West Virginia Republican says Rape can be "Beautiful"

GOP's Brian Kurcaba

I never cease to be amazed by the batshitery that comes from the mouths of today's Republicans.  It's little wonder that so many of us Republicans of yesteryear have fled the GOP as it has become one big insane asylum.  The key ingredient to the party's descent into insanity?  The rise of the Christofascists within the party.  What began as a slow grow cancer has now metastasized.  How else to explain the statement by West Virginia Republican Delegate Brian Kurcaba who says rape is "beautiful" when it results in a child.  Perhaps in the crazy world view of the likes of Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, Victoria Cobb, and Tim Wildmon, but not for those of us who live in touch with objective reality.  The Raw Story looks at this batshitery which increasingly is the norm for Republicans who see women as some sort of chattel property of men:

Republican state lawmaker in West Virginia said on Thursday that while rape is horrible, it’s “beautiful” that a child could be produced in the attack.

According to Huffington Post, Charleston Gazette reporter David Gutman was on the scene when Delegate Brian Kurcaba (R) said, “Obviously rape is awful,” but “What is beautiful is the child that could come from this.”

Kurcaba made the remarks during a House of Delegates discussion of a law outlawing all abortions in the state after 20 weeks’ gestation. At 20 weeks, anti-choice activists and lawmakers allege, a fetus can feel pain and is therefore too viable to abort.

The bill was passed by West Virginia Republicans in 2014, but vetoed by Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin. Now the state GOP has revived the bill and voted to remove an exception for victims of rape and incest.

Kurcaba’s remarks echo a string of embarrassing statements by Republicans regarding rape and women’s bodies. 

In 2012, Missouri’s Rep. Todd Akin said that pregnancy can’t result from rape because “If it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said that while sexual assaults are unfortunate, the resulting pregnancy is a “gift from God.”

Republican leaders convened an emergency meeting in 2013 urging the rank and file to stop talking about rape altogether lest it further alienate women voters, who have been abandoning the Republican Party in droves.

Nonetheless, Kurcaba — a financial advisor who was elected in 2014 — appears eager to bring discussions of rape back into the dialogue about women’s access to reproductive health care.

Here in Virginia, Republicans are seeking to pass a similar law with no exception for instances of rape.