The 2012 Republican platform didn't include exceptions for rape or incest in its opposition to abortion. That's not something most top Republican candidates for office like to remind voters—such an extreme position doesn't play well—but the fact is, it's a position many of those candidates share. Take Michigan's Terri Lynn Land. Greg Sargent offers a reminder of
what Land's endorsement by Right to Life of Michigan means:
David Malone, the executive director of the Michigan Right to Life PAC, tells me that no legislative candidate gets this endorsement unless he or she is “pro-life with no exceptions other than the life of the mother,” and unless he or she agrees to a “Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, effectively establishing personhood from the moment of conception.”
This language is detailed in the PAC’s endorsement criteria, which also require the candidate filling out a questionnaire detailing these positions.
This is something Land should be made to talk about. A lot. Personhood measures don't fare so well: Mississippi voters
rejected one in 2012.
Mississippi. Personhood bills also
failed in the legislatures of Montana, North Dakota, and Oklahoma in 2011. Voters should know where Terri Lynn Land stands on this issue.
For that matter, if Land is happy to put herself on the record about this issue when it comes to getting an endorsement from Right to Life of Michigan, she should be happy to talk to voters about it every time she's out campaigning. Right? I mean, this is an endorsement she coveted enough to not make even a polite gesture at distancing herself from Right to Life of Michigan when it attacked the teenage daughters of her Democratic opponent. She should let that personhood, no exceptions for rape or incest flag fly far and wide.