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Paul Ryan Does Not Want to Talk Rape Semantics

In 2011, Paul Ryan, along with Todd Akin and pretty much every other Republican in the House at the time, co-sponsored a piece of legislation that, in its original form, would have forbade federal funding from subsidizing abortions except when the mother’s health is in danger or in the case of incest or “forcible rape.” An outcry ensued in which Democrats and women’s rights advocates accused the GOP of trying to diminish other kinds of rape, such as statutory rape, and the wording was changed back to plain old “rape.” Now that abortion has returned to the forefront of the national political debate, the inquiring minds at CBS’s Pittsburgh affiliate tried to find out yesterday what “forcible rape” means to Ryan. The answer: Apparently nothing, at least anymore. “Rape is rape,” he told a reporter, repeatedly.

Of course, Ryan believes that abortions should not be legal for victims of forcible rape, statutory rape, or any other kind of rape.