From TPM
Steve King

"I think this election should be about, how did Todd Akin vote and what did he vote for and what did he stand for and in this case, I'm seeing the same thing, petty personal attacks substituting for strong policy," he said.

King supports the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." It would ban Federal funding of abortions except in cases of forcible rape. Right now, Medicaid also covers abortions for victims of statutory rape or incest - for example, a 12 year old who gets pregnant.

Congressman King says he's not aware of any young victims like that.

"Well I just haven't heard of that being a circumstance that's been brought to me in any personal way, and I'd be open to discussion about that subject matter," he said.

"Forcible" rape is not a term of law. Akin/Ryan.  The family Research Council is defending Akin.

The Republican base is fragmenting over the contradictions of abortion.
If abortion is murder, it's murder in cases of rape and incest. As a crime mothers are no less responsible than doctors.
Ronald Dworkin made this point years ago, but lectures don't work. Now it's an internal debate on the right.

The same "internal" debate in Israel.

Two of the suspects were girls, the youngest 13, adding to the soul-searching and acknowledgment that the poisoned political environment around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has affected the moral compass of youths growing up within it.

The same debate everywhere. This is almost funny

In a move that has prompted a demand for a UN investigation by Iran's most celebrated human rights campaigner, the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, 36 universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming academic year will be "single gender" and effectively exclusive to men. 

It follows years in which Iranian women students have outperformed men, a trend at odds with the traditional male-dominated outlook of the country's religious leaders. Women outnumbered men by three to two in passing this year's university entrance exam. 

Senior clerics in Iran's theocratic regime have become concerned about the social side-effects of rising educational standards among women, including declining birth and marriage rates.

More reasons for the world to worry more about the dangers to regional stability posed by Israel and Saudi than Iran. The anger of the frustrated middle class is not the desperation of the poor and disenfranchised.