By R M Austin
It is a measure of the nature of the current presidential campaign that at the very moment when the celebrated Augusta Golf Club was announcing the admission of female members for the first time, one of whom is the former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, the media should be lit up by the unfortunate comments of the Congressman from Missouri, Todd Akin. He, like a number of Republican Congressmen, hold extreme views on women’s reproductive rights. Aiken said in an interview last Sunday that “legitimate rape” does not lead to pregnancy. The furies have been pursuing him ever since, in spite of his attempts to apologise. Thankfully he did not repeat on this occasion his well-known view that the American government should compel rape victims to carry pregnancies to term.
A combination of women’s rights groups, members of his own party, and an array of commentators have given him no peace. Poor Congressman Akin. He really thought that he would have gotten away with these remarks because for the longest while fringe political characters and outrageous policy proposals outside of the mainstream seemed acceptable to the Republican Party and the American people. But there seems to have been a correction here. One can only hope American politics is at last moving to the centre.
But if there are intellectual authors of this catastrophe it is some key members of the Republican Party who have allowed it to drift well beyond the mainstream without lifting a finger to put an end to this dangerous trend. And here the candidate Mitt Romney himself and his vice Presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, are not without sin. I have already written that it is clear that Romney will do anything to get into the White House. I am confirmed in this view with every passing day. Romney has taken progressive positions on women’s issues but it was clear during the primary campaign he was prepared to make a shift to the right to secure the nomination. Now he is firmly and unalterably pro-life and has committed himself to defunding Planned Parenthood, which is so critical to women’s reproductive health.
His vice-presidential nominee is opposed to women’s rights. Paul Ryan has co-sponsored legislation under the infamous Sanctity of Life Bill which would have denied women all their established reproductive rights, including the right to contraception. One aspect of this Bill needs to be particularized. It would have given a fertilized egg the same rights as a person, outlawing all forms of abortion and some forms of conception, such as in-vitro fertilization. Thankfully this Bill never became law and even such arch conservative states as Colorado and Mississippi found the ‘personhood‘ idea too much to stomach.When both Romney and Ryan issued a statement condemning Akin’s remarks it fell on stony ground. It was evident to all that the Congressman’s views were not that different from Romney and Ryan’s. One shakes one’s head in wonder at these extreme positions which all but seek to overturn a settled consensus on women’s rights in the Western world.
It is a puzzle why Romney would select as a vice-presidential candidate someone who would make the entire ticket vulnerable on women’s reproductive rights when there were other candidates who could have brought greater balance to the ticket because they hold less extreme views on women.
Paul Ryan may well have to spend a lot of the remaining period leading to the elections explaining his views on women. This will be trouble for him. David Stockman, who knows a thing or two about economics and budgets, has dismissed his plan for the economy in an article for the New York Times entitled ‘Ryan’s Fairy-Tale Budget Plan‘ as “devoid of credible math or hard policy choices.” And Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize laureate, was equally dismissive, calling it “…a triumph of style over substance.” Romney may have lost Paul Ryan on economic matters. He certainly will on women’s’ rights. To round out Paul Ryan’s problems for the ticket was the discovery last week that he was taking Mr Obama’s money after he had fiercely attacked the Stimulus Bill.
But the Republican Party now finds itself on the horns of a real dilemma as result of Congressman Akin’s unfortunate remarks. They have brought into the light the secret war which has been ongoing for a long time by Republican legislatures against women. Nothing has delighted the Democrats more. It has allowed them once again to take the spotlight off the poor nature of the economy and refocus it on an area where the Republicans are decidedly vulnerable.
The Democrats have not wasted time. They have sent messages (there is a digital war going on) via the twittersphere and the blogsphere that the Republicans do not care about women. This has been reinforced by statements in the traditional media. It is hard for the Republicans to mount a credible defence, so extreme are their views. It may be pertinent to observe here that the Republicans, especially their representatives in Congress, are very uneasy about the issue of women. To most of them the mere idea of gender equality seems unsettling.They have blocked an Obama administration plan to give women equal pay for equal work. The result is confusing or illiterate remarks. In the meantime the ‘gender gap‘ between the Republicans and the Democrats has widened, and it is said that on the issue of women’s rights President Obama is leading Mitt Romney by fifteen points.
When Romney entered the race for the White House he promised that his campaign would focus on the need to repair the American economy and the urgent need for jobs. Paul Ryan has kept him off message because of his Medicare proposals. There has been nothing but a debate on this issue over the last two weeks. Now Todd Akin has spoilt the party by saying that legitimate rape does not lead to a pregnancy. The firestorm this has caused will make sure that Romney will have to wait a while before he gets his debate on the economy.
It is now an open question whether the crudity and insensitivity of the Republicans will drive most of the women, especially in the battleground states into the arms of the Democratic Party. This is an uncomfortable question to face on the eve of the Republican convention which opens on August 27 in Florida.
