Tag: Rape

This CNN video clip of Piers Mor­gan ask­ing Ron Paul about abor­tion would almost work ver­ba­tim as a Sat­ur­day Night Live skit.

Piers asks about what Paul’s reac­tion would be if one of his grand­daugh­ters got preg­nant from a rape. Paul (appro­pri­ate­ly ignor­ing the ref­er­ence to his grand­daugh­ters) responds by say­ing that if it is an hon­est rape*, the girl should imme­di­ate­ly go to an emer­gency room and he would give them a shot of estrogen.

When Piers asks if this means Paul does not believe life begins at con­cep­tion, Paul says that at that point, no ones if there has been con­cep­tion. It would seem that Paul is say­ing the fer­til­ized egg is a human life, but if one does not know whether the life exists or not, it is ok to end it.

Then Paul admits that the hypo­thet­i­cal of a rape vic­tim at the hos­pi­tal imme­di­ate­ly after the rape is not use­ful, but it was Paul that intro­duced the hypothetical.

Piers then says that although it is a hypo­thet­i­cal, it does in fact hap­pen “Peo­ple do get raped, and they do get impreg­nat­ed and some­times they are so ashamed by what’s hap­pened that weeks go by before they even dis­cov­er they’re preg­nant.” So he says the hypo­thet­i­cal hap­pens, but then imme­di­ate­ly asks about a dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion as if that is the hypothetical.

Paul responds with the hypo­thet­i­cal from the oppo­site extreme, ask­ing if a wom­an’s right to con­trol her body means “one minute before birth you can kill the baby?”

Paul men­tions respons­es he has received in the past about that hypo­thet­i­cal. Women have said “that’s not what we’re talk­ing about” and his response is “That’s exact­ly what we’re talk­ing about.”

Unless we don’t know if there is a life or not.

*hon­est rape? This is beyond by abil­i­ty to char­ac­ter­ize. Even Angry Black Lady does not try to describe how despi­ca­ble this com­ment is.** I guess it is just more com­pas­sion from the Repub­li­can candidates.

** Yes, I know. There have been times in the his­to­ry of human­i­ty when a woman has cried rape where there was none. But in the con­text of the inter­view, Paul’s inser­tion of that phrase is absurd. The ques­tion was about rape, not about false claims of rape.