I have spent the past few days in Charleston, South Carolina. It’s a fascinating city and I might write about my visit there in a future entry. But today I have some words about a topic that was covered on "This Week" this morning:

George Stephanopoulos asked Carly Fiorina about the official Republican Party stance on abortion, which does not contain exceptions for rape and incest. Carly bobbed and weaved with alacrity. I was surprised, thinking that the question sounded wrong...that reasonable people perhaps can disagree about abortion general...but anyone with a heart would of course allow a rape victim to have an abortion...so I was thinking that the platform would in fact have such exceptions. And I thought wrong.

Has decency died? The cold-hearted "no exceptions for rape" plank of the Republican Party's abortion platform suggests that it has. The hypocrisy enveloping this "rape exception" issue is offensive in the extreme. I would bet my entire net worth that more than 50% of the people who want no exception for rape in anti-abortion laws would make precisely such an exception for their own daughter if she was raped. Anyone who says they don't want to make an exception in proposed anti-abortion laws for rape should look deep into their own conscience and ask themselves what they would do if it were their own daughter. Most know in their heart of hearts that they would not object to their daughter having an abortion if she was raped. What, then, makes them think they should be able to say that it should be illegal for every else's daughters? Absurd.

It also seems more than a bit odd that people who have never been pregnant (i.e., men) should be able to tell a woman who has just been raped that that she MUST bear the consequences of the rape for the next forty weeks, whether it be vomiting every day, multi-week bed rest, etc. And then, additional difficulties would likely ensue, whether or not the mother puts the baby up for adoption.

It turns out that McCain has a interesting past and present on this subject, and I think I know where his heart is. But McCain backers are hinting that he will NOT change the Republican platform this on this issue (if he doesn't change the platform, it will be a classic pander, and epic flip-flop; see the linked article). It will be very interesting to watch. If you do read the linked article, also try clicking on the link to video clip from a 2000 Republican primary debate.

Finally, the Republican Party's official position on abortion (which I just read) makes it clear that they are not seeking jail time for women that have abortions. Good. But what in the world is the point of outlawing something if there are no consequences for the person who requested the illegal act to be performed? Or, where is the fairness in a law that has consequences only for the doctor who performed the procedure but not for the woman who requested it? If anti-abortion folks truly believe it's murder, fine. But if it's murder, then they should be *demanding* that women and doctors both get jail sentences that are commensurate with murder. If the Republican Party's anti-abortion planks become law, I would like to see some "abortion is murder" folks try to get a doctor and nurses sent to jail for performing an abortion on a rape victim. Then the country could see more clearly the profound absurdity of such positions.