The GOP has scarcely allowed the ink to dry on each and every revelation of the party's overall incompetence at winning over minorities in the electorate, before launching new and ever more toxic avalanches of counter-productive idiocy. Their campaign to "win more women" is a perfect example. And it may be important to note that the particular episode we refer to here occurred on Valentine's Day.
Republicans have become their own worst enemy, and that could be interpreted in several different ways--none of them productive of anything positive for Republican gains in Congress or anywhere else.
It has been referred to by party opponents as the Republican War on Women. Some members of the GOP can't seem to open their mouths without contributing more fuel to the firestorm of negativity, pushing the female electorate farther and farther away from whatever little remains grand in the Grand Old Party.
One such episode this month pitted the incensed State Senator Steve Martin (R-VA) against pregnant mothers everywhere. It seems Senator Martin was bothered by a Facebook communication and responded with a degree of vitriol from Republicans that is growing quite familiar to voters these days. The senator made it crystal clear that he was not pro-choice. To his credit, and unlike what seems to be a majority of Republicans these days, he did concede that contraception was acceptable. But then he added, "Once a child does exist in your womb, I'm not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child's host doesn't want it." Yes, he did refer to mothers as "hosts."
An apparently embarrassed Senator Martin did alter the post later, changing 'host' to 'bearer of the child.' Too bad he didn't think of that terminology a little earlier. The way he worded it originally, his Valentine's Day rant would seem to offer all the ammunition Pro-Choice advocates require to discredit his opinions on the issue.
In the parlance of biology, a host is a plant or animal in or on which another organism lives. So far, so good. But that other organism, according to American Heritage Dictionary, is one that "grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host." In other words, it is a parasite. It is not a baby, not a human being, but just a parasite. If the mother is definable as a host, the fetus is just as definable as a parasite. And we all know the general consensus of opinion on what legal protections are warranted for parasites, don't we?
Senator Martin's little slip-up is actually quite a gift to Democrats. By virtue of these little gifts the picture becomes far clearer. We can readily see what Republican family values, and Republican attempts to attract minority voters, actually represent. As for women, err, excuse me, all you "hosts" out there, don't be too disappointed in your Republican leadership. After all, they were once nothing but parasites, themselves.