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GOP congressman and Senate nominee Todd Akin: Rape is an effective form of birth control

Not a doctor, but plays one on TV.

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.

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RubyHypatia
RubyHypatia
12 years ago

If it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that down. Huh?!

cloudiah
12 years ago

Pam, could you try reposting because I feel like I know what you’re saying but my eyes are bleeding? 😉

Pam
Pam
12 years ago

Snowy, the Community of the Wrongly Accused documents false rape charges. It’s not as uncommon as you might think.
[link to cotwa]

In the sidebar at the cotwa site:

Successor to False Rape Society

False rape activist Paul Elam

a banner for A Voice for Men

Yep, I’d definitely put stock in that site as a legitimate source of information.

Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
12 years ago

I know, Ruby. It’s like someone trying to shoehorn rape into some sort of ‘just world’ hypothesis and just ending up looking ridiculous.

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
12 years ago

It’s kind of sad that I’m an atheist and I still understand Mary’s religion better than she does.

(Ie I knew what the passage in Corinthians was actually about.)

Pam
Pam
12 years ago

@cloudiah,

LOL!! Sorry ’bout that….. what is causing the damage, the blockquote fail, the verbosity of my reponse….. or mebbe both??

cloudiah
12 years ago

Just the blockquote fail, Pam, though I think I finally figured it out. 🙂

Pam
Pam
12 years ago

Just the blockquote fail, Pam, though I think I finally figured it out.

Okay, cool! Basically, the first few paragraphs I am quoting self-righteousmary’s response to you, and from the second set of quotation marks on down to the end is my response. I coulda made my response a hella shorter by simply saying “self-righteousmary is full of shit”, but I wanted to wipe her nose in it.

Dvärghundspossen
12 years ago

@Mary, Pam and others: Adding to what Pam said, it doesn’t even follow from “you ought to have sex with your spouse” that “there can be no such thing as marital rape”. I mean, Jesus taught that you ought to give all your money to the poor. It doesn’t follow that poor people have the right to break into my house and take my stuff, or that there’s no such thing as poor people committing theft.

katz
12 years ago

How does a man even know when he has obtained consent?

It is difficult to imagine how someone who wonders this can function on a daily basis and not get, say, locked up in panic at the bakery because she can’t tell whether she’s actually bought this bagel or not.

Pam
Pam
12 years ago

@Dvärghundspossen,

She reads that line, “Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent”, as a command, when Paul clearly stated that it was NOT a command, so for her the “there can be no such thing as marital rape” rightfully follows.
From previous encounters with her on this blog, I am of the opinion that she parrots what she has been told/taught about what the scriptures are saying, she hasn’t contemplated nor ruminated on the verses that she chooses to toss around in support of her arguments. When challenged on the meaning of various verses that she has tossed at us, she doesn’t respond directly to those challenges, she just runs off to the other “Christian” blogs that she frequents and wails about how we’re all a bunch of mean meanies.

Pam
Pam
12 years ago

And the “Christian” blogs that she frequents are of the ‘righteousness of male dominance and male supremacy’ variety, so is it any surprise that she believes there can be no such thing as marital rape? I mean, women were put on this earth for purpose of serving men and being vessels to receive their sperm and bear their (hopefully male!!) children.

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
12 years ago

And now I have a mental image of a bunch of fundamentalist dudes patting Mary on the head like a dog, saying “good girl”, and offering her a biscuit.

Jayem Griffin
12 years ago

According to Paul, marriage itself is a concession. His ideal involved NO SEX EVER FOR ANYBODY.

…You really want to take this dude’s advice on sexual relationships with your spouse? I mean, of course you can. I’m just checking.

tasblacksmith
tasblacksmith
12 years ago

@sunshinemary this is getting weird, having wittnesed (hallelujah brothers and sisters!) your christian self hate you then go somewhat to redress this by pointing me toward what sounds like a reasonable definition of sexual assault/harrasment via Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.
Thankyou?

EEB
EEB
12 years ago

The possibility that someone might lie about a crime happening is a pretty fucking stupid reason to make said crime legal.

Yeah, exactly. I don’t know why this is such a difficult concept. A friend of mine spent some time in jail because her roommate loaned my friend her credit card. After a horrible fight, the roommate called the cops and accused my friend of stealing her credit card. Since what my friend had done was technically illegal (and stupid) and it was she-said-she-said thing, she spent a few weeks in jail until the roommate calmed down and dropped the charges. Fits the entire MRA cliche about the vindictive ex*, right? By this logic, we shouldn’t have laws against credit card fraud and theft.

