INCONCEIVABLE! (and I do know the meaning of the word)

Todd Akin & now my own state’s Tom Scott remind me of little children who tell friends of their parents what Mom & Dad think about their breath or their ne’er-do-well son or dumb blond daughter – true, it’s what Mom & Dad really think and openly talk about at home, but it’s NOT what they want brought up in public and especially not to the people they’re talking about.  Both rush in with all sorts of assurances to their friends that they NEVER said what little Dick or Sally said they did.

Todd Akin & Tom Scott are small potatoes compared to Paul Ryan, who remains crystal clear in what he believes -  rape (and, it follows, incest) is just another form of conception.  Natural methods, invitro, rape - all, to him, equal methods of conception.  

At the moment, Congressman Ryan is doing what Mom & Dad with their offended friends – assuring America that he NEVER meant for the term “forcible rape” to imply that there is a lesser form of violent assault.  We’re assured that the term was just “stock language” – that “rape is rape.”

Rape is rape.  That sounds very forceful.  

The caveat that Paul Ryan does NOT include is that because it is as valid a method of conception as intimate relations between loving partners, rape - any rape - would not be grounds for terminating any resulting pregnancy.  Conception is conception.

Congressman Ryan says that his opinion about the right of a woman to have an abortion if she has been raped is of no consequence because the presidential candidate is Mitt Romney & only the presidential candidate’s views matter.  

Except for two things:  a) according to no less than Grover Norquist, all the GOP asks of their president is that he have enough working fingers to sign into law whatever bills PAUL RYAN gets passes,  and b) the vice president is always just a heartbeat away from becoming chief executive; his views matter immensely – his views are THE reason Gov. Romney selected him as his running mate. 

  

Gov. Romney took a pummeling the other day for implying that a woman’s health could be an acceptable reason for terminating a pregnancy.  What are reasons that a woman’s health might be endangered even if she is not in imminent danger of dying?  If she has cancer – pregnancy typically accelerates the growth of cancerous cells and precludes treatments such as chemotherapy.  Sometimes simply carrying the child can put the woman’s life in possible danger (hence, the doctor who tells a woman she should not get pregnant for her own health).  To Paul Ryan, none of these reasons would be sufficient to terminate a pregnancy – a life is a life, unless it is the woman’s. 

Maybe Congressman Ryan doesn’t grasp that the reason behind rape is not sexual desire but control.  And what better control of a woman than to not only assault her, then have her carry your child.  Here in Pennsylvania, rapists have visitation and custody rights of a child born out of the rape.  What more exquisite sense of controlling the woman’s life to the end of her days than to be part of her child’s life?

I watched Paul Ryan explain that rape was simply another method of conceiving.  He dropped his head down ever so little & lifted his eyes up ever so little, the very image of the trustworthy public servant.  And I tried to remember who he reminded me of.  

A bit of Diana Soencer, but that wasn’t it.  

Where have I seen that look before.  And then it came to me – Charles Boyer’s murderous husband in Gaslight, trying to convince the wife he tried to drive insane that his motives were pure, that the gallant man who’d saved her in the nick of time was the one she should not trust,  that she knew in her heart that she could fully trust him, no matter what he’d said or done in the past.  It was inconceivable to the audience that she might fall for such false assurances. 

It’s inconceivable to me, now, that the American public might fall for Congressman Ryan’s assurances.  He’s made it clear – rape is another valid method of conception and, at least in his mind, all rapes are the same, ergo not a valid reason for aborting a pregnancy.  Forget the sincere, sensitive, compassionate expression - follow the logic.

Congressman Ryan, you said, “Rape is rape.”  Well, sir, allow me to say to you in return, “Bunk is bunk!”