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 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.”
We’re really not that far away from the policies of the Dominican Republic if these sociopaths have their way.
d0n camillo
Way to go Missouri Repuglicans at least. If he beats Claire McCaskill then all Missouri voters should hang their heads in shame.
dmsilev
Let me guess, the doctor he consulted was Rand Paul.
Mark S.
Holy fuck, every time I think they can’t sink any lower, one of the cretins surprises me.
celticdragonchick
I cannot recall anything from history to show where a well educated, powerful republic actually started regressing into pre-scientific magical thinking typical of times over three centuries in the past…
What. The. Fuck.
dslak
Akins is outlining a decision-procedure for determining cases where a woman really has lied about being raped. If she’s pregnant, then she wasn’t raped.
Next up for Akins: suggesting trials by combat to decide between competing claims, and a selection of tests from The Malleus Maleficarum to identify witches.
Eric
So if the woman gets pregnant, is that iron clad defense to a rape charge?
Wow.
gogol's wife
I was born in that state. It didn’t use to be so bad. Neither was Kansas.
Linda Featheringill
So, if you get pregnant, it wasn’t rape, right?
ETA: Eric beat me to it.
But the point is legitimate. If the woman conceives and therefore it wasn’t rape, then what was it?
Yutsano
@dmsilev: Or even Ron, who at least is an obstetrician. That would give Akin a modicum of cover for this idiocy.
Eric
Dear God
Please initiate Rapture sequence now. Hurry.
Thanks
Sane people
mamayaga
@gogol’s wife:
The ever expanding borders of Mississippistan?
celticdragonchick
@Linda Featheringill:
Yeah, I think that is what he is setting up.
Next, we will test for witchcraft by use of dunking stools.
Emma
You know, this whole “great democratic experiment” of ours? Nice while it lasted.
Jeebus.
gogol's wife
@mamayaga:
I guess so!
ETA: Are you related to Baba Yaga?
celticdragonchick
@Emma:
I have been saying for years that there is no guarantee that democracy is the final word in human governance. Our ability to elect poltroons and idiots seems to be sadly intact.
hhex65
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead but hopes for a full recovery by November remain high.
Kane
I have reached the point where I’m willing to split the baby in half and create two separate countries.
GregB
I hope the fuck the DNC has an ad up with this monster and his lunatic rantings within the day.
SatanicPanic
How soon before the GOP becomes openly pro-rape?
ETA- The word some caught my eye here. I imagine in his mind the punishment is something along the lines of a parking ticket.
cathyx
I’d like the names of these doctors who say this. We need to ask them to confirm it.
mamayaga
@gogol’s wife: I’m her mother. Years ago my daughter had a political/satirical blog under the name Baba Yaga. I managed the code and graphics for her and went under the name Mama Yaga, an even more ancient crone, and much scarier.
gogol's wife
@mamayaga:
That is scary!
gogol's wife
It’s amazing to me that they’re talking about Biden and chains, and something like this just gets ignored totally in the national media.
The Dangerman
Perhaps an Amendment is in order to make potential candidates pass a basic science and math test.
Litlebritdifrnt
@gogol’s wife:
They will pick it up, “Legitimate Rape” is a trending topic on twitter, the villagers will want to know why.
quannlace
Fuck, is brain-damage now a requirement for a Republican candidate?
And it’s detestable the increasing use of phrases like ‘legitimate rape’ and ‘forcible rape.’
Cause we always must assume that the woman somehow ‘had it coming.’
LanceThruster
So Akin stands in support of legitimate rape as a means of pregnancy prevention?
He seems to think that the other type of rape is pretty much Glob’s will (in addition to the notion that the hussy was most likely asking for it).
Did The Enlightenment somehow completely skip Missouri?
Chris T.
Shades of “the juices don’t flow”…
JPL
@quannlace:
We should set up an idiot fund so we can send them dictionaries.
Corner Store Operator
This is exactly why Claire and the DSCC spent money trying to get this guy the GOP nomination, she wanted this guy as her opponent for this very reason. He is a true believer nutjob. I think Claire has the toughest re-elect prospects of any of the Dem incumbents from the class of 2006, but Akin gives her by far the best chance of winning.
slag
To be fair, if you truly do think abortion is murder, there should be no exceptions to your anti-choice position. Any other anti-choice argument does inevitably boil down to “the slut should be punished”. That said, this guy’s obviously a wingnut (emphasis on the nut).
