GOP Senate Candidate: Pregnancy from Rape Something "God Intended"

Republican candidates are for the most part trying very hard to hide their extremist agenda from voters and women in particular.  The GOP party platform calls for nothing less than the outlawing of abortion and the sharp curtailment of the availability of contraception..  The latter goal is beyond insane and, in fact, will only assure that the number of unwanted pregnancies increase.  Fortunately, GOP candidate for the U. S. Senate in Indiana, Richard Mourdock (pictured at right), has reminded everyone of what the GOP agenda - war on women if you will - is really all about: even if a woman is raped, she is expected to carry the unwanted child and "get over it."  Her situation is "God's Will."  Yes, it horrible batshitery, but that IS today's Republican Party all the way down from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan who support the overturning of Roe v. Wade and defunding of Planned Parenthood, to the lowest level GOP extremists here in the Republican Party of Virginia.  These folks are in many ways the face of the Christian Taliban in this country.  CBS News has coverage on Mourdock's pronouncement for women,  Here are highlights:

In a Tuesday night debate with his Democratic rival and a Libertarian candidate for one of Indiana's U.S. Senate seats, Republican candidate Richard Mourdock suggested that pregnancies resulting from rape are "something that God intended to happen," despite the "horrible situation" from which they derived.

Mourdock, a Tea Party-backed candidate who beat longtime moderate Senator Richard Lugar in the state's Republican nominating contest earlier this year, expressed his view that "life begins at conception" and that he would only allow abortions in circumstances in which the mother's life was in danger.  .  .  .  .  "And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.

While to the right on Lugar with regard to issues relating both to reproductive rights and others, Mourdock's stance on abortion is hardly an anomaly in the Republican party. His comments echo similar remarks made by former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a staunch pro-life social conservative, while he was still in the midst of a bid for the White House. 

At the GOP convention in Tampa this year, the party approved a platform with language calling for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. The language, which is the same as in the party's 2004 and 2008 platform, did not provide exceptions for victims of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.

Romney, who has endorsed Mourdock, recently appeared in a campaign video on behalf of Mourdock, and campaigned with him in Evansville, Indiana, on Aug. 4. Paul Ryan, who, like Mourdock, opposes all abortions except to save the life of the mother, appeared at an open press funder with him on Sept. 17.

As I have tried to tell long time Republicans, today's GOP is NOT the party of past decades.  It has turned into something extreme and is the antithesis of what the party once stood for.  These Republicans need to hold their noses and vote Democrat and send a message that extremism is the route to the political wilderness or at minimum, minority party status.