Koster: No intent to trivialize rape with controversial comment
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SEATTLE -- A day after Republican congressional candidate John Koster said abortion should not be legal, even when it involves "the rape thing," he explained his controversial comment to a Seattle conservative talk radio station.
"There was never any intent on my part to be trivializing, be flippant or cavalier in any way, shape or form in my reference to the heinous crime of rape," Koster told KVI-AM Radio. "In my tenure in the state Legislature, there's nobody harder on sex offenses than I was. As far as I'm concerned, we can put these guys away for life."
An activist working on behalf of liberal group FUSE Washington asked Koster questions during a Sunday fundraiser. Koster said he does not oppose abortion when the life of the mother is in danger but then explains he would oppose it when it involves rape or incest.
Koster twice uses the phrase "the rape thing" when describing his views, first saying that he knows a woman who was raped and gave up the child for adoption without any regrets.
"But on the rape thing, it's like, how does putting more violence onto a woman's body and taking the life of an innocent child that's a consequence of this crime, how does that make it better?" Koster said in the exchange.
Koster is locked in a competitive House race against Democrat Suzan DelBene, who spoke out against Koster's comments Wednesday evening.
"I think his comments were offensive. They were extremely insensitive," DelBene said. "I think that women should have the right to make their own healthcare decisions between themselves and their doctors."
During Thursday's interview with KVI, Koster said the fuss over the comment was fueled by the media and those who oppose his position.
"In fact, some of these people who are hammering me now are the same people who think we can council and coddle these people into wellness and we give them too little jail time and we put them back into our communities," Koster said. "This is nothing more than a media assist throwing a life-line to DelBene because they spent $5.5 million and they still haven't put me away in this race, so they gotta sneak somebody in with a hidden microphone in a busy campaign event to capture something they might use."
Koster added had he said "rape issue" instead of "rape thing" there would never have been a problem.
"They're just grasping at straws trying to change the conversations about the issues our campaign has been about," Koster said.
Republicans have been beleaguered this year by comments about rape that some have deemed offensive. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who is challenging Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, said women's bodies have ways of avoiding pregnancy in cases of "legitimate rape."
More recently, Indiana GOP candidate Richard Mourdock has been criticized for saying that pregnancy resulting from rape is God's will.
Collin Jergens, a spokesman at the advocacy group FUSE Washington, said one of the group's activists went to the fundraiser to ask Koster about the issue of abortion. Democrats have been trying to portray Koster as out of touch with the district, which stretches from areas east of Seattle to the border with Canada, and they have focused particularly on his stance on social issues.
"I was kind of shocked by how dismissive and demeaning it was," said Aaron Ostrom of FUSE.
Sara Kiesler, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest, said the Koster's remarks are proof that he shouldn't be involved in a woman's decision about her pregnancy.
"My gut reaction was that rape is violence, and that rape is a crime, and that his choice of words diminishes that violence," Kiesler said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
"There was never any intent on my part to be trivializing, be flippant or cavalier in any way, shape or form in my reference to the heinous crime of rape," Koster told KVI-AM Radio. "In my tenure in the state Legislature, there's nobody harder on sex offenses than I was. As far as I'm concerned, we can put these guys away for life."
An activist working on behalf of liberal group FUSE Washington asked Koster questions during a Sunday fundraiser. Koster said he does not oppose abortion when the life of the mother is in danger but then explains he would oppose it when it involves rape or incest.
Koster twice uses the phrase "the rape thing" when describing his views, first saying that he knows a woman who was raped and gave up the child for adoption without any regrets.
"But on the rape thing, it's like, how does putting more violence onto a woman's body and taking the life of an innocent child that's a consequence of this crime, how does that make it better?" Koster said in the exchange.
Koster is locked in a competitive House race against Democrat Suzan DelBene, who spoke out against Koster's comments Wednesday evening.