ETA The funny thing is that, apparently, at least some ducks do have this capability. Maybe, if a woman gets pregnant after rape, we need to throw her in the water to see if she drowns. If not, she’s obviously a duck who wasn’t raped. If so, then problem solved regardless…Why does this sound so familiar?
jwb
@celticdragonchick: This particular one has been around for a long time, and it’s a staple of anti-choice thought:
That chestnut is from 1988.
beltane
@LanceThruster: Perhaps the residents of Missouri are merely regressing to the mean in terms of human intellectual development, which now appears to have taken place some time in the 9th Century.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
What an R-tard.
UncommonSense
The logical extension of this “argument” is that if a woman seeking an abortion claims she was raped, she is by definition a lying whore who is just trying to murder her baby.
Yet, I wonder how many of these “pro-life” politicians would follow it to the logical conclusion that the woman should be prosecuted for murder or attempted murder? Very few, I imagine, since that would make their position politically unpalatable even to some of their followers.
Loneoak
He’s confusing humans with ducks.
RedKitten
Holy. Fuck.
There are just no words for this kind of hateful, harmful ignorance. The fact that ANYBODY with more than a third-grade education could think this…well, the mind boggles.
Robin G.
I read this and was staggered. Seriously read it about five times because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Lord knows there’s an incredibly detailed list of comments to choose from, but I honestly believe this is the worst statement I’ve ever seen from a politician.
I have a hard time believing this will fly even in Missouri.
celticdragonchick
@jwb:
You can’t make this shit up (unless you are a fundy Republican, it seems):
A sooper sekit secretion that magically appears during a rape to eliminate unwanted sperm and is otherwise untraceable and impossible to study by scientists.
It sounds like something from the anti evolution cranks like Henry Morris.
Spaghetti Lee
I’m betting his college pickup lines were something similar.
Quincy
It’s really no longer news when Akin says something awful, the real fun comes in debating which of the many awful things he says is most revolting.
thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/17/710101/gop-senate-candidate-suggests-the-voting-rights-act-of-…
cathyx
I like this comment at the link:
Heliopause
The Constitution precludes a religious test for holding public office, but I’m thinking maybe a minimum sixth grade understanding of the sciences wouldn’t be too much to ask.
catclub
@celticdragonchick: It is the reason Genghis Khan had no descendants.
chrome agnomen
he’ll be glad to tell you just what those ways of shutting down pregnancy are…after he gets elected…in a quiet room. until then, you people have gotten all you’re going to get.
IowaOldLady
I’m shocked.
And sickened. This ignorant, misogynist, hatefilled yahoo might very well be elected to the US Senate, where he will make laws for the rest of us.
What the hell has gone wrong with the US electorate?
Hal
First of all, no one is arguing every rape results in pregnancy. The argument is when it does result. It is immaterial if this does not occur on a regular basis.
Also:
So God performs abortions now?
jwb
@celticdragonchick: No, you can’t make this shit up. “Secreting a certain secretion” has stuck with me since that particular controversy erupted back in 1988. The way the meme regularly appears, you have to presume that it is stated again and again in anti-choice circles, which is how it has evolved into a kind of zombie anti-fact.
Valdivia
@catclub:
A funny thing though, totally OT, but RadioLab had a program on genetics where they found a constant gene that spread East to West and they called it the Genghis Khan gene.
On topic: Akin is just completely nuts!
catclub
@slag: ““the slut should be punished”
It is interesting that the prescribed punishment is being forced to keep her child. And on the other hand, “children are a gift from God”. Searching for consistency in what they say is a fool’s errand.
gloryb
Is this the same guy who wants to eliminate school lunches for low income kids?
catclub
@Valdivia: Kind of my point.
Pillsy
On the one hand, fucking fuck Todd Akin for being a misogynist piece of shit.
On the other hand, an overwhelming majority of people voted against him in the MO Republican Primary. It was an open primary, so it’s alarming he did better than the crazification factor, but at least now McCaskill has a chance of beating him.
JoyfulA
@jwb: Yes, I remember him well. I told the tale at the end of the last thread.
Thor Heyerdahl
@SatanicPanic:
I’m getting sick of the Republicans using “Blazing Saddles” as a documentary.
imdb.com/title/tt0071230/quotes?qt=qt0371674
Valdivia
@catclub:
I know, but I thought it was funny that even pop science shows like RadioLab make a whole show about it, and here we have this guy, going la la la, can’t be truth.
I should have added a snark tag.
BethanyAnne
Well, someone should tell my niece just how lucky she was. And my sister. Fucker.
mamayaga
@catclub:
Re Genghis Khan’s lack of descendants, um, not so much.
Baud
@mamayaga:
We are all brothers and sisters in Khan.
slag
@catclub: Not only that, but the thought of punishing supposedly irresponsible behavior with the responsibility of a child lacks a twinge of critical thought. I don’t trust irresponsible people with the care of houseplants. And I understand that at least some children may be slightly more demanding than those are.
celticdragