Rep. Ron Stephens (R-GA)

From a credit downgrade last year to global warming, the Republican push for ideological purity has already had far-reaching impacts on the country. One emerging problem with the purity test is that it is very easy to fail, for conservative icons and rank-and-file Republicans alike.

Recently, the Georgia House considered a bill which would have prevented women from obtaining an abortion after 20 weeks, down from 26. Rep. Ron Stephens (R), who considers himself pro-life, originally voted against the bill, along with 16 other Republicans. In an interview with the Savannah Morning News, Stephens recalled his daughter Ashlin’s pregnancy just a few years before, when her child was diagnosed with trisomy, a devastating genetic defect, and how this bill would have affected his family’s decision:

“At five months, they told her part of her baby’s brain was outside the skull and the heart was inverted,” he said. “They said it would take only one or two breaths. She would have watched it die.” After huddling with her family, she opted for an abortion. She discussed the option to terminate her pregnancy with her family. But she didn’t have to make the call, since she had a miscarriage shortly thereafter.

When the bill initially came to a vote in the House, there was no opportunity to amend it to provide exceptions for such situations. Stephens said he was so upset he felt sick and walked off the floor during the roll call.

“For something this cruel to happen to my daughter, or anyone’s daughter,” he said, “is just plain inhumane. I consider myself pro-life, but this provision was a distortion of pro-life values.”

In response, the Peach Tea Party blasted those Republicans, claiming they “displayed a willingness to depart from the conservative principles that form the bedrock of the Georgia Republican Party platform.” A blog on the group’s website referred to those Republicans as “RINOs,” or Republicans in Name Only. This was despite the fact that, when the bill was amended to exempt “medically futile” pregnancies like his daughter’s, Stephens voted for the bill, which passed.

For his part, Stephens said he isn’t worried about a primary challenge, telling the Morning News, “It might even help me with fundraising.”

-Zachary Bernstein

President Obama previewed his attack against the Supreme Court, should the body invalidate the Affordable Care Act, during a press conference in the Rose Garden Monday afternoon. Responding to a question about the lawsuit, Obama said that the nation’s high court would be engaging in judicial activism if it overturned the law.

“Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law what was a strong majority of a Democratically elected Congress,” he said.

“I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years all we’ve heard is that the biggest problem is judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. That an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, here’s a good example,” he added.

“I continue to be confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law,” he concluded. Watch it:

Obama also noted that this is not just a political or legal question. “I think it’s important…to remind people that this is not an abstract argument. Peoples lives are affected by the lack of availability of healthcare,” he said, urging commentators to focus on the “human element.”

It’s hard to believe that Republicans take the health care debate very seriously when Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) — one of the party’s main spokespeople on Obamacare — doesn’t even know the number of uninsured in his own state. During an appearance on MSNBC ‘s ‘Morning Joe’ on Monday, Johnson sought to dismiss the success of Massachusetts’ reform in lowering the number of uninsured by claiming that the state had most of its people covered before Mitt Romney enacted Romneycare in 2006. He then went on to falsely claim that his home state of Wisconsin enjoys similarly high rates of insurance coverage:

ZEKE EMANUEL: Look at Massachusetts, which does have an individual mandate. Has a market just the way the president’s Affordable Care Act put into place. What has happened to premiums in the individual market there? They have gone down 40 percent compared to a 14 percent increase in the rest of the country.

JOHNSON: Massachusetts already had a very high level of people insured, as does Wisconsin. Wisconsin did not need health care law to get 95 percent of the people insured.

EMANUEL: You do not have 95 percent — you have 89 percent …you don’t have 95 percent. Only in Massachusetts has over 95 percent ….

JOHNSON: In Wisconsin we have 95 percent.

Watch it:

A man who supports the complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act — while personally enjoying tax-payer supported insurance as a U.S. senator — may not be too concerned about how many people actually don’t have insurance in his own state. But according to the latest Census, nine percent of Wisconsinites are uninsured, which means that the insurance rate is at about 91, four points below Johnson’s proclamation (not to mention that 30 percent are insured through government-financed Medicare or Medicaid; 60 percent have employer-based coverage or buy insurance on the individual market).

During the segment Steve Rattner also pointed out that should the Supreme Court strike down the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, 16 to 20 million Americans would lose their health insurance coverage and private health insurance premiums would increase by 15 percent. But here too, Johnson seemed unperturbed, dismissing the estimates by inexplicably claiming that the ACA’s system of private insurers and providers would lead to greater “government control.”

Mitt Romney is not doing well with women voters. A new USA TODAY/Gallup poll shows that President Obama is faring much better than Mitt Romney in the swing states that will likely decide the next President of the United States – and women are part of the reason why. Of women under 50 years old, only 30 percent support Romney, while over 60 percent back the President.

The lack of support is mutual. Romney’s record on women’s health is hardly strong, and women voters, especially the young voters who tend to be pro-choice and pro-contraception, are likely responding to Romney’s affront on these issues. But it hasn’t always been this way. Over the course of his 2008 and 2012 campaigns for the presidency, Romney has moved significantly to the right on almost all women’s health issues. He calls it “evolving,” but, to many women, the “etch a sketch” candidate is just leaving them behind.

Need proof? Here are Mitt Romney’s top five attacks on women’s health:

1. He’s going to ‘get rid of’ Planned Parenthood. In his most blatant attack on basic women’s services, Romney made this claim: “Planned Parenthood, we’re going to get rid of that.” Of course, as a Presidential candidate Romney surely knows that Planned Parenthood provides essential medical services, primarily to low-income women, including mammograms and pap smears, as well as important family planning services. Romney has pledged to defund Title X, a program that provides family planning services.

2. Romney supports the Blunt Amendment which would allow employers to deny health insurance coverage on the basis of moral objections — a rule aimed at allowing employers to opt out of providing benefits that undermined their consciences, including contraceptive coverage. But as governor of Massachusetts, Romney required all health care providers– including Catholic hospitals — to offer emergency contraception to rape victims.

3. Romney is fighting a covert battle against contraception, even if he is doing his best not to call it that. While Romney used to be firmly pro-choice and pro-contraceptives, he has positioned himself in the campaign to be a fighter of morality, saying that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) imposes a “secular vision on America” by requiring employers to provide contraceptives in their insurance coverage. He is also misleading the public on what the ACA will do for women.

4. Romney failed to condemn Rush Limbaugh’s characterization of Sandra Fluke as a “slut.” Romney said “it’s not the language I would have used,” but refused to go any further in condemning Limbaugh’s attacks on the Georgetown Law student who testified in support of the ACA’s contraceptive rule. In not standing up for basic women’s rights, Romney’s complacency is as good as consent.

5. Romney supports restricting access to abortions. He has called Roe v. Wade “one of the darkest moments in Supreme Court history.” He’s even said that he’d support state constitutional amendments to define life at conception, which would effectively outlaw abortions under any circumstance.