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Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, an Indiana Republican, turned a few heads and dropped a few jaws on Tuesday night when he said that pregnancies resulting from rape were "something that God intended to happen." It happened during a debate between Mourdock and his opponent, Democratic Congressman Joe Donnelly and did not go unnoticed. Another thing that did not go unnoticed was the ad featuring Mitt Romney endorsing Mourdock that dropped earlier this week. It was the first such endorsement Romney's made for a Republican candidate, and it may or may not still be valid. Update: Romney's campaign has not asked for the ad to be pulled, CNN's Jim Acosta reports.
We're getting ahead of ourselves. During Tuesday night's debate, Mourdock addressed the issue of abortion emotionally. The Washington Post's Aaron Blake said he was choking up when he said, "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." Just clip the phrases "gift from God" and "something that God intended to happen" in your mind, and remember that Mourdock is talking about rape. The words "gift" and "rape" do not often occur in the same sentence, especially in the final days of a Senate campaign.