: Away with your facts troll! People are trying to get their emotional freak-out on here!
PS: tease for Southern Beale: Corker is BARELY winning Tennessee there!
Smiling Mortician
@Yutsano: My bad. I’ll go light my hair on fire and come back later.
Waynski
Goddammit! This Etch-a-Sketch is fucking broken!
Mnemosyne
@guachi:
And yet all of the Dems who are in tight races are doing just fine, with no movement in the polls after the debates.
So you can unshit your pants about that one.
Mnemosyne
It always amazes me how nonchalant guys are about the fact that, if a personhood law or amendment is passed, most forms of the birth control pill will be banned.
Have they just not thought through the fact that they will never be allowed to have sex without a condom ever again because if there’s no Pill, no woman who doesn’t want a child immediately is going to let them into her vagina without a condom?
Waynski
@Mnemosyne: Well, if you’re a man and you’re a Democrat, it’s occurred to you. Republicans can’t think that far ahead.
BillinGlendaleCa
@Mnemosyne:
No.
SATSQ
ETA: I got me a new touch screen monitor today, me having fun.
The Republic of Stupidity
Oh dear Lord…
If Ryan’s LIPS move, he’s lying…
His entire performance last night was one big lie, from start to finish…
Devastating cuts to our military? Cuts he VOTED FOR?
The unraveling of the Obama foreign policy?
Clearly he worked w/ Frank Luntz on this…
He did deliver his sound bites PERFECTLY…
fuckwit
wait, didn’t the eggs are people policy get included in the rethug platform?
if it did, then ryan is LYING.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Elections have become nothing more than something to be milked for entertainment value. Romney could show up at the next debate dressed in a toga while wearing a laurel wreath and the media would gush that his costume demonstrated that he’s ready to lead. Ryan could deliver a stump speech dressed as Richard III and spend twenty minutes screaming “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” and the media would insist that his performance showed that he’s strong on defense.
John
@Mnemosyne:
I’m going to suggest that this is because nobody really thinks that the pill is ever going to be banned. I would guess this is right because, well, there’s no way that the pill is ever going to be banned.
Mnemosyne
@John:
Uh, you mean other than the laws that right-wingers are trying to pass to get it banned?
Yes, all us silly wimmens should sit down and stop fretting over silly things like losing our access to contraception. I mean, we can easily get an abortion instead if we need one, right?
Waynski
@John: Unintended pregnancies for people with money has never been anything but a minor inconvenience. Throw the doctor a thousand extra bucks and it’s done. Get it through your head, the moneyed classes will hang on to power by any means necessary, which includes fiddling to the snake handling rubes. That some poor women will die in a back alley is merely collateral damage to this crowd, if that’s what it takes to maintain control. I know these people. Wake the fuck up.
Joey Maloney
@Waynski: @Mnemosyne: Well, if you’re a man and you’re a Democrat, it’s occurred to you. Republicans
can’t think that far aheaddont give a shit since their preferred sex partners are prepubescent, farm animals, or both.FTFY with malice aforethought.
cmorenc
If there are to be exceptions for “rape, incest, and life of the mother”, who is the gatekeeper who decides whether the woman qualifies for one of these exceptions or not? What evidence must a woman provide the gatekeeper in order to qualify? How much discretion does the gatekeeper have to deny the validity of a woman’s claim despite nominally qualifying criteria?
Matt McIrvin
@Gretchen:
That’s conservative-movement orthodoxy; any Republican who supports health-of-the-mother exceptions ends up in trouble from the pro-lifers, because it’s generally accepted that that’s tantamount to legal abortion. Which, of course, is an excellent argument for legal abortion, but that’s not how they see it.
In fact, this is potentially a great wedge. Democrats should draw them out on it in debates.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Well, there was an idea that if Obama were really rocking hard, his coattails could swing the House to the Democrats. But it was always a pretty long shot.
Matt McIrvin
@John: They probably won’t really ban birth-control pills nationally. They can very well make them harder and harder to obtain in jurisdictions where social conservatives are really powerful. This already happens with emergency contraception which basically is the same thing as the Pill. For that matter, it happens whenever Planned Parenthood clinics get driven out of some area, because that’s a major place where people get them.
ed
Mike Huckabee point blank asked
Mittens if he supported a Personhood Amendment.
Mittens answered, “Absolutely.” Team Obama should mention this at every convenience.
Also, too, “severe conservstive.”
Splitting Image
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t agree with this. Obama’s positives have actually risen substantially over the past few months, the debate notwithstanding. Keep in mind Obama is not very popular in a lot of the country, and his approval was lagging at around 40% or so for most of the last year. It’s now over 50% for the most part.
If anything, Obama’s troubles are probably more likely to help Democratic turnout at the House level, since if there is a real threat of a Romney presidency it is absolutely vital to put Nancy Pelosi back in the speaker’s chair. Especially for women, since the G.O.P. reps can’t keep their hands off their ladyparts. For months people have sounded the alarm bell that Democrats were crowing too loudly about Romney’s likely defeat and not concerning themselves with the House and Senate. That dynamic has now changed.
It may still be a longshot to flip the House, but I think Pelosi’s chances are as good as they have ever been. We’ll see.
Spike
@Waynski:
FTFY.
Spike
@Joey Maloney: Your FTFY trumps mine.
elftx
Has anyone else seen where it appears he lifted the “bean” story from Kurt Cobain?
I get the feeling this is a person that has tried repeatedly to fill in for the lost father figure and just pulls crap out of thin air to do it.
Gretchen
You mean the bean story is like the marathon story? Where did you see the Cobain bean story?
elftx
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/11co0y/paul_ryan_gives_the_story_of_how_his_daughter_got/
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Well, that’s their problem, isn’t it? Certainly not the man’s.
Reminds me of the complaints I hear from Middle Eastern, female friends, about the number of guys who expect to be able to have as much non-marital sex with as many women as they want, but still fully expect the girl they marry to be a virgin on their wedding night, and the same for their sisters and daughters et al.
ABL
@fuckwit: Yes, it did.
elftx
cmorenc Says:
If there are to be exceptions for “rape, incest, and life of the mother”, who is the gatekeeper who decides whether the woman qualifies for one of these exceptions or not? What evidence must a woman provide the gatekeeper in order to qualify? How much discretion does the gatekeeper have to deny the validity of a woman’s claim despite nominally qualifying criteria?
Abortion Panels !!!
Matt McIrvin
@Splitting Image:
I’m the opposite: until recently I was mostly funding Congressional races because I figured Obama had a really good chance of winning. But I was probably much, much more obsessive about polls and political news than most Democrats.
stratplayer
Soon enough they’ll be coming after the seed-spilling Onanists among us.