[O'brien:] Welcome back, everybody. You're watching STARTING POINT. Our team this morning, Charles Blow is a "New York Times" columnist joining us, Richard Socarides with us, a writer for thenewyorker.com. Will Cain is a columnist with TheBlaze.com. We've got John Berman to stick around. Our "Get Real," honestly, this is kind of making me mad. I got to tell you. Outrage, Will Cain, outraged. It's Friday.
[Richard Socarides, Cnn Contributor:] A little dig there.
[O'brien:] Will you hit him for me?
[Socarides:] Sometimes when you're not here they let me sit in your chair.
[Will Cain, Cnn Contributor:] Outraged. Now I'm outraged.
[O'brien:] Again, Will Cain, again. In Chicago, Republican incumbent congressman Joe Walsh, he's an opponent of abortion, is under fire for suggesting that women no longer die in childbirth. In a televised debate last night against Democrat Tammy Duckworth, Walsh said there is no such thing as an exception for the life of a mother. When he was pressed afterwards by reporters, he said this
[Rep. Joe Walsh,  Illinois:] This is an issue that opponents of life throw out there to make us look unreasonable. There's no such exception as life of the mother. and as far as health of the mother, same thing. With advances in science and technology, there's health of the mother has been has become a tool for abortions for any time of any reason.
[O'brien:] It's become a tool.
[Charles Blow, Cnn Contributor:] A tool somewhere.
[O'brien:] So, you would be wrong, Mr. Walsh. You would be very wrong. So let's go through some of the numbers. The report in obstetrics and gynecology, 7,500 women in the U.S. died of pregnancy related complications over their 14-year period. For every 100,000 babies born to white women, seven to nine moms die from complications, like heart problems, infections, bleeding. And 32 to 35 black women die for every 100,000 live babies. He's just wrong. He's just completely wrong. The number for Asians, I should say, is about 10 for 100,000.
[Socarides:] Well, kind of the surprising thing about this, right, is that we were just through this with Mr. Akin the other candidate, Republican candidate for the congress, who used that term "legitimate rape." Perhaps the only thing that isn't as bad about this than the other thing is that he didn't use the term "legitimate rape."
[Cain:] You and I were just talking. We were just talking, we said there are going to be try to be parallels made to the akin comment and they're not the same thing. You made the very good point because akin put two words together that should never be near each other, legitimate and rape. I think your last statement Soledad is the judgment in the end on Joe Walsh's statement. It's just wrong.
[Berman:] But they do have the technology Akin had that claim that biologically speaking somehow women don't get pregnant if they're raped by some biological magic.
[Cain:] He had to admit to being wrong. With Joe Walsh, he's just wrong.
[Blow:] There's a broader context here which is that these are not so isolated, the idea that conservatives keep trying to pull science into the abortion, pro-life discussion, as if it is on their side in these kinds of ways. Even Paul Ryan, who didn't go deep on this, but during the vice presidential debate basically said I'm not just pro-life because of religious reasons. I'm pro-life because of logic, and science, it's on my side. And I was waiting for them to press a little bit to say, please explain to us please explain to us I'm talking about the scientific part of it. This is another case in which conservatives have basically said that science is telling us that that childbirth has advanced to the point where this is not an issue and you cannot make a pro-choice exception because of science. That is just a problem.
[Cain:] Statements like this do not aid my argument. However, technology, if it's tied to morality, and I do not believe it is, is certainly moving in my direction.
[O'brien:] I'm not even sure what that means. But we don't have time. We can read
[Cain:] That's going to take a 30-minute show which I'm happy to take. You in?
[O'brien:] I'm in. Yes, yes. Say yes, let's do it. Not on this show. But definitely in general, yes. I think that's fascinating. Absolutely. But we doesn't have 30 minutes this morning. Yes, Will Cain. And Sanjay will be accepting on behalf of Sanjay. We should talk about that. But he's just wrong and I feel like you can't have children or you don't have an MD next to your name you should not be commenting on science and pregnancy or abortion. Moving ahead
[Socarides:] Especially if you're running for congress.
[O'brien:] Ahead this morning on STARTING POINT, remember this guy who famously quit Goldman Sachs. He had that really the most scathing public resignation letter ever in the history of forever. A new investigation, though, shows there might be more to this story. We're going to talk about that. The journalists who broke that story, we're going to come in and talk to us this morning. That's coming up.