The one thing you can count on is that Republicans will attempt to legislate women’s body based on information that they got from an email forward from their crazy uncle Jeff:
“As far as I’m concerned, the morning-after pill is a form of abortion, and I think we just shouldn’t have abortion in this country,” Akin said Wednesday, the day after his victory in the Republican primary, in an interview with Kansas City radio host Greg Knapp. Audio was posted by the liberal site Progress Missouri.
Knapp asked about Akin’s views on abortion in situations as rape and incest, or where the life of the mother is at risk.
“Well, you know, the life of the mother, the situation there is one where I think what you want to do is optimize life. You try to save the mother’s life, you try to save the child,” said Akin. “There are certain things, like you know you get a tubal pregnancy — where the child has absolutely no chance of surviving — and then you do the best you can to save the mother’s life. So, I think you optimize life, is the way I would probably describe it.”
Knapp asked again: “So just to be clear, though, you would like to ban the morning-after, totally for everyone?”
“Yeah,” Akin said. “I think that’s a form of abortion, and I don’t support it.”
The morning after pill is not a form of abortion. It never was and never will be. It does not end a pregnancy. It prevents a pregnancy from occurring.
[full post at ABLC]
Todd
Focused like a laser on jobs, they are.
Just Some Fuckhead
Post Title Suggestion:
There’s Got To Be a Morning After
rlrr
I have the misfortune of being represented by Akin – He really is one of the more stupid people in Congress.
c u n d gulag
I think someone explained the birds and the bees wrong to this vegetable.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
But the Morning After Pill is just the cold blooded murder of the unconceived! This is the mass killing of thousands of people who never existed! Won’t anyone think of the ether babies?
rlrr
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Maybe someone should ask Akin about masturbation…
les
Sorry. Conservatives do not/are not able to make this distinction. every sperms is sacred.
David in NY
I wonder if this is the best attack. Isn’t it time we took them on about abortion? So what if it is an abortion! The thing “aborted” is a single cell. It’s tiny, it doesn’t have any nerves, it is simply not a person. At that point, the person that is a person, the one in whom that cell resides, gets to say what happens with her life — whether she has a child with a man she may not want to, whether she has a child she can’t afford to care for, whether she undergoes a pregnancy that may endanger her health, whether she wants to carry the baby of a rapist or her father. Her life is what’s important. Not a single cell.
Mnemosyne
Well, at least he recognizes that an ectopic (aka tubal) pregnancy isn’t viable and has to be terminated to prevent the mother’s death. That’s more than most of these nimrods will acknowledge.
But, yes, Plan B does diddly-squat to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, which these morons refer to as a “pregnancy.” All it does is prevent ovulation, which means the egg and sperm never actually meet.
Are we really supposed to be redefining any method that prevents the sperm and egg from being in the same place as “abortion”? Is using a condom or diaphragm an “abortion” now because it blocks the two from meeting as Gawd intended? I mean, I know it is for the RCC, but has this spread to Protestants now?
Cassidy
“optimize life”
WTF? Which brain stew came up with that?
danielx
Mmmm….I’d be running an opposition ad featuring that interview in every district that has a major college town in it. Just as an example of Rep. Akins’ strong belief in Republican values like personal freedom and choice.
This shit just practically writes itself, don’t it now?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Pregnancy occurs when God reaches into a woman’s vagina, grabs the specially selected sperm and guides it to the specially selected egg. That’s why men only produce one sperm at a time and women are born with exactly the number of eggs that God expects them to have as children.
Todd
David in NY:
Clearly, it is a whole baby from day one – little hands, feets, heart, eyes, nervous system, thumb sucking. It just gets bigger, and you must be listening to satanic science and all their atheist biology stuff.
Anyway, this is OT, but may be the funniest story of the year. The Bloomie administration shut down a vibrator giveaway in New York.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/city_kos_good_vibrations_Rtc8Up7hrIGqlC63E3J1fK#[email protected]
David in NY
@Mnemosyne: Was it not previously thought that it did “prevent a fertilized egg from implanting?” I thought the contrary evidence was relatively new. In that case, Akin might just be behind the times.
