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To Republicans, women are simply the sum of their parts
To Republicans, women are simply the sum of their parts
The GOP's adoption of an anti-abortion platform is further indication of a party that has no clue about reproductive life
Ana Marie Cox
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 August 2012
There's no doubt that Todd Akin's stunningly misguided understanding of female anatomy, as seen in his claim that raped women can't get pregnant, represented yet another instance of the Republican party's estrangement from science. But the GOP's refusal to grapple with facts goes beyond biology: there's some very basic mathematics that they appear ignorant of as well.
The polling showing just how unpopular the party's official anti-abortion position (adopted by the platform committee this week and identical to the policy that Akin tried to use junk science to support) is as follows: just 20% of Americans believe abortion should be "illegal in all circumstances", compared to 25% who say that it should "always be legal" and the vast majority – 52% – who say that it should be "legal only under certain circumstances".
You can make the party's official position compatible with the more moderate view of the actual Republican candidates only with a kind of magical thinking. This was well put by the party chairman Reince Priebus earlier this week: "This is the platform of the Republican party. It's not the platform of Mitt Romney." Ta da! Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain. Hey, look: there's Ann!
Ann Romney and 14 other women will speak at the Republican national convention (where the platform will be officially adopted) – almost half of the full list of those invited to address the gathering. But those women dress a campaign stage on which actual female elected officials are outnumbered by men about 10 to one, a gender gap that probably doesn't alarm Republican political operatives so much as the equally stark gap that exists in the polls. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/23/republicans-women-simply-sum-parts