The Morning Plum: What does Paul Ryan really believe about abortion?

By Greg Sargent

The chatter this morning is all about Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, who responded to a question about abortion by claiming pregnancy from rape is rare: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin subsequently said he misspoke, but Dems are working overtime to nationalize the comments and tie them to the Romney-Ryan ticket and to the GOP. Last night, the Romney campaign released a statement distancing the ticket from Akin’s remarks:

Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin’s statement, and a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.

That's good to hear, but Ryan did, in fact, co-sponsor a bill last year — along with Akin — whose goal was seemingly to empower Congress and/or the states to outlaw abortion in cases of rape or incest. The bill, the Sanctity of Human Life Act, would not, itself, outlaw the procedure. But here are the two key provisions from the bill:

* The life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood

*The Congress affirms that the Congress, each State, the District of Columbia, and all United States territories have the authority to protect the lives of all human beings residing in its respective juristictions

The bill — which is stalled in the House — goes on to define the term “human being” to “include each and every member of the species homo sapens at all stages of life, beginning with the earliest stage of development, created by the process of fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent.”

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