On Tuesday the Republican platform committee adopted an anti-abortion plank that allowed no exception for rape, incest or health of the woman. That same day, Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, who agrees with the party stand enthusiastically, refused to give up his Senate nomination. He believes his is a divine mission to defeat Sen. Claire McCaskill and further push anti-abortion legislation.

Rep. Akin’s absurd claim that women who are the victims of “legitimate” rape can “shut the whole system down” and refuse to become pregnant has pushed the abortion debate front and center.

For most of us, the nut of this argument is the right of women to make their own health care decisions. A no-exceptions ban on abortion denies women that right. In an America which puts high value on personal freedom, an absolute ban on abortion has no place.

Or, to be specific, every woman should have the right to make her own abortion decisions. If she, like Rep. Akin, feels that she must carry any pregnancy to term, regardless, society should not interfere with her decision. For the same reasons, any woman who does not want to give birth should have the right to terminate a pregnancy,

From time to time, this writer has argued that if this particular medical procedure which only involves women must be the subject of lawmaking, then only women legislators should be allowed a vote on the matter; preferably, women lawmakers between the ages of 18 and 49. 

President Barack Obama voiced a similar sentiment this week, observing that men — who make up the majority of legislators at the state and national level — shouldn’t make laws restricting the personal freedom of women.

VERY SIMILAR personal freedom arguments apply to the Republican decision to put a plank in the party platform calling for a constitutional ban on the marriage of homosexuals. Such bans are labeled Defense of Marriage amendments. But there is absolutely no evidence that a marriage between two men or two women has any effect — good or bad — on other marriages between men and women.

To be sure, many traditional marriages turn out to be horrible mistakes and wind up in divorce court. But no one is suggesting that traditional marriages should be defended with a constitutional ban on divorce. 

It only takes a casual glance at the marriage scene to see that many of the past rigidities have faded away, with religious exceptions in some counties. In the U.S., the freedom to marry has leaped over the racial, religious and status barriers of the past. Only homosexuality remains.

Looking for an explanation, we must go beyond the fact that homosexuals make up only 3 to 6 percent of the population — exact numbers are not available — so it is easy for such a large majority to impose its will on so few. But it takes more than the observation that those who are different generate contempt to explain the political importance the matter now claims.

Perhaps politicians seize on opposition to abortion and gay marriage as an alterative to talking about much more difficult issues such as creating jobs, restructuring taxes, lowering the deficit, raising the level of public education, making a college education affordable, providing health care for 100 percent of the population and, in short, governing the nation.

Maybe these safe social issues have been made important by crafty office seekers who would rather talk about anything else than address the real needs the nation faces at this critical juncture in our history. Maybe hammering abortion and gay marriage is really just a cop-out.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.

Todd Akin of Missouri has discovered scientific justification for denying abortions for women who claim they were made pregnant by a rapist. Through means he refused to reveal, he learned that a woman who is the victim of “legitimate” rape can “shut the whole thing down” and escape pregnancy.

Akin is a six-term member of Congress who won the Republican nomination to oppose Sen. Claire McCaskill, a moderate Democrat seeking re-election in November.

His incredibly ignorant statement drew immediate condemnation from Republicans across the land, including Mitt Romney and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. Cornyn chairs the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. He reacted to the event by telling Akin the $5 million advertising campaign planned to support him had been canceled. Cornyn also advised Akin to withdraw from the race.

Akin refused, at least for the moment, saying — not exactly in these words — that he may be stupid, but is no quitter.

While this remarkable story has elements of leg-slapping humor to it, Rep. Akin’s “science” has its serious side. He has won six congressional elections with anti-abortion rhetoric, which 100 pastors who support him have labeled “Bible-based.” 

His statement on rape and pregnancy reveals his approach to medical science: Fact one, abortion is evil; fact two, some women who become pregnant after being raped seek abortions; fact three, since abortion and rape are both bad, but pregnancy is good, “legitimate” rape therefore cannot cause pregnancy, so no abortion should be permitted. 