"I think his comments were offensive. They were extremely insensitive," DelBene said. "I think that women should have the right to make their own healthcare decisions between themselves and their doctors."
During Thursday's interview with KVI, Koster said the fuss over the comment was fueled by the media and those who oppose his position.
"In fact, some of these people who are hammering me now are the same people who think we can council and coddle these people into wellness and we give them too little jail time and we put them back into our communities," Koster said. "This is nothing more than a media assist throwing a life-line to DelBene because they spent $5.5 million and they still haven't put me away in this race, so they gotta sneak somebody in with a hidden microphone in a busy campaign event to capture something they might use."
Koster added had he said "rape issue" instead of "rape thing" there would never have been a problem.
"They're just grasping at straws trying to change the conversations about the issues our campaign has been about," Koster said.
Republicans have been beleaguered this year by comments about rape that some have deemed offensive. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who is challenging Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, said women's bodies have ways of avoiding pregnancy in cases of "legitimate rape."
More recently, Indiana GOP candidate Richard Mourdock has been criticized for saying that pregnancy resulting from rape is God's will.
Collin Jergens, a spokesman at the advocacy group FUSE Washington, said one of the group's activists went to the fundraiser to ask Koster about the issue of abortion. Democrats have been trying to portray Koster as out of touch with the district, which stretches from areas east of Seattle to the border with Canada, and they have focused particularly on his stance on social issues.
"I was kind of shocked by how dismissive and demeaning it was," said Aaron Ostrom of FUSE.
Sara Kiesler, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest, said the Koster's remarks are proof that he shouldn't be involved in a woman's decision about her pregnancy.
"My gut reaction was that rape is violence, and that rape is a crime, and that his choice of words diminishes that violence," Kiesler said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A politician should not make the law (or comment) regarding a woman who becomes pregnant via rape (drugged, at weapon point, or other) and obtaining an abortion. The woman should have that choice herself, and let that choice be between her and her God. It should not be a decision made by a male with no clue as to how it really effects the psyche of a woman.Â
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Kind of like the "9-11 thing"...
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 @HarryJuku Nothing spells "minimizing" more than ending it with "thing".
Like calling him "the republican thing"?
Damage control stat!
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This guy said it, he's thinking it, and if he says anything else, he's still thinking it.
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And here's that catch- "As far as I'm concerned, we can put these guys away for life." <- it can't happen, he would blow the state budget up with the additional costs.
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How is this guy a politician??
 @deejm2112 Considering that only 5% of rapists ever actually see any hard time, he's obviously not doing much on that front either.
Koster will be backpeddling forever on this mega-gaffe. I like how these right wingnuts always run for cover on a "conservative" talk show as if they are going to convince the general public, who wouldn't listen to the gibberish to begin with. The best thing that could happen to Koster is to lose by a landslide and never, ever have even a glimmer of hope for a politcal career. We don't need any more Neaderthals in Congress. What we do need is people who have a brain, know how to use it, and respect women.
He does not want to trivialize rape - just women it seems.That is the thread thru many of these politicians who support life over - a life of hell from being raped or some other awful thing. And then having to live with the the effects of that rape for life. religious fanatics (anyone in my opinion who takes the bible as fact falls into that category) pick and choose the parts they want to live and the parts they want others to live under. They must really hate to want to inflict this on another human - that has feelings (another argument).Â
So, let's see, he trivializes rape, then starts to hear/feel/fear backlash, so he goes with his tail between his legs to attempt to legitimize his view, and change his words after the fact. Sounds like a real winner, and advocate for the community he would represent.....gag me.
This mysogenistic rube needs to shut the hell up.Hes already dug himself into a hole that he can't climb out of all the while blaming the media.He's simply dangerous for women.I really hope he doesn't win this race.
 @noneofyourbizznessÂ
So how is killing an innocent baby supposed to make the raped woman feel any better? Seems to me she would feel a whole lot better if she chose to bring something good out of a violent crime than to add another element of violence to it. But that's just me.
