Republican Senate Nominee: Victims Of ‘Legitimate Rape’ Don’t Get Pregnant

[Sasha]

Republican Senate Nominee: Victims Of ‘Legitimate Rape’ Don’t Get Pregnant

Evan McMorris-Santoro (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/evan_mcmorris-santoro.php) August 19, 2012, 2:06 PM
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2012/08/Akin-Todd-8-8-12-cropped-proto-custom_28.jpg


This post has been updated.

Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill, justified his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted (http://fox2now.com/2012/08/19/the-jaco-report-august-19-2012/) Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.
“Let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work, or something,” Akin said. “I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”
Video, clipped by the Democratic tracking outfit American Bridge (the full interview is below):
A 1996 study (http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378%2896%2970141-2/abstract) by the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found “rape-related pregnancy occurs with significant frequency” and is “a cause of many unwanted pregnancies” — an estimated “32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.”
In a tweet, McCaskill said she was “stunned (http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mccaskill-im-stunned-by-akins-comments-about-rape)” by Akin’s comments.
After the interview caused a firestorm, Akin said in a statement that he “misspoke (http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/akin-on-legitimate-rape-comment-i-misspoke).”
Akin is perhaps the boldest among a crop of conservative 2012 nominees who could hamper (http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/todd-akin-richard-mourdock-senate-republicans.php) GOP efforts to take back the Senate in the fall. Akin has called for an end to the school-lunch program (http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/akin-end-school-lunch-program) and a total ban on the morning-after pill (http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/todd-akin-ban-the-morning-after-pill.php).
His claim about “legitimate” types of rape is not completely foreign to the current Republican Congress, however. In 2011, the House GOP was forced to drop language from a bill that would have limited federal help to pay for an abortion to only victims of “forcible rape. (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/report-republicans-give-up-on-forcible-rape.php)” Akin was a co-sponsor (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/from-the-right-radio-silence-on-rape-redefining-abortion-bill.php) on the bill.
Nor is this Akin’s first time suggesting 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 a May 1 article that year in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The PollTracker Average (http://polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com/contests/mo-senator-12) shows Akin leading McCaskill by a margin of 49.7 percent to 41.3 percent.
Below are Akin’s comments in their full context (abortion question begins around the four-minute mark):
Source: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/todd-akin-legitimate-rape.php

[Le Socialiste]

Holy shit. Fuck this guy.

[Robespierres Neck]

Never ceases to amaze me...

[Igor]

:huh:

what

[Ocean Seal]

I can't tell if hatred or ignorance. I don't know which is worse at this point the fact that some people actually might believe this, and the fact that some people don't care.

[brigadista]

what a prime tosser

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

So if these natural defenses do kick in the rapist may not need to be punished? Also this guy might be confusing Women with female ducks which would be funny if this wasn't so scary.

[Lynx]

He claims he misspoke - yet insists that the unborn be carried to term. In his world, women are the equivalent of Borg maturation chambers.

[Jazzratt]

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” ... “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
I'm willing to bet money this man doesn't understand a fucking thing from doctors.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7q89f0vkR1rt1vklo1_400.gif

[Ostrinski]

Ill hunt this fucker down in the night and shove a jellyfish up his ass.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Ill hunt this fucker down in the night and shove a jellyfish up his ass.

Out of all the things I've heard people say they would shove up an ass, that's the best.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

...nothing really new or insightful to add...just that people this twisted / ignorant, and their supporters, need a healthy and carefully regulated dose of concentrated physical violence...mostly directed on their genitals.

[Quail]

There are so many things wrong with this, but one thing that really bothers me is the idea of "legitimate rape" which generally means rape where the perpetrator used violence. No kind of rape is any less "legitimate" but I think that it's quite a widespread idea that rape where drink or drugs are concerned is at least partly the fault of the victim. For example this (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/is-helen-mirren-right-about-date-rape-915788.html) article I read earlier.

