Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great

An op-ed in the Baltimore Sun explains that the Republican war against birth control continues, quietly:

Mr. Romney was acknowledging something more. He implied an opposition to the birth control pill and a willingness to join in their efforts to scale back access to contraception. There are code phrases to listen for - and for those keeping score, Mr. Romney nailed each one.

One code phrase is: "I fought to define life as beginning at conception rather than at the time of implantation." The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines pregnancy as starting at implantation, the first moment a pregnancy can be known. Anti-abortion advocates want pregnancy to start at the unknown moment sperm and egg meet: fertilization. They'd also like you to believe, despite evidence to the contrary, that the birth control pill prevents that fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. …

The American public is unaware of the new wave of anti-contraception activism by opponents of abortion, which makes it much easier for politicians to appease the anti-contraception base. Take, for example, President Bush. While he has delivered some big anti-abortion victories for the religious right in the last seven years (Supreme Court Justices John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr., and the so-called partial-birth abortion ban), anti-contraception work has taken up more of his energy. He attempted to strip contraceptive coverage for federal employees; appointed anti-birth control leader David Hager to the FDA panel that approves and expands access to contraceptive methods; chose another contraception opponent to oversee the nation's contraceptive program for the poor; defunded international family-planning programs, and invested unprecedented sums into sex-ed programs that prohibit mention of contraception.

You gotta love these Republicans. For years, they railed against welfare recipients breeding like rabbits at the expense of hard-working Americans. So we put limits on welfare. Made people go to work. Fair enough. There were plenty of good reasons to reform welfare.

But now Republicans, who once bemoaned that poor people kept popping out babies, would deny them the means to prevent those pregnancies in the first place. Oh, sure, the poor can practice abstinence. Like Newt Gingrich. Or David Vitter. Or Rudy Guiliani. (Unless you believe that he and Judith Nathan had a purely platonic relationship while they were wrecking Rudy’s first—oops, I mean second—marriage.)

The party of a president who once said that government is the problem, not the solution, wants the government to strip you of your right to decide when--and if--to have children, and how many to have. It just doesn't want the government to pay for them once they are here.

(Thanks to Jason for the tip and my Python-inspired headline.)

How could we possibly forget?

Boy, am I glad I didn't see this exchange this morning. I might have thrown up my breakfast:

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Republican presidential contenders sparred over abortion on Sunday but generally agreed the United States must remain in Iraq as part of the war on terror.

"Just come home," countered Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the lone dissenter on a debate stage when it came to Iraq. He said there had never been a good reason to go to war in the first place.

"Has he forgotten about 9/11?" interjected former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

I can appreciate how the governor feels. I'll never forget the rage I felt when all those Iraqis piloted those planes into the World Trade Center, and then Saddam Hussein threatened to unleash his weapons of mass destruction if we dared to retaliate.

Seriously, I'm glad Mitt Romney said that. It's proof that you can be a wingnut Republican and still get elected governor of one of the most liberal states in the nation. And to me, it's another reminder just how scary this field of Republican contenders really is--and how stupid they think their fellow countrymen are.

(If two unscientific online polls are to be believed, Ron Paul cleaned everyone's clocks. Click here and here.)

A Grand Old Party

Boy, the Republicans sure have a bumper crop of presidential candidates. Mitt Romney thinks pardons and commutations are bad--unless you are Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. And Fred Thompson, while serving as the Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel, leaked to the White House that the committee knew about President Nixon's taping system. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for both items.)

Meanwhile, John McCain has secured the endorsement of former Homeland Security Secretary and Pa. Governor Tom Ridge. New Republic blogger Jason Zengerle can't understand why the McCain campaign is making such a big deal out of this in New Hampshire:

Are there a substantial number of Pittsburgh ex-pats now living in Concord?--I don't really know how this sort of thing helps McCain. Of course, it probably doesn't hurt McCain, either, which is maybe the best his campaign can hope for at this point.

Hell, there are Pittsburgh ex-pats everywhere. But I hardly think Tom Ridge is the way to their hearts.