@ormom That would completely be up to the woman who was raped.Not some white male rightwing Christian politician.If your ten year old daughter was brutally raped and sodomized and ended up pregnant,would you force her to carry the baby of the monster?
 @noneofyourbizzness
Like I said - you don't have a scientific or rational argument you can make to justify abortion at one stage versus another, or to pinpoint when a fetus becomes a child deserving of legal human rights protection. You have to resort to long rants about society to hide your lack of any reasonable justification. By your logic we should just kill anyone who is having a bad day if society doesn't have an immediaate fix for them. You can't stay on topic because you have no case you can make without ending up looking ignorant and silly.
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Atheists like you love to point to science UNTIL it works against you and then you bring on the rants and name calling. I have debated so many people just like you and it's always the same result. None of you can stay with a scientific, rational, logical argument past the first question or 2. I never have to bring religion or God into it at all.
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btw, it's interesting that YOU are the one equating women and chickens with your omelet analogy. Doesn't surprise me one bit that earlier in this thread you tried to project your own image of women as livestock breeders onto me. You need to take a long hard look at what that says about how your own opinion of women and reproduction repulses you.
@ormom No actually I prefer to get all of my medical information from peer reviewed studies from sources like JAMA.Conservatives like yourself are obsessed with fetuses from conception to nine months, but after that they have no interest in you. None. No day care, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothin'. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're effed. Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you're just what they're looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. You don't see many white antiabortion women volunteering to have black fetuses transplanted into their uteruses, do you? No. You don't see them adopting any crack babies, do you? No, that's something Jesus would do. Separate thought: Why is it when it's a human being it's called an abortion, and when it's a chicken it's called an omelet. The central question seems to be "Are fetuses human beings?" Well, if fetuses are human beings, why aren't they counted by the census? Some people say life begins at conception; I say life began a billion years ago, and it's a continuous process. And actually, it goes back farther than that. What about carbon atoms? Human life could not exist without carbon. So is it possible that maybe we shouldn't be burning all this coal? I don't mean to be picky, I'm just looking for a little consistency.Hard core extremist pro-lifers like yourself tell us that life begins at fertilization, when the sperm fertilizes the egg. Which usually occurs a few minutes after the man says, "Sorry, honey, I was gonna pull out, but the phone startled me."But even after fertilization it's still six or seven days before the egg reaches the uterus and pregnancy begins. And not every egg makes it. Eighty percent of a woman's fertilized eggs are rinsed out of her body once a month during those delightful few days she has. They end up on sanitary napkins, and yet they are fertilized eggs. So, what are you antiabortion people are actually telling us is that any woman who's had more than one period is a serial killer? I don't mean to be picky, I'm just looking for a little consistency. And speaking of consistency,fundamentalist christians which I was until I reached the age of reason---Christians are against abortions, and they're against homosexuals. Well, who has less abortions than homosexuals? Here's an entire class of citizens guaranteed never to have an abortion, and yet they are the number one enemy of conservative Christians.You'd think they'd be natural allies.The pure hypocrisy is mind boggling.
 @noneofyourbizzness
No, I think you would rather get your propoganda from folks like Planned Parenthood who have a financial interest in seeing that abortion remains legal.
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I notice you have no rational, scientific argument for your position just like I knew you wouldn't. Forget religion and the soul - you don't think that human life, worthy of legal protection, begins at conception but you have no rational, scientific explanation for when it does - only your feelings and your fuzzy notion of women's rights.
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It's people like you who demean women and reproduction, not me.
@ormom I would rather get my information about abortions from medically creditable sources like JAMA then some hysterical right wing hack on the Internet.
 @noneofyourbizzness Â
fyi - there is no medical reason why a baby at full-term would EVER need to be aborted since it can readily live outside the womb. The fact you don't know that shows me any conclusions you have come to about abortion are ignorant. But partial birth abortion up to full term is legal in OR and other states as well. How do you explain that? Babies as young as 22 weeks are routinely being saved after miscarriages. But the same hospital saving those children in a NICU can be aborting other children even older than 22 weeks in an OR down the hall. Explain that if you can.
