Our completely incorrect biology lesson today comes not from Chateau Heartiste or The Spearhead or EvoPsychBullshitBeliever997 on Reddit but from an actual elected official with influence in the real world: Republican Congressman Todd Akin of Missouri, currently his party’s nominee for Senate.
In a recent interview with KTVI-TV, the Fox affiliate in St. Louis, he explained that the ladies just don’t get pregnant from rape — well, “legitimate rape” anyway. As he put it:
From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.
As The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake notes, this whole “rape as birth control” thing is not actually, you know, true:
Akin’s claim is one that pops up occasionally in social conservative circles. A federal judge nominated by President Bush in the early 2000s had said similar things, as have state lawmakers in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. …
According to a 1996 study, approximately 32,000 pregnancies result from rape annually in the United States, and about 5 percent of rape victims are impregnated.
Talking Points Memo notes that this isn’t the first time Akin has suggested that
some types of rape are more worthy of protections than others. As a state legislator, Akin voted in 1991 for an anti-marital-rape law, but only after questioning whether it might be misused “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband,” according to … the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Akin: making up shit to deny rape victims their rights since 1991!
Currently, Akin has a big lead in the polls over his Democratic rival, sitting Sen. Claire McCaskill.
Here’s the relevant portion of Akin’s interview; you can find the whole thing at the Talking Points Memo link above.
This meme that abortion is “punishing” or “attacking” a “child” needs to die. A fetus doesn’t have interests because it does not have consciousness, nor does it feel pain. It is not in any sense an independent agent. The idea of punishing a fetus doesn’t even make sense; speaking of “attacking” one only makes sense if you’re talking about physically trying to damage or destroy it. In Owly’s usage, it’s ungrammatical.
@cloudiah
but women = good men = bad, right yu guize
Ok, so the Canadian conservative party are kind of mildly stupid and spend our money on military shit that we can’t afford, as well as a ridiculous revamp on the “war on drugs”. But this makes me feel genuinely sorry for Americans who have to watch people like that get elected to positions of power. Seriously, why do people legitimately feel that society needs to be that way, is it the tax breaks, or are some people just genuinely that shitty?
Bionic Mommy, thank you for your efforts on behalf of Senator McCaskill. Canvassing is some of the most difficult work to do in a campaign and it is really appreciated by all politicians.
“@bekabot conservatives like Akin do not defend ‘rape’ which they say is a terrible thing, but what you have to look at is what they define as ‘real rape’ which is another part of this same guy’s legacy, saying marital rape doesn’t count, etc. For a Republican, only a virgin Christian girl who is walking home from Bible study and is attacked by a stranger in the bushes, who fights back until she is incapacitated, is ‘really’ raped.”
So: instead of riding into the breach to defend infants they don’t think are going to exist, they ride into the breach to defend a practice whose existence they’re unwilling to admit. To me that sounds like a variation on a theme. “Here’s why that has to be bullshit” is still a valid response.
That’s the $64,000 question. Most people in southern Missouri do not benefit from the tax cuts Akin supports, yet he gets a lot of support around here. They’re not voting their own pocket books at all. Instead, they just vote however Rush Limbaugh and Fox News says they should. Many of them are single issue voters, and they don’t care what someone believes as long as they’re anti choice or anti marriage equality.
I know my family’s gotten a lot of help from the government, not only from the tornado relief, but also from public schools, the health care system, and free school lunches. That’s why I care so much about McCaskill’s campaign, because I want to support the politicians who are fighting for my interests. If only I could talk some sense into everyone around me, then people like Akin wouldn’t be the frontrunner to become a Missouri senator.
You wouldn’t believe how much money rich people and corporations have donated to Akin’s campaign. There are TV, radio, and Internet ads everywhere bashing McCaskill. The liberals and moderates in the state don’t have enough money to ever compete like that, so we’re fighting an uphill battle.
@ bekabot- I suspect there is a little talking past each other going on between us all. For sure your observation is partially valid in its own way, and I’m pretty fond of my take on the matter. I suspect we could list a million ways these ultra-conservative dudes would oppress women given the opportunity and we’d both be right.
Thank you for that, princessbonbon. That’s good to hear, because some of the houses I go to aren’t too thrilled to see a Democrat at their door, to put it mildly.