The real questions for him are whether he is against birth control and, given the evidence that Plan B is a form of birth control, why is he against that?
Cassidy
@David in NY: No it isn’t time for that yet. This is not a battle we’ll win in the court of public opinion. People don’t like abortion. Hell, I don’t like abortion. We may support abortion for many varied reasons, but that doens’t mean people like it.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
D’oh! Sorry, my bad syntax didn’t make it clear that morons refer to a fertilized egg as a “pregnancy,” but the pregnancy doesn’t actually occur until the egg implants in the uterine wall. Medically, implantation = pregnancy, not fertilization.
ding dong
[email protected]David in NY: No you don’t win in the realm of public support. This country is too much into cute babies heck look at this blog. You do abortion rights through the courts.
eric
The Morning After Pill means that there was a Night Before and the woman should not be allowed to enjoy a Night Before without suffering the consequences bequeathed to her in the Garden for her Sin of leading Adam out of God’s Grace.
Don
I wish we’d stop having this prevents fertilization/prevents implantation argument. I don’t think it’s a good one to have and it plays their game. Where does that put us in discussions about frozen fertilized embryos? Life-threatening pregnancies in the 21st week?
Arguing about goalpost location with people who don’t acknowledge that the game should even exist only legitimizes them and extends the discussion. And there shouldn’t BE a discussion on this issue. It’s settled. Abortion is legal, as is birth control. “Oh well it’s not really abortion” should be shelved along side the “well she only takes the birth control pills for an unrelated medical issue.”
Fuck that. They are entrenched on the 3rd trimester and fight every. single. battle. We should stop allowing them to set up these battle lines inside our already drawn borders.
Mnemosyne
@David in NY:
IIRC, there’s never been any evidence that Plan B prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, which is why it’s only about 75% effective.
There is a theory that regularly taking the Pill may prevent implantation because the uterine lining usually doesn’t build up as much as it does when a woman is not taking the Pill, but it’s always been theoretical. But since a woman who takes Plan B presumably has a “normal” uterine lining, Plan B can’t affect implantation.
There’s also the fact that conservative luuuurve to conflate Plan B and RU-486, which actually does end an established pregnancy, but they’re completely different medications that have different actions.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rlrr:
Ah, but that’s been proven by Christian scientists to be caused by feminists (aka men haters) refusing to behave as walking life supports for baby ovens. As with wife beating and rape, men are the TRUE victims here. /snark
(honestly, I don’t get this one since a lot them do think sperm has souls in it. I guess this is what happens when the boys make the rules)
Cassidy
OKay, dumb question, and this will sound crass, but do Republican men love latex or something? I know when I was single, I loved meeting a woman on some form of birth control.
Sorry. It just blows my mind. Men should have a frakkin’ holiday to celebrate the creation of birth control.
David in NY
@Cassidy: Really? Within hours of fertilization (and there’s not even implantation), and the fertilized egg is smaller than the comma at end of this clause, the woman has lost control of her body? You don’t like abortion that much?
pseudonymous in nc
Akin and others of the wingnut ilk believe that the instant the pee-pee goes whoosh in the hooha, MAGIC BAYBEEZ ARE MADE, to hell with whatever medical science says.
LanceThruster
Fuck you, Missouri Rep. Todd Akin…oops, what I meant to say was that what Rep. Akin needs to realize is that…wait…no…I can’t do it. Why bother? It makes no sense.
Fuck you, Missouri Rep. Todd Akin!
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Just Some Fuckhead: “There’s Got To Be a Morning After”
Morning After in America?
David in NY
@Mnemosyne: Thanks. I’ll have to look. I think there was some very recent research about the action of Plan B.
Cassidy
@David in NY: Dude, quit that shit. I know what abortion is. And no, on a personal level, I don’t like it. I would be incredibly hurt if my wife or SO had an abortion and didn’t talk to me. If I was a single young man and the person carrying my child didn’t want him or her, I’d rather be a single dad than have it aborted. That being said, I would never presume to tell her what to do with her body. And I would never support legislation doing the same.
The reality is that public opinion is against abortion. It will lose every time. We are better off spending our energy strengthening the allready legal protections and fighting the panty-sniffers in court when they enact stupid shit.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Don: Umm, there is NO argument that wins anyone over here.
