Politics

Here We Go Again: Another GOP Politician Says Something Stupid About Abortion

Rep. Todd Akin can breathe a sigh of relief that he’s no longer the “GOP Moron of the Day,” as Congressman Joe Walsh is the latest conservative political figure to say something offensively awful about abortion. During a Thursday evening debate, Walsh said he “absolutely” believed it’s never okay to go through with an abortion, even to save the life of the mother, as our technology is so advanced that no female has any excuse not to have the baby she’s carrying. He elaborated:

“With modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance…There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing.”

Yeah, childbirth deaths are totally a thing of the past…As noted by New York, childbirth fatality is still very much a problem in our country:

Between 1980 and 2007, 876 deaths were attributed to ectopic pregnancy. The ectopic pregnancy mortality ratio declined by 56.6%, from 1.15 to 0.50 deaths per 100,000 live births between 1980-1984 and 2003-2007; at the current average annual rate of decline, this ratio will further decrease by 28.5% to 0.36 ectopic pregnancy deaths per 100,000 live births by 2013-2017. The ectopic pregnancy mortality ratio was 6.8 times higher for African Americans than whites and 3.5 times higher for women older than 35 years than those younger than 25 years during 2003-2007.

Sure it’s rarer now than two hundred years ago, but there are a myriad of reasons why a woman would not be able to undergo a pregnancy, and we don’t need uninformed men telling us otherwise.

TAGS: joe walsh | todd akin

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