Though Mitt Romney has said he supports allowing abortions in the cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger, Republicans drafting the party platform approved language this week that opposes all abortions, with no exceptions. And the one-time top Republican country thinks that's a big mistake.
On The Ed Show, former RNC chair Michael Steele called the plank "a breakaway from what the Republican platform has traditionally said with respect to abortion."
"A vast majority of Republicans across the country, very strong, pro-life Republicans, as well as pro-choice Republicans, have always accepted the idea of the exception with respect to the life of the mother, rape, or incest," added Steele, who has failed to toe the party line numerous times since his tenure as RNC chief ended in 2010.
"The timing, in my estimation, could not be worse for the Romney campaign, and for the RNC going into this convention," Steele added, saying that it creates a "noise level" that distracts from economic issues.
The Republican platform, if adopted, would say that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," without carving out exceptions for rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is threatened. Romney has said he supports rape, incest, and life-of-the-mother exceptions, but he backed the party's 2004 and 2008 platforms, which, like this year's, contained no exceptions.
Steele also criticized current RNC chair Reince Priebus for saying that, with regard to abortion, "this is the platform of the Republican Party; it's not the platform of Mitt Romney."
"What the chairman said really doesn't make sense in light of the reality and the facts," Steele said, adding that Romney is "the nominee of our party. You're telling me that he's going to walk into that convention and snub his nose at the planks?"
"This platform, you're not held by chains and irons on it. It is a working document, it is a living document for a lot of activists around the country. They expect their nominee to adhere to as much of it as possible, and I think you've put Mitt Romney in a very difficult position," Steele said.
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Is are all kinds of ugly positions hiding in the cracks and crevices of the republican platform. Shine a light on them and they all go running like cockroaches.
My very thoughts, exactly. If Romney goes before the nation and says the very opposite of what the party's platform is, then how relevant is he to the party? It's like the party is saying, " He's our candidate, but he speaks on his own, he doesn't speak for the party". How does that make any sense? Please, please, please- let Romney and Ryan be grilled every single day about where they stand on this issue- because they can't have it both ways. Either they support a woman's right to abortion in case of rape and incest, or they don't. And if they say they do, then grill them about Ryan's support of the bills that state absolutely NO EXCEPTIONS. No more lies. Grill them- hard!
And ask about the TAXES everyday!!!
I can't wait to watch this convention. I just hope I can sit through all the BS without throwing something at the TV! LOL
I hope a Hurricane takes and washes all the bastards out to sea,,,,,
LOL..Good one BIGBEAR
I'd pay big dough to see that! Maybe if they get washed out to sea they'll end up on some desert isle, never to be heard from again.
So here we have the Republican Platform. They have been screeching about jobs and the economy to the press but but passing anti- female legislation the has nothing to do with jobs, etc. All the Republicans are still screeching about jobs, etc., but their platform is about when a person's life begins. BS!
don't understand why msnbc got this implant pos steel as a consultant?
he is responsible for most damages inflicted to Americans and their families by little george 'war criminal' bush!
and he has been defending rotten and retarded in their attacks on women!
and mormons such as rotten mitten oppose contraception or abortion because they just want to impregnated as many defenseless women as possible and force these women to carry their maggots.
that's why rotten mitten's granddad fled to mexico, evaded the laws of the USA, and continue to screw as many helpless women there as he could!!!
what a very sick family history!!!
The more I learn about Ryan, the more I realize he is nothing but an arrogant, self-important prig. What is wrong with Americans and American women in particular that they put up with someone who dictates behavior and limits FREEDOM. If I was a woman, there would be no way in hell that little prig or some red neck yahoo would tell me what to do with my body. It is time to stand up to these one-sided, self-righteous unempathic moralists.
Ryan is indeed a scary guy. Even though economists have shot his 'budget' full of holes, he still clings to it. His god is money and his patron saint is Ayn Rand ("The Virtue of Selfishness").
I think things could be worse for Romney. And they're going to be. Wait till the debates.
I can't wait to see what Saturday Night Live does with them.
Me, too! I love the stuff SNL does to those bozos!
Hey Chris, if Romney gets in will we have to live under Rommunism?? :)
It won't really be considered living. More like surviving.
no abortion... no exceptions.... and no help
Minnesota House DFL minority leader Paul Thissen is calling for Duluth Rep. Kerry Gauthier to end his campaign for reelection to the Minnesota legislature after his sexual encounter last month at an interstate rest stop.
Gauthier, a Democrat, was questioned by police on the evening of July 22 at the Thompson Hill rest area off Interstate 35, where he met a 17-year-old boy for sex.
The two arranged the meeting on Craigslist, and the teen admitted he had told Gauthier he was 18 when responding to the post from the 56-year-old state lawmaker
How many bills have the repugnicans introduced on social issues and trying to repeal health care reform versus the number of bills they have introduced to address the economic and financial issues????????? There words don't match their actions.
Aw remember christi we are never to ask about how the GOP will improve America after all they are only asking us to give them total political power.........asking Romney and the GOP is a distraction.......naturally lying about Obama or his record is not......'cuz that's honest and fair........
Pretty funny how a GOP person like Akin says something as bad as it was which ok lets face it he looks like a dumb ass but in case you all forget Joe butthole Bidens comments.....seriously Put yallback in chains in mainly a black audience seriously if that would have been any person from the GOP it would have been slavery this and slave that racist but becuse it is a liberal its ok right good god hold everyone to the same standerd, If you think for three seconds this country is better today then four years ago wrong as dumb as Bush was I had a job....... by the way I do have a college degree and Bush's eight years looks like heaven right now....just a little hint to every news reporters maybe you all should jump off the richard and do reporting that is just the truth not your personal agenda thats all news so ED don't get your panties in a knot but seiously you all should quit swinging on one side or the others nuts just report and let us use our brains....... Peace out
Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum Agreed that Black"families" were better off during slavery-
Santorum "I don't want to make black people's lives better"
Rick Perry-"@!$%#head Mountain"
Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 5:21 And he had caused the acursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and bdelightsome, that they might not be centicing unto my people the Lord God did cause a dskin of eblackness to come upon them.
You guys really don't want to go there on race, do you?
The idea a comment like this is racist on the part of the individual who said it falls, like the rest of your post, flat on its face. I've seen nothing to show Biden was talking to a majority black audience so back that claim up if you wish to make it. However it's irrelavent because the metaphor he employed is logical. His message is that less wallstreet regulation that romney promises is not going to help the average person, that we will be shackled with the consequences of duplicitious stock traders gambling away commercial money and carrying out criminal schemes. Anyone who would insinuate this is a racist comment is an idiot. Rick Santorum made a similiar comment and tea party politicians bring up slavery on a semi-regular basis right now. There was no outrage when Santorum had his "chains" comment and was the appropriate response. This is no different.
The entire idea that Obama/Biden would need to attract the black vote is also idiotic......NBC/WSJ poll plaes Obama with 94% support to Romney's 0% not enough to even be a whole percentile scale.....McCain got 4% and GW received 11% so it is clear the democrats have no need to pander specifically to this group as Romney must do to his own base because most of his supporters don't trust him.
You should re-examine a desire for another GW style presidency since you should be but, likely don't, remember the consequences. More GW policies so we can have a repeat of W's last two years in office? That's saying you had a great plane ride........and then plane crashed near the airport would you say had a good flight since most of the you weren't crashing....oh yeah the whole crash part is damn important to story now isn't it
Reality is unless we are losing jobs every month than we are doing a bit better to the tune of 4 million new jobs. One can argue it is not fast enough but it is not like '07-'09 to deny that is pure fiction. The economy fell so bad under Bush it didn't finish bottoming out until after he left office, that was the extent of the damage.
And what have the republicans been doing to fix that for all this time? It's like Romney plan for economy, nothing. They promised they were done with wedge issues and were about jobs and the economy but as we can see they've delivered nothing but abortion bills and failed attempts at debt/defecit reduction. The tea party was allowed to succeed in threatening the full faith and credit of the united states hurting the nation, just as they intended.
Last Ed is not a reporter, he is a commentator that means his job is to give his opinion about stories.
Duck!..It's a BS attack!
What is missing from all of this is a challenge on the claim of people who are anti-legal-abortion that they are Pro-Life. Are they? Is there a Republican platform eliminating the death penalty? Are there platform planks that support the poor and sick? Are there platform planks reducing defense spending and stopping the war? Are there platform planks about eliminating assault rifles? No? Then you are not "Pro-Life" and we give others a BIG pass when we let them use that word.
No one is "Pro-Abortion" - it has no fans. But it is a medical procedure that should be safe, legal and affordable like other medical procedures. Want to reduce the number of abortions? Then COVER contraception - don't make it unaffordable. Teach birth control not abstinence.
The Personhood amendment removes all control over women. But it also is bad law. Identical twins start out as one fertilized egg. So one legal person turns into two or more? What law is needed for that....
The platform is the policy that Republicans put into law. This talk is not a distraction - it is key. And more people know it. But not most new personalities who refer to this as a distraction. It is not a distraction - it is a key issue. Vote Republican and lose your freedoms and rights.
Remember that standing ovation they gave Rick Perry when he talked about all the executions he had to oversee as governor? How would you deal with an unknown presumably financially broke man in a comma......let him die says the crowd. Guess we're lucky the crowd wasn't running for president. The GOP is no longer the party of lincoln or civil liberty it is now the party of "let him die" and Limbaugh.
Looks like the GOP is just fine taking from middle and lower class families with their rhetoric until it has to apply to them. That's why it's strange that so many people like Akin want personhood citizenship laws and have kids through artificial pregnancy methods like invitro. In fact I think I remember hearing that Akin himself has a kid that happend through invitro and Mitt Romney has grand children through the technique that their rhetoric would make illegal.
They don't even believe they should live under their extremist babble, you know how the house has voted 30 times to repeal obanacare and thus its provisions that people like and that congress already has. The dems said if they wanted to get rid of these thngs for the people of the country they should get rid of it for themselves....the GOP voted to take our added security and keep their's. For shame. Outrageous.
On the specifics of the personhood bill and identical twins I would think they wouldn't count it as one life then that just would be silly but it is a clever point. I also think there is one part of this fertiization is the beginning of life thing which we aren't talking about at all. By that I mean if the law says fertilization is the beginning life, that once a sperm penetrates and commences cellular division that it becomes a person that is not scientific. That redefines pregancy because we have to remember pregnancy begins when the cell penetrates and anchors itself in the uterus just because an egg is fertilized does not mean that a pregnancy will occur. So if a zygote is a living person what happens when the cell is removed naturally in the women's body via the menstral cycle? Is that killing? The women and anyone else doesn't have to have anything to do with that it's just chance 'cuz that's how things work. It happens on its own so does that mean a women's vagina is a natural born killer?
Joanne, Well said!
Well, until the males start shooting fully formed humans into the uterus, I am pro-abortion to a certain length of time, since the cells have to evolve into a human being............Hey! wait a minute, I didn't know the GOP believed in evolution!
Kae - You have hit it! Most of them believe only in Creationism, thus the lack of belief in science.
The ultra-right wingers absolutely love this guy, and Ryan as well. Both are cut from the same mold(y) form. The incedible thing about Akin's totally insane and inane biological views is that this man is on the Technology/Science committee in Congress.
michael steele's head says it all!
this dude is more slippery than eels...
he slips thru anything...
so perhaps a reinforce eel trap will bag this dude?
MSNBC has it right. They hire a former leader of the opposition to tell how they think. This is a form of war and we have someone who can tell how to beat the enemy. We need to hear him in order to fight the enemy.