[Jazzratt]

I'm willing to bet money this man doesn't understand a fucking thing from doctors.
Turns out I'd have lost that money. Apparently there is a group of hack doctors called "physicians for life" peddling this crap (http://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/did-todd-akin-get-his-misinformation-on-rape-and-pregnancy-from-physicians-for-life/). I think I need to drink myself into a stupor now.

[Sasha]

There are so many things wrong with this, but one thing that really bothers me is the idea of "legitimate rape" which generally means rape where the perpetrator used violence. No kind of rape is any less "legitimate" but I think that it's quite a widespread idea that rape where drink or drugs are concerned is at least partly the fault of the victim. For example this (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/is-helen-mirren-right-about-date-rape-915788.html) article I read earlier.

Yup, right on the money. In his "apology" he equaled his legitimate rape bs with violent/forcible rape (like there is any other kind): http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/08/20/akin-issues-weak-apology-for-legitimate-rape-comments

Also one has to be impressed with his ability to use an apology to equal the rape victims he is apologizing to with al-qaida terrorists if they do seek out an abortion. Double down on the crazy mysoginy; GOP 2012

[NewLeft]

rape is a state crime and in some states the % is estimated to be 5% (a pro-life stat) of all victims become pregnant, but these states are based off all rape victims and in some states men outnumber women by 2 to 1 as victims.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Know your enemy.

[Silvr]

A lot of the hand-wringing by liberals about stuff like this sort of bugs me, actually. It seems like in all the fuss over comments like this made by rightwingers, it tends to be taken for granted that denying the right to abortion in cases of rape is something especially bad, much worse than denying it in cases where the woman willingly chose to have sex.

[Omsk]

He looks like he would fit in a Viiieet-nam veeterhun movie. Such a...brain dead.. face.

[Sasha]

i think the onion speaks for all of us here: http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-misspokewhat-i-meant-to-say-is-i-am-dumb-as-dog,29256/

[X5N]

Yeah, this is pretty messed up.

[cynicles]

More and more I feel like I'm hearing the same advice given by some oil and gas cleric whenever I hear American politicians talk. One Iranian cleric once advised on matters of sex that one shouldn't have sex with a camel that has been tainted by its own urine. I'm not sure what he meant but it sounded as intelligent as this.

[Pretty Flaco]

natural defenses to stop pregnancy? so contraceptives are just for fun?

[Sea]

Todd Akin Launches Campaign to Eliminate “Storks” That Deliver Illegitimate Babies (http://thewashingtonfancy.com/2012/08/24/todd-akin-launches-campaign-to-eliminate-storks-that-deliver-illegitimate-babies/12182)

Whew. I was mad at the guy for a while there, but I guess he has it all worked out.

[Zostrianos]

Bill Maher wrote a great article on this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/todd-akin-republicans_b_1826617.html

