Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were among the first Republicans to condemn Todd Akin, the GOP Senate candidate in Missouri who over the weekend suggested women’s bodies naturally thwart pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape.” Maybe Romney and Ryan were anticipating the political backlash and maybe they were genuinely appalled at what Akin said. I really don’t know. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt—and to give them credit for reacting so quickly.

But the official campaign statement included a telling postscript: “a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.” The clarification was necessary because Ryan has opposed such exceptions in the past. As Newsweek’s Michelle Goldberg and Salon’s Alex Seitz-Wald have pointed out, Ryan's record on abortion is extremely conservative, even by Republican standards. He has a perfect 100 rating from the National Right to Life Committee. And he’s lived up to that rating by, among other things, co-sponsoring a bill that declared “personhood” begins at fertilization—a legal standard that, if ever applied, could outlaw not just abortion but also in vitro fertilization, intrauterine devices, and some oral contraceptives. Akin was one of the other co-sponsors.

Ryan also co-sponsored (with Akin, again) a bill that would have modified the existing ban on federal funding of abortion. Presently, the law allows federal funds to support abortions in case of rape and incest. The bill would have narrowed the exceptions to cases of “forcible rape” and, for incest, cases involving minors. The legal implications of the proposed standard were unclear. But, as Nick Baumann of Mother Jones explained at the time, abortion rights advocates feared (reasonably) that victims raped while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, victims with diminished mental capacity, and victims of date rape might not be eligible if the new definition ever took effect. (For more background, see Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress.) The bill was so controversial that House Republicans withdrew that language.

Romney would like us to ignore this part of Ryan’s record, just as he’d like us to ignore Ryan’s advocacy of immediate cuts to Medicare and his crusade to privatize Social Security. Under different circumstances, Romney might have a point.

A presidential candidate’s record is obviously more important than his or her running mate’s. And Romney has said consistently (I think) that he supports the rape and incest exceptions, while promising that Social Security is off limits for budget cuts and vowing, however implausibly, to undo the Medicare cuts that Ryan has supported.