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Why does the idea of full term abortion bother you but not 3 months, 6 months, etc.? It's either a human child or it isn't. What magical event takes place (in your mind ) that confers humanity worthy of protection after birth but not before? At 9 months but not 3 months or 5 months?
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This is where pro-abort arguments always fall apart. There is no agreement on when it's too late to abort, or why, or any rational, biological explanation that explains when the fetal "blob of tissue" magically becomes a human child. It's all about feelings and rights but none of it can be backed up with science or rational argument.
@ormom @noneofyourbizzness You are one sick individual who believes that living, breathing women are "no one", since one "is not free" because of your attacks on women's rights.You think that hypothetical, potential (not actual) "people" are those who are deserving of the rights that accrue to citizens, and not actual living, breathing US female citizens. You and your twisted freak friends think that women are livestock, and only livestock, which is so very insulting to the humanity and dignity of female humans. Get this you forced birther, and get it good: any animal can be fertilized and reproduce. There is nothing intrinsically noble about reproducing like a common farm animal, and it's a smack in the face of all women everywhere to have forced-birthers pitiful attempt to portray a primitive animal function requiring zero intelligence to perform as the highest, best, and onlylife choice for female humans.Also,Anti abortion people like yourself are very selfish. You want to save the fetus... seeing how it's still in the womb and does not need any kind of support. but once it pops out and is now a baby they wan to abandon it and let if fend for it's self. In other words, as long as it doesn't cost you any money you want to save it.Once your taxpayer dollars have to support it you would rather see it die.Your "life is sacred from conception to natural death" is ridiculous. Life doesn't begin at conception. Life is present in the egg, in the sperm. A dead sperm can't impregnate a dead egg. Life is present everywhere, even in cancer cells. What you really mean is that the soul is present at conception but you won't say that because as you know that is a Religious opinion. That is why we separate Church from State. And why the Supreme court cannot find an argument to allow a religious point of view to affect government policy and law.
@ormom Who has abortion all the way to the end of their term unless the mother's like is in danger? It's absoulutely ludicrous that I would want to kill a baby after it's born.Your hysterics is overtaking your rational thinking.And yes it's absolutely disgusting for you rightwing freaks to make a girl/woman carry a rapists baby to full term.Hers a idea.If you don't want a abortion don't have one.Otherwise good luck overturning the law that was set by the Supreme court.Your extremism and hysteria is a huge problem in this country.
 @noneofyourbizzness Â
Why am I not surprised. The 'outrage' over talk of banning abortions in cases of rape is just a red herring for people like you. You think you can drum up outrage and sympathy for your pro-abort position that would you never get for your real position - which is probably that it's OK to kill a baby right up to the time of full-term birth. Or maybe even after if he or she doesn't fit your idea of a life worthy of life.
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That's the real agenda. Your rape outrage is so phony because you no doubt feel just as strongly over banning any abortion.
@ormom @noneofyourbizzness I absolutely do not support banning of abortions.
 @noneofyourbizzness
OK. Will you support banning abortion in all cases except rape and imminent death to the mother?
@ormom The only thing that young girls do get raped and become pregnant.So actually I do have a valid point.Its a shame that you can't give me a honest answer.I also find it disgusting for you to assume that a young girl or a woman would want to keep the baby of a monster.Or worse yet support a law to make abortion illegal even in the case of rape http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=15a_1343338302&comments=1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_birth_mothers http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192252/Girl-15-gang-raped-Carnival-cruise-cabin-man-31-teenage-boys.html http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/18769804.html
 @noneofyourbizzness Â
Right. When you can't come up with justification for a woman, bring on the hypothetical 10 yr old girl.
