AR-Sen: Boozman’s Radical Proposals Include the Right to Protect Rapists

In addition to repeatedly hitting Rep. Boozman over the head with positions he’s taken that are very unpopular with Arkansans (and, more importantly, completely go against the best interests of the people he’s been elected to represent), we got the third and far more stinging, wing of attack from Team Lincoln near the end of the debate.  Though it was clumsily handled by the incumbent senator during the debate, the facts behind the bill were sent out by Lincoln surrogates immediately following the debate: John Boozman’s extreme pro-life posturing actually led him to vote for a measure that would protect rapists over the rights of their victims.

Lincoln campaign manager Steve Patterson had this to say following today’s debate:

“In his decade spent in Washington, Congressman Boozman has built a radical record standing with D.C. party leaders, but not his constituents in Arkansas…he doesn’t even know his own voting record putting the rights of rapists over the rights of victims. Congressman Boozman’s radical ideas are out of step with the majority of Arkansans.”

From Lincoln’s website:

Boozman Supported Parental Rights for Rapists. In 2005 during debate on a parental notification bill, Boozman voted against a motion to recommit the bill to committee and include instructions barring fathers who have committed rape or incest against a minor that resulted in a pregnancy from being able to sue the doctor who performed the abortion. [Congressional Quarterly Today, 4/27/05; HR 748, Vote 143, 4/27/2005]

In plain English, the instruction was to prevent a situation where a father who raped and impregnated his minor daughter was nonetheless able to cash in with punitive damages against a doctor who performed an otherwise legal procedure to terminate the pregnancy that only existed because the father had raped his minor daughter.  Boozman was against such an instruction; one assumes he would prefer to let rapist fathers have their day in court if he thought it might result in fewer abortions.  However laudable his goal — and I think even those of us who are pro-choice would agree that reducing the number of abortions should be everyone’s goal — this particular attempt to reduce them carries corresponding consequences that are borderline sociopathic to impose upon a minor victim of rape and incest.

It will be interesting to see how Boozman decides to respond to this new line of attack, how much Lincoln’s camp will continue to hammer him with it (e.g. will they take it to the airwaves as part of the larger “radical ideas” narrative?), and what, if any, effect it will have on Lincoln’s deficits in polling numbers.