To be clear about it, Akin assumes a woman is somehow compliant with an act of rape if she becomes pregnant by it.

THAT A MAN so contemptuous of women has been elected and re-elected to Congress six times and was chosen to run for the U.S. Senate by a plurality of Republican voters in Missouri should ring alarm bells across the land. 

His nomination makes a mockery of democracy.

True, when he put his unfitness on national display, he was immediately condemned by thinking Republicans. But, for crying out loud, Akins has been helping write the laws of the land since 2000. Wasn’t anyone in Missouri paying attention? Are claims to be supremely anti-abortion, coupled with the ability to thump the Bible louder than anyone else, all the qualification needed to represent half a million Missourians in Congress? 

More to the point, why does the Republican Party allow such a witless zealot to wear its label? 

Our political parties should do a much better job of vetting candidates. Party labels should mean something. Those who wear them should be men and women capable of helping to manage the most powerful and most respected nation on earth.

Todd Akin falls very far short of meeting that demand. Kansans of both parties should study Missouri and learn.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.

Cut your 2013 budget by 10 percent, Gov. Sam Brownback told state department heads last week. 

Gov. Brownback explained his decision to the people by saying that “Kansas is a high tax state. In order to get taxes down we must cut spending.”

In last week’s interviews with newsmen he didn’t repeat his now-hackneyed phrase, “We can either grow government or grow the private sector.”

But the message was there.

What the governor did not do was talk about the consequences of cutting back state programs. He did say he would try to hold spending on the public schools at current levels and would “protect” planned highway projects.

He didn’t say he would protect state jobs. 

Across-the-board spending cuts logically will lead to across-the-board cuts in personnel. The meat ax approach will also rule out salary and benefit increases.

At a time when the Kansas farm sector is flat on its back because of the drought, a decision to add to unemployment by chopping off 10 percent of the jobs that state government creates will raise eyebrows.

Keeping state employee wages frozen is another whack in the gut to the middle class. Inflation has been very low. But it still erodes the purchasing power of the dollar by a penny or two every month. The inflation rate for 2011 was 3.16 percent. It has been above 1 percent every month this year, with the January rate over 1.9 percent. Freezing wages amounts to cutting wages because the effect of inflation is ignored.

It should not be necessary to point out that reducing the state payroll and cutting back the purchasing power of the wages earned by those who do not lose their jobs will slow the growth of the state’s economy. A dollar spent by a highway patrolman has exactly the same stimulating effect as one spent by a newspaper reporter, or any other private sector worker.

BAD ECONOMICS is not the main flaw in the governor’s assault on state government. It is wrong-headed to order across-the-board spending cuts because that approach assumes all state functions are of equal value to the people of Kansas. This is obviously not the case. 

Perhaps Gov. Brownback’s office will not suffer if he and the administrative staff remaining take a 10 percent salary cut.

But let’s be fair and say that there are many state government offices that are well run and have important jobs for all of their employees to do. If that is the case, as it certainly should be, then slashing those department budgets will result in a reduction of services to the public. Ten percent fewer highway patrolmen and KBI agents, 10 percent fewer court clerks, 10 percent fewer department of agriculture employees and so on through the state’s organization chart.

If the Legislature follows Gov. Brownback’s instruction, it will also reduce appropriations for the state’s regional libraries, its community colleges, the subsidies it provides private colleges and the funding of the state universities — and, of course, the money it spends on itself.

Such reductions would be justified if they were needed. They are not. Kansas, like the rest of the nation, is recovering from the Great Recession. Budget crises loom in Topeka only because this year’s Legislature passed irresponsibly huge tax cuts that now threaten to reduce our state government to caretaker status. 

The only remedy that lies in the hands of the people is to elect a Legislature and a governor dedicated to efficient, effective government — with excellence and progress as its goals.

The road ahead must start with a 180-degree turn.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.