King Is Not Wrong About Rape and Incest Exceptions

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, spoke at the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale on Wednesday morning. I, unfortunately, am rarely able to attend that event.

I did not hear about King’s comments until my wife and I were out for lunch and she pointed out The Des Moines Register headline that read, “U.S. Rep. Steve King: If not for rape and incest, would there be any population left?”

That, of course, sounds bizarre and outrageous when taken out of context which is what The Register‘s headline does. Now, King is using hyperbole to make a point about the impact denying the right to life to those conceived in incest and rape could make. Now if only The Register would report on every time a Democratic presidential candidate going through Iowa uses hyperbole, but they don’t.

It’s probably larger than we think. I’m confident that it is.

His point is that these children have value, intrinsic value, that should be protected.

Going back and listening his speech and the full context, King discussed the heartbeat abortion ban that Iowa passed, and then talked about his own efforts in the U.S. House of Representatives, in particular, when he was asked to allow an amendment to his fetal heartbeat bill allowing exceptions for rape and incest.

He discussed his and the 174 co-sponsors’, who signed on to the bill without that amendment, opposition to that language.

“I had 174 people who did not want exceptions for rape and incest because they understand it is not the baby’s fault, to abort the baby, because of the sins of the father, and sometimes the sins fo the mother too, I refused to do that. I just kept pushing the pressure up. We had the votes in the judiciary committee to peel off every amendment, put that bill on the floor, and pass it on the floor. I put the marker down that exceptions are not going to be part of the dialogue any further because this is about the sanctity of human life,” King said.

And so I refused to do that down to the last couple days of our lame duck session, the word came down out of leadership – ‘no mark-up, no floor action,’ and boom. And so, all right, I held the ground on principle, maybe we could have gotten that to the floor if I compromised, it wasn’t going to move through the Senate anyway, and we still stand on these principles of life,” he added.

“We know the reasons why we don’t want the exceptions for rape and incest – at least for the most of us – because it is not the baby’s fault. And I started to wonder about this, what if it was ok and what if we went back through all of our family trees and just pulled those people out who were products of rape and incest would there be any population of the world left if we did that? Considering all of the wars, all of the rape and pillage that has taken place, whatever happened with culture after society, I know that I can’t certify that I know I’m not part of a product of that,” King said.

“And I would like to think that every one of the lives of us are as precious as any other life, and that is our measure. Human life cannot be measured. It is the measure itself against all things are weighed. Human life, there’s not a qualifier there, it doesn’t matter whether you are one day after conception or one day after birth or one day before your 100th birthday all life has equal value according to the law and equal value according to God,” he concluded his remarks on abortion.

He is right. King is absolutely right. Human life’s value cannot be weighed based on how one is conceived or what stage of life a person is at.

Pro-abortion advocates and the media who support them will blast this assertion or any remark about exceptions regardless who makes it. Conservatives should not.

I have no problem criticizing Congressman King for remarks that he makes that I believe are wrong and I have done that on several occassions. This is not one of those times.

His full speech courtesy of The Register is below. The embedded version should start at the beginning of his abortion comments.