The majority of the US electorate is already with us on this.
For folks like Aikin, his fellow slash-and-burn politicians, and the 27%ers who love them, there is no reasoning to be had. You can not reason with CRAZY. There’s only one way to reach them. Winning. Beat down on the downticket races. Even if you can’t get at their seat directly because they are presiding over crazistan, you install someone higher that can redistrict the bastards out of existence. But reasoning? Winning the day with arguments? Who the hell do you think you’d be speaking to? These are not rational people
Dave
[Alternative post title] BREAKING: Area Congressman Has Dumb Idea
Mnemosyne
@Don:
I disagree to the extent that there’s a lot of deliberately confusing information out there and IMO it should be very clear to women that Plan B and RU-486 are two completely different things that have different timeframes and require completely different follow-ups with a doctor. (For one thing, you don’t need a sonogram after taking Plan B, but it’s required after RU-486 to make sure it worked.) I think it’s important for women to understand that one needs to be taken within 72 hours but the other has to be taken 6 weeks later. Etc.
gelfling545
@David in NY: Whether or not it is the “best form of attack” it is the truth. If it is portrayed as other than what it is it may prevent women who need it from taking it because of misinformation. Whenever these folks misrepresent scientific facts it needs to be pointed out.
pluege
stifling ignorance is a republican’s most salient feature.
Bulworth
Is this more of that ‘less government’ the teabag GOP keeps promising us?
LanceThruster
@pluege:
No, no, no! They don’t want to stifle it, they want to foster and promote it so it flourishes amongst their ranks. They…wait…Oh, now I see what you’re saying.
Nevermind.
bobbo
Abortion is legal.
Shawn in ShowMe
Now you know why the McCaskill campaign ratfucked the Republican primaries to get Akin. Dude wants to party like it’s 1899 but he’s running in a state with a legendary appetite for Budweiser and Hooters bars.
Roger Moore
@Bulworth:
They want to shrink government until it’s small enough to probe a woman’s vagina.
Kathy in St. Louis
@rlrr: I, too, am represented by this holy roller. Jeez, it’s bad enough to have Blunt as a senator, since he’s about as dishonest a politician as there is. The thought of this dim bulb joining him is too much for me. I have written him to tell him what a worthless representative he is so many times that I think I must be on some watch list somewhere. I actually voted in the Republican primary, something I’ve never done before, just so that I could vote against this guy. But St. Charles loves him, he’s there kind of yahoo. I just don’t know if the entire state is this stupid. Well, yes, I guess that there is a good chance that it is.
Kathy in St. Louis
@danielx: Apparently, you’ve never been to Missouri, or Missourah, as they like to pronounce it out in the hinterlands. Their pastors and their Wednesday night bible study group are going to be pushing for this guy. The only thing that he has going against him is that he’s from a major metro area, and they hate anyone from St. Louis. But they hate Claire, too, so this one will be tough. But really, except for Columbia, most of the college towns wouldn’t be a help here.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Kathy in St. Louis:
True dat. The female voters are the key to Claire staying in that seat.
MikeJ
@Kathy in St. Louis:
Other college towns? I thought Hohumbia was pretty much it. The state U and two or three other schools.
Wait, I ran sound for a gig at Westminster out somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Hardly a “college town”, even if it is a town with a college.
Yutsano
@bobbo:
For now.
Philo Vaihinger
It prevents implantation if conception should occur. It does not prevent conception. That makes it the moral equivalent of abortion for all these guys. But then I think you knew that.
RobZ
Plan B is said to be 95% effective if it’s taken within 24 hours.
http://www.healthline.com/health/emergency-contraception/effective
Soonergrunt
I wonder how he feels about the Death Penalty.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
That’s funny: *I* think that a people who can explore other planets, probe the workings of nature at scales ranging from the subatomic to the cosmic, that’s decoded the human genome, and can blow up cities at the turn of a key probably shouldn’t be worshipping 2500-year old tribal Bronze-age desert gods.
That whole “Go to Canaan, kill everyone you find there” schtick was a lot less toxic when we were limited to bronze swords and leather shields. Now? Not so much.
