Richard Mourdock, defiant: 'Anyone who goes to the video ... understands fully what I meant'

Richard Mourdock website features Mitt Romney on home page A short time ago, Richard Mourdock held a press conference designed to contain the damage of his statement Tuesday night that God intended pregnancies from rape, but instead of controlling the damage, he's just dug himself in deeper.

Mourdock did offer a classic nopology, saying he regrets if there was any "misinterpretation" of his words, but his overall message was one of defiance, including this jaw-dropping defense of his words:

Anyone who goes to the video tape and views that, understands fully what I meant. I really believe that.

Fair enough. We do understand fully what Richard Mourdock said: that he believes women who get pregnant from rape shouldn't even be allowed access to emergency contraception because he personally believes that God intended for them to get pregnant.

Once again, here's Mourdock's key quote from last night:

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.

So according to Mourdock, rape is a "horrible situation," but pregnancy resulting from rape is "a gift from God." And the worst thing is that he wasn't simply stating his personal faith: he was defending his support for making abortion illegal in cases of rape and incest.

It would be one thing if Mourdock were simply saying what he would do if, God forbid, he ever became pregnant as the result of a rape. But that's not what he was talking about. This wasn't him applying his personal faith to his own life. This was him imposing his personal faith on everyone else.

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