Steve King is grateful for 'rape or incest' for keeping the 'population of the world' going

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) added to his long history of racist and inflammatory rhetoric on Tuesday by talking up the benefits of “rape or incest” at a town hall meeting.

In comments captured by the Des Moines Register, King hailed violent sexual assault as providing a net benefit to society, while arguing against abortion rights.

“What if we went back through all the family trees and just those people out that were products of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” King asked.

“Considering all the wars and all the rape and pillage that’s taken place and whatever happened… I know that I can’t certify that I’m not a part of a product of that.”

King’s fellow Republicans have often insisted that rape victims be forced to give birth even after undergoing violent sexual assault.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) said in May that he was proud of his votes in the Louisiana legislature that would have forced 12-year-old rape victims to give birth.

When running for president in 2011, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania argued that rape victims should be prohibited from having an abortion. Instead, he argued that the women had been “traumatized already” and that he would not want to “put them through another trauma of an abortion.”

In 2012, Richard Mourdock, the Republican nominee for Senate in Indiana, said rape victims should be forced into giving birth, describing the pregnancy resulting from rape as a “gift from God.” Mourdock ultimately lost the race because of his comments. 

That same year, during his Senate campaign in Missouri, Rep. Todd Akin argued that with a “legitimate rape,” the “female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down,” and so he opposed abortion rights in the case of rape. Akin also lost his race.

Now King has carried on the tradition of his fellow Republicans suggesting rape has certain benefits, at least for the purposes of opposing women’s rights.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.