A rare glimmer of logical consistency on the right

This morning, I wrote that if Republicans really believed their own “fetal pain” horseshit, they never would’ve amended their bill to make exceptions for victims of rape and incest. After all, the rationale behind the law was to protect a fetus from pain. So what difference would in make how that fetus came to be conceived?

“Imagine this all from the perspective of someone who believed every word in the original bill,” I wrote. “What you’re voting for is a law against torturing babies to death. Assuming that’s what you really believed, would you then support an exception to that law? Would you support allowing a woman to torture her baby to death, just because that child was conceived through rape or incest? I’m kind of thinking you would not. Not in a million years. It would be playing politics in an unconscionable way.”

Now Ed Kilgore offers an example of just how rare a logically consistent conservative actually is:

[Georgia Right to Life] broke with the National Right To Life Committee to oppose the “fetal pain” abortion bill on the House floor, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway:

[T]he message of the last-minute flurry from GRTL was clear, as it urged its supporters to call their member of Congress to request a no vote on the “hijacked” bill.

“What they’ve done is target a particular class of children, those conceived in rape and incest,” [GRTL spox Suzanne] Ward said. “While Georgia Right to Life has the utmost sympathy for those victims, we can’t justify murder in those circumstances.”

And surprise, surprise, one of the co-sponsors of the original House bill, Rep. Paul Broun, denounced the bill and voted against it, carrying with him another Georgia colleague, Rep. Rob Woodall.

Kilgore goes on to write that Broun’s running for Senate and is eager to shore up his wingnut bona fides. But consider the giant loophole in the bill was and consider that National Right to Life backed it anyway. They obviously don’t believe this “fetal pain” crap, despite the fact that it’s becoming a cornerstone of their movement. They just want to chip away at the right to choose, one excuse is as good as any other, and if rape and incest get a free pass… Well, it’s fewer abortions in the long run anyway, which has been the whole damned point all along — along with a court challenge to Roe.

It might be tempting to give Broun and the GRTL some credit for being consistent in their reasoning, but unfortunately that consistency either means they actually believe the anti-science hoodoo they’re pushing or that they’re supremely committed to the lie.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]