But guess what, Todd? Because of religious freedom, I don’t get everything I want, either.
So kindly STFU.
Roy G.
Barney Frank said it best, that Republicans ‘believe that life begins at conception, and ends at birth.’
Maxwel
Yes it’s prevention, like abstinence. Are you against abstinence congressman?
mechwarrior online
The abortion wars will only end when Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are dead and buried in the US and people that mention their faith are mocked and hounded… till then, oh well.
eyelessgame
You don’t understand. For these people, pregnancy doesn’t begin at implantation. It doesn’t begin at fertilization. It begins at ejaculation.
LanceThruster
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
This, also, too – http://www.americablog.com/2012/08/ready-light-years-beween-mo-mars.html
Imani Gandy (ABL)
@Just Some Fuckhead: damn. that’s good.
Imani Gandy (ABL)
@Don: i agree. the issue is really about freedom and liberty. you know — the stuff the teabaggers love to talk about right up until “vaginas” enter the conversation.
The Other Chuck
Can we just get rid of the fucking senate so that the majority of the country is ruled by locales where the majority of the fucking people actually live?
Villago Delenda Est
Whether or not the morning-after pill is abortion is irrelevant.
It’s interfering with their asshole deity’s plan, which is to punish sluts for having sex with childbirth.
All contraception, no matter what it is, interferes with their asshole deity’s plan to punish sluts.
Raya
“The one thing you can count on is that Republicans will attempt to legislate women’s body based on information that they got from an email forward from their crazy uncle Jeff.”
This is, like, THE eternal truth of American politics. Pithily summarized, ABL.
burnspbesq
Unproven. Correlation is not causation.
Interrobang
@Philo Vaihinger: It does prevent conception, if taken at the correct time after sex and during the woman’s cycle. Its mechanism of action is that it prevents the woman’s body from releasing an egg, and no egg = no conceptus, even if there’s sperm in her reproductive tract. It is exactly and precisely analogous to a condom, in that it prevents the gamete (in this case, the female one) from getting into the reproductive tract. The major difference is that it is sort of like a condom that prevents the man from ejaculating (as it prevents the woman’s ovaries from releasing an egg).
If the woman has already ovulated, it is not going to prevent fertilization, and may actually increase the likelihood of conception, as it contains exactly the same hormonal cocktail as is given to women who have already had IVF, to help the IVF “take.” The same hormones can have vastly different effects on the female body when applied at different times in the menstrual cycle.
Sorry to be all SIWOTI, but yeah, you are so very, very wrong.
Mnemosyne
@Philo Vaihinger:
Current science shows that is not correct. The current science is that the only thing Plan B can do is prevent ovulation.
Basically, wingnuts have taken a theoretical notion about estrogen/progestin combo birth control pills that maybe they could possibly prevent implantation by making the lining of the uterus too thin for a fertilized egg to implant and applied that unproven theory to Plan B. As far as anyone can tell, the primary action of every BCP — including “regular” BCP you take every day and “emergency” BCP that you take within 72 hours of intercourse — is to prevent ovulation. No one has ever shown in either a lab or in real-life testing that implantation is interfered with.
Mnemosyne
@Philo Vaihinger:
And, yes, I get so picky about this because clearly even well-meaning people don’t understand the facts.
Kathy in St. Louis
@MikeJ: There’s northeast (Truman) Southwest (in Springfield), Southeast (in Cape Girardeau which is Rush’s hometown) and several others. We’re quite the education capitol (um, well).
jrosen
@les ” every sperms is sacred.” which makes God the greatest abortionist of all time.
Brachiator
@Cassidy:
Yes. Especially when they can wear it over their entire bodies. Like that minister found dead, wearing a rubber suit, with a dildo inserted where the sun don’t shine.
@Mnemosyne:
Conservatives don’t care. They are falling in with the view of the Catholic Church and some other religions that the entire purpose of every act of intercourse, including rape and incest, is to make babies, and anything that interferes with it is a sin before God.
Philo Vaihinger
@Interrobang: Thank you for the clarification. Sounds like if the timing is uncertain its a gamble between preventing conception and preventing implantation. For a Christian, both are morally wrong and the second as bad as abortion.