New Rule: If your entire party tries to get rid of you, and you stay in, you can't talk about how easy it is for a woman to push a stupid prick out of her body.
I don't want to waste another second thinking about Todd Akin, and his theory that you can't get pregnant unless your eggs are asking for it. Here's the only thing you need to know about Todd Akin and human anatomy: he's an asshole. What I want to talk about is how it's not a coincidence that the party of fundamentalism is also the party of fantasy. When I say religion is a mental illness, this is what I mean: it corrodes your mental faculties to the point where you can believe in tiny ninja warriors who hide in vaginas and lie in wait for bad people's sperm.
Evangelicals might like to pretend that the magical thinking that they indulge in at home doesn't affect what they do at the office, but it absolutely does. The brain that believes in angels and miracles and Jesus riding a dinosaur is trained to see the world not as it is, but as you want it to be.
Republicans would like to pretend like Congressman Akin's substitution of superstition for science is a lone problem but it's not: they're all magical thinkers, on nearly every issue. They don't get their answers on climate change from climatologists, they get them from the Book of Genesis. Hence Sharia Law in America is a dire threat, and global warming a hoax.
Or take the issue that consumes the right these days, our sea of red ink: Republicans are united in their fervent desire to reduce the deficit, but they want to do it in some magical fashion that doesn't involve raising taxes or cutting any spending. When given a choice in polls between these two options, a majority of Republicans check "none of the above" as a way to reduce the deficit. That's like deciding to pay off your student loans by daydreaming.
Or as it's known on Capitol Hill, supply-side economics. Remember that magic beans theory? That you actually bring in more revenue by bringing in less? Ronald Reagan believed it. But at least back in the '80s it was new. The thing is, we tried it, and it doesn't work. Yet, Paul Ryan, who every shit-for-brains pundit in America keeps telling us is a "serious" guy, still believes in the supply-side theory. All the Republicans do. They all believe in something that both science and history have shown to be pure fantasy. The symbol for their party shouldn't be an elephant -- it should be a unicorn.
Paul Ryan is their tough guy on spending but he doesn't want to touch defense -- that's right, a budget hawk who doesn't think there's anything bloated about the Defense Department's budget. It's like being a health inspector and finding nothing wrong with the Asian place that has the chicken hanging in the window. This is how low we've put the bar for political courage -- that you can just write, "I want a pony" in a binder and call it the "Plan For Restoring Vision For the Future of America's Greatness" or some shit, and then everyone has to refer to you as the serious one in Congress. It reminds me of health care. Republicans are for all the popular things, like covering people with pre-existing conditions, but they're not for the part where you pay for it, like the mandate. Just like they were for our recent wars, but not for paying for them. For the prescription drug bill, but not for paying for it.
How do they get away with it? They know that, because we're already such a religious country, our minds are primed for magical, fantasy thinking. The gullibility comes factory-installed. They've learned that you appeal not to an American's head, but to his gut -- it's a much bigger target. But here's the problem: life is complicated. I mean, I know we know some things for sure, like why Jesus put us here on Earth: to watch Here Comes Honey Boo Boo on a 50-inch TV screen. But what about the Chinese slaves who made the TV? What about carbon from the coal that generated the electricity? What about the Walmart where we bought it, where the workers don't have health insurance? What about racism, or the oceans turning into nail polish remover? The grown-up answer is: identify problems scientifically, prioritize and solve. The Republican answer is: there isn't a problem. And anyone who tells you different is a liar who hates America. We don't have to make hard choices. We just have to ignore the science and the math -- that's why God gave us values.
If rape babies throw a monkey wrench into the whole right-to-life pitch, just make believe rape babies don't exist. If you want to cut down on teen pregnancy, just tell curious kids with raging hormones to practice abstinence. Until they get married. Because everyone knows, that's when the fucking never stops. Health care? Not a problem if you just keep repeating, "We have the greatest health care in the world." Even though the U.N. ranks it 37th.
What's the solution to global warming? It's that it isn't real, and even if it is, big whoop, just buy an air conditioner, you pussy. Republicans also believe that putting the word "clean" next to the word "coal" creates something called clean coal. Even though there's the exact same amount of evidence for clean coal as there is for Todd Akin's mistaken baby makin' theory.
Republicans also believe if they kick all the Mexicans out of the country, the strawberries will pick themselves, and that if they cut the safety net all the poor blacks are "resting" in, they will fall gently to the ground, stand up, dust themselves off, and get good-paying jobs as Olympic gymnasts.
Next week in Tampa the Republicans must admit that the difference between a GOP convention and Comic-Con is that the people at Comic-Con have a much firmer grasp of reality.

[Sasha]

wow, just when even the the most hardcore republicans recognise these kind of remarks as toxic (even when in their heart they believe in it) the leader of the dutch taliban drops the excact same shit in the midle of the election campaing: http://www.nu.nl/nieuws/2894886/sgp-noemt-kans-zwangerschap-verkrachting-heel-klein.html

not that they get any votes outside of the hardcore protestant cult/community but still...