Jesus, I just re-read that and realized I am the world’s worst conciliator. Never call on me to talk down a shooter.
I know, and they do not respond well to facts. I have had arguments where I have shown someone the actual facts and they keep coming up with ways that the facts are not accurate.
Yeah, I was just thinking the other day that I should see if I can volunteer for the McCaskill campaign, and this has pushed me over the line into “I will not be able to live with myself if I don’t. I just signed up on her website. I’m about at the point of giving up on my state ever being sane again, but I have to try.
But didn’t you know? Facts are just the way we’ve been taught to think by the femminati, they’re giving our jobs to wimminz and Mexicans, and they’re making it so that straight white cisgendered guys everywhere are gonna stop being able to get laid. Which means no more white babies!!!!111111oneoneeleventy!11!!!!!!!!
*sidenote* Facts are also MISANDRY!!!!!!!!
Tell me about it. I remember you saying you’re from around KC, so I want to apologize for what’s going on in southern Missouri. I don’t think many people around here realize most of the state money comes from St. Louis and Kansas City, that we’re actually financially dependent on the state government, and that Missouri is one of the states that gets more federal money than we give. So because people don’t appreciate those facts, we have a lot of people voting against their own economic self interests. It’s like we have forgotten where all that FEMA money came from, and what Eric Cantor from Virginia said last year about disaster relief.
Could be worse-you could be in Arizona.
Yeah, it’s depressing and bizarre how great a job the Republican party (and their mouthpieces on Fox and so forth) have done of convincing people that up is down and left is right. Have you seen the McCaskill ad that accuses her of “supporting the government“? It doesn’t matter that that should not, in itself, be a bad thing in any sane universe. It doesn’t matter that it would kinda be impossible for a member of the US Senate not to “support the government” unless she goes around punching herself in the face or something. There’s a large enough voting bloc that thinks “government = BAD!” that this sort of nonsense ad is effective, despite those same people being perfectly cool with their Medicare or their food stamps or their farm subsidies or their schools or their libraries or their highways or even, in more than a few cases, their public-sector jobs. It’s freaking weird.
(And no need to apologize to me – having worked for both the Obama campaign in ’08 and the US Census in ’10, I’m far too aware that the greater KC area has plenty of idiots of our own. Sigh.)
*Says a silent prayer of thanks that I was born in Washington and live in California*
Er, “McCaskill ad” should be “anti-McCaskill ad.” Stupid tired brain.
@Pollywog
The attitude is sadly starting to creep it’s way into Canada, It’s rather frightening really.
I lived in Cape Girardeau for a few years, going to SEMO. I was ever so grateful to GTFO.
So apparently rape isn’t actually rape if it doesn’t involve the vagina? That’s news to me.
Anal rape, oral rape, hell, using any part of an unwilling person’s body to get off with your genitals is RAPE and is fucked up as hell.
Although, personally, when I got raped by having a penis shoved into my chest cavity area and using my breasts to bring himself to orgasm, I was actually relieved that he didn’t rape my vaginal area. I really did not want to worry about getting pregnant, or having to deal with abortion.
What woman WANTS to get an abortion? SERIOUSLY, that’s minor surgery/bodily traumatic medication right there. But it’s not NEARLY as hard and messed up as having to give birth.
I have only ever been pregnant willingly. The idea of having to be pregnant and give birth against my will would probably make me suicidal or murderous at whoever had forced me to be tortured for 9 months.
Anyway, BIG cheer for people who are helping out with campaigns in contested states! We need you so much!
@ aworldanonymous- not so slowly I am afraid, but far more quietly. Have you liked this community: https://www.facebook.com/RadicalHandmaids. Go like them.
Bahaha, literally, like, this minute the Radical Handmaids totally linked that video!!
I think the word “legitimate” is the ultimate scare word here. Thanks, MRAs, for putting it out there that women LOVE making up rape, now your dinosaur cousins in the GOP are using the “legitimate” dogwhistles JUST FOR YOU!
“Liberal” and “civil libertarian” MRAs should be ashamed, by participating in the MRM you’re working to make the world a less free place.
@timetravellingfool
I’m seriously considering moving elsewhere, but I know no matter where I go I won’t be able to escape it.
Social Liberalism Y U NO BE MOAR POPULAR!!!