(*Except, unlike a girl claiming rape, the girl who made the accusation was a) not subjected to a horribly invasive investigation and b) automatically believed and treated like a victim, not a criminal, by the police. So. Not at all like rape, really.)

And the whole “how do you know if you have consent?” thing…OMG I can’t even. Are you being serious with this or just trolling? Because if you’re serious…wow. This website makes me question my faith in humanity, oh, two or three times a day, but this? Kind of makes me want to never leave my bedroom again. Ugh.

tasblacksmith
tasblacksmith
12 years ago

@sunshinemary just read your latest blog post plus comments. What is this strange and creepy cult you belong to?

Catfish
Catfish
12 years ago

I’d just want to add to the whole “false accusation” thing…
.. that most false accusations are not malicious, intentional attempts at slandering someone. Those are the minority of all the cases and often easily disproven or simply dismissed due to lack of evidence. It can have an effect on the innocent person’s life but getting jailtime etc. does not generally happen.

Most of the time, it’s a case of misidentification. There are also people who simply lie about getting raped without trying to blame it on someone since they refuse to name or claim not to know the attacker. The latter is wrong, and wastes police and social worker resources (including time) but is otherwise a victimless crime. Apart from it’s effect on rape culture…

Sometimes it can even be a case of miscommunication. Always, always, always ask and make sure you have the other participant’s consent. If they just lie down immobile, it’s not good sex to begin with.

The problem really is in the attitudes of the society.
Rape is a very underreported crime. False accusations are blown out of proportions – and even when they do occur, that does not mean that rape accusations in general should be taken lightly.

I’d much prefer to talk about one issue at a time without trying to derail it into other subjects, even if they are related. When talking about rape victims, let’s talk about them. When talking about false accusations then talk about them. It does no-one good to keep distracting others from the issue originally being discussed. It may even appear… well, douchy. “Because x happens too, y should not be discussed” is not a valid argument.

Cliff Pervocracy has excellent posts about the subject of false rape accusations.

Catfish
Catfish
12 years ago

As for the subject itself… I shared this on FB because I was just too shocked. I’m not an american, but reading about people in power saying things like this scares the daylights out of me 🙁
There’s too much shaming flung at rape victims to begin with.

feministgamer
feministgamer
12 years ago

So ashamed right now (I live in St. Louis), but then, I’m so happy that this has gotten so much coverage. I really hope this helps shed light on what Akin really stands for.

bespectacledape
12 years ago

May he crash, burn, and ultimately learn what the consequences of his worldview are for real people.

thebionicmommy
thebionicmommy
12 years ago

sunshinemary just read your latest blog post plus comments. What is this strange and creepy cult you belong to?

She’s in the Quiverfull movement. They teach that women are supposed to stay out of higher education and the work world, and instead marry young and have as many babies as possible. It’s a Christian patriarchy movement, so they want women to be obedient to their husbands, no matter what. So for them, it would be impossible for a husband to rape a wife, because the wife is expected to always give her consent anyway. Quiverfull groups teach that feminists are the root cause of all societal problems, probably because we keep telling girls and women that they don’t have to live that lifestyle if they don’t want to.

So ashamed right now (I live in St. Louis), but then, I’m so happy that this has gotten so much coverage. I really hope this helps shed light on what Akin really stands for.

I feel the same way, feministgamer. I’m in Joplin, and Akin is very popular around here, even though he doesn’t support storm recovery efforts. I’m also glad about his comments getting big media attention, so hopefully more Missouri voters can find out how much of an extremist he really is.

hellkell
hellkell
12 years ago

False rape accusations have very serious consequences.

Yes, men are very nearly almost inconvenienced. The horror!

While Driscoll may have a good point about rape and or harassment (stopped clocks and all that), Mars Hill is pretty cult-like.

howardbann1ster
12 years ago

Hey, Sunshinemary, are you still bearing false witness against your neighbor?

Karalora
Karalora
12 years ago

@sunshinemary

Pastor Mark Driscoll seems eminently reasonable to me. But what really intrigues me is this notion you have that you are more authoritative when it comes to morality and Biblical interpretation than a, you know, pastor. Didn’t Paul have nasty things to say about women attempting to instruct men in matters of religion? Don’t you fundamentalists looooooove those verses because they back up your patriarchal ideals?

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