Republican Iowa Rep. Steve King is widely despised in Washington for his typically frank manner of speaking on a number of controversial topics — and this week has been no exception.
After King made some controversial statements about abortion and the products of rape and incest on Wednesday, a number of top Democrats and even a few Republicans called for King’s swift resignation.
King sparks controversy
The Des Moines Register reported that this latest controversy began following a speech that King delivered to the Westside Conservative Club at a breakfast event in Urbandale, Iowa.
King’s remarks came as he defended his tough stance on the issue of abortion: he doesn’t stand for exceptions to a ban on the life-ending procedure for babies who are the products of rape or incest. King maintains that the innocent unborn children shouldn’t pay the fatal consequences for the admittedly terrible fashion in which they were conceived.
With this in mind, King alluded to the copious amounts of rape and incest that have occurred throughout human history, wondering aloud how much of the world’s current population would actually exist if all of the prior products of rape and incest were to suddenly vanish.
An uncomfortable thought experiment
“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” King asked. “Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages taken place and whatever happened to culture after society? I know I can’t certify that I’m not a part of a product of that.”
King went on to insist that an unborn child who is the product of incest or rape, as terrible as that conception might be, is no less of a person than any other child conceived between consenting adults, and therefore deserves the same level of protection under the law.
“It’s not the baby’s fault for the sin of the father, or of the mother,” the congressman said.
Stepping down?
Of course, those comments were immediately taken out of context, twisted into an insinuation of support for incest and rape, and then slapped into outraged clickbait-style headlines that prompted an immediate outpouring of condemnation against King for his valid — if inartfully expressed — point.
While there were some establishment Republicans who reflexively issued condemnations of King, Breitbart reported that most of the furious fire and demands for King’s resignation came from the pro-abortion left, including a number of Democrat presidential hopefuls, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, and former Texas Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke.
To be sure, nobody is defending — much less advocating or condoning — the horrible acts of rape and incest that sometimes lead to conception, not even Rep. King.
Instead, he and others are focused on the innocent products of those uncivil acts, and are advocating for them to be protected the same as any other precious life still in the womb.