You know people say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
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Using that logic if I were a politician I would totally forget about he word rape. I would not say it, I would not respond to it and I would avoid any question when it was brought up.
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People think a lot of stupid things. In the past though you could not just say any pile of feces that rolled up to your eyes, you had to stop and think and let you filter help you out.
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It seems since the Tea Party has gained influence politicians are saying more and more outrageous things. It seems they are testing our limits of the mounds of poop we are willing to accept because we "only have two choices".
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 @Repoman ~  Um-hmm... and nothing will change until we-the-voters force a change; that is, until we let them know in no uncertain terms that the Repubs and Dems do NOT reflect the values that we want in our country's leaders... that we do NOT want our country led by career politicians whose loyalty is to their bought-and-paid-for political party, rather than to the American people.  Â
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I hope this will happen someday, because I think our future as a country depends on it... Â Sadly, though, I do not think it will happen in my lifetime...
"nothing more than a media assist throwing a life-line to DelBene" No Koster, YOU threw DelBene a life-line, and the life-line would have been there had you used "rape issue" or "rape thing".
Koster, You are a piece of work! Open your big mouth and let the garbage spew out, then try to say it's not really what you ment. What ever, I hope you are not elected, and you go crawl back in the slimy hole you came out of.
I love how he accuses his rival of benefiting from a "media assist" while he's explaining away his comments on a conservative talk radio station.
Whatever!! Â
Now let the back paddling begin...."What I meant was.....".......These nutjobs just keep coming out! Â
This guy is a piece of work. Denial seems to run deep with him. Deny and project onto others. I wonder if losing the race as a direct result of his own comments will help him see the truth? Doubtful, but there's hope...
 @criticalreason Well being that everything you said applies to Obama as well I hope both this REP jerk and that DEM Obama jerk both lose next Tuesday...If we don't expect more honesty and integrity from our leaders and our media we are doomed to be a failure as a country going down in the history books as the once greatest nation on earth...
 @FreedomRocks  @criticalreason You say you hope Obama loses which would imply that you hope Mittens wins because you want "more honesty and integrity from our leaders"??? Mittens??? That guys back peddled more than all the other republican gaffes combined!
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 @FreedomRocks I feel sorry for you and your efforts at taking the blame this REP deserves and projecting it onto your villain (Obama) in a sad attempt to justify your anger. Guilt by association is not a effective strategy, especially in the lack of any credible evidence.
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 @Emi-Lynn  @criticalreason DEMS 101 everything good is because of us and everything bad is someone else's fault...
 @criticalreason  @FreedomRocks Tea Party 101 - everything is Obama's fault..
@criticalreason @FreedomRocks I'm not a Koster supporter, but who the he!! ever said he was a lover of rape? You're seriously disturbed. You should seek mental help.
 @criticalreason Gee that's a great argument I think Bill Clinton used the "IS" argument to justify his blowjobs on the white house desk. What does your comment have to do with mine other then we are both talking about an incompetent man named Obama?
 @criticalreason As in the past you seem a little slow and misdirected so let me set you straight. My comments were about your comments and logic not the article or its contents. I realize you are confused by this so will cut you some slack and leave it at that...
 @FreedomRocks I still don't understand how you took an article about a rape loving Republican and turned it around to be about Obama. Do you lack all awareness?
 @FreedomRocks You don't have to like Obama as our President but he is. And he will be for 4 more years.
 @criticalreason I feel sad you are not informed enough or so blinded by your ideology that you can not see what I said is true. Don't feel bad though about 47% of America is just as mis-informed or blinded as you are so you are not alone...
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Obama is all about Deny and reflect onto others it has been his entire campaign....
 @FreedomRocks  @criticalreason Sadly, that only leaves us with Ron Paul, and he's battier than a loon.
 @Festivus  @criticalreason Yep he certainly is although his son (so far) seems like a much more reasonable guy and maybe some day will be able to help us out of the trap between DEMS-REPS...