A new ad out by the Maffei Campaign in New York's 24th congressional district race is getting some attention. The ad ties Beurkle to Akin through her co-sponsorship of HR 3, where Republicans tried to redefine rape as "forcible rape."
The Maffei campaign has been trying to paint Beurkle as too extreme, and this ad attempts a direct hit, tying Beurkle to Akin's widely panned and reviled "legitimate rape" comments. It will certainly play well in the more moderate parts of the district. As noted in the TPM link above, Beurkle has already admitted to The Post Standard she opposes abortion even in the case of rape, "forcible," "legitimate" or otherwise.
“My position has always been that life is valuable from the time of conception to the time of death,” Buerkle said. “I don’t think as a society we can pick and choose what life is valuable and what is not. All life is precious without exception.”
Buerkle was quick to add that it’s important for society to offer a full range of help to rape victims “but we have to be careful not to make a second victim.”
Instead, we should re-victimize the victim by forcing them to bear the child of their rapist, whether they like it or not.
By the way, the domestic and sexual abuse support organization Vera House, where Beurkle worked for 14 years, has criticized Beurkle, who voted for the GOP House version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, ignoring the important expansions of the law to protect more vulnerable groups that the Senate version had. The VAWA provides a large amount of funding that Vera House relies on. We're still waiting, Congresswoman Beurkle, where's the VAWA?
[In case you were wondering: yes, syracuse.com/The Post Standard newspaper leans conservative, if you could not tell from the articles above.]