Griper Blade: Which Abortion Position Will Romney Finally Settle On?

Party platforms are mostly BS. They've become a way for political parties to throw the base a bone. The GOP had a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage nationally as a plank, for example, but this never became a serious effort. They took on the "problem" state by state, in a way that attempted to maximize GOP voter turnout.

So it's tempting to dismiss reports of a certain plank in the GOP's 2012 platform as red meat for the chumps. We''ll call it "the Todd Akin plank."

CNN:

The Republican Party is once again set to enshrine into its official platform support for "a human life amendment" to the Constitution that would outlaw abortion without making explicit exemptions for rape or incest, according to draft language of the platform obtained exclusively by CNN late Monday.

"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

This runs counter to Mitt Romney's supposed position that abortion should be legal in instances of rape -- I say "supposed position" because Romney swaps policy stances as often as he changes his socks...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]