January 15, 2014 11:13 AM UTC

Radio host should have questioned Buck when he compared his bout with cancer to pregnancy

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Open mouth, insert cowboy boot – promoted by Colorado Pols)

POLS UPDATE: Salon picks up the story:

Fast-forward three-plus years later, and Buck’s at it again. The goal this time? Don’t say anything stupidly and overtly sexist. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Turns out, yep, that is too hard! Speaking on a talk radio show on Wednesday, Buck attempted to explain his anti-choice absolutism — he opposes abortion in all cases, including rape and incest — by likening a woman’s desire to control her own body while pregnant to how he felt when he had cancer.

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Apparently trying to connect to women voters, who arguably cost him a U.S. Senate seat in 2010, Ken Buck appeared on a Denver radio station Monday and discussed the differences and similarities between pregnancy and his recent bout with cancer.

Asked by 560-AM KLZ talk-show host Randy Corporon about his abortion position, Buck, who's running again for U.S. Senate this year, said:

Buck: "Yes, I am pro-life. While I understand a woman wants to be in control of her body.–it's certainly the feeling that I had when I was a cancer patient, I wanted to be in control of the decisions that were made concerning my body–there is another fundamental issue at stake. And that's the life of the unborn child. And I hold that life dear and precious and believe we have to do everything we can to protect the life of the unborn." 

So Buck is saying that his successful battle with cancer is like pregnancy insofar as they both require decisions affecting a human body. But for a cancer patient like Buck, they are personal medical decisions, and Buck was glad to be able to make them. But for a woman who is pregnant, difficult as it may be, she shouldn’t be afforded the same freedom to make decisions affecting her body.

In 2010, Buck made no secret about his strong anti-abortion position, enthusiastically repeating his opposition to all abortion, even for rape or incest. In one radio interview, he expressed his opposition to abortion, even for a girl raped by her teen brother.

Now Buck drives his anti-abortion point home in the starkest of language by saying how happy he is that the government didn’t dictate his health decisions when he had cancer. But pregnant women should have no choice.

I was waiting for Corporon to offer a peep of an opposing view, to bring up the complexities surrounding a decision to have an abortion, and to ask Buck about all the women who don't see this as a one-size-fits-all issue.

I'm still waiting.

On the political side, Corporon could have asked Buck if he's worried, by comparing his cancer to a woman's pregnancy, of looking like Todd Akin, whose thoughts about "legitimate rape" sunk his 2010 bid for a Senate seat in Missouri. But Corporon moved on, leaving listeners wanting more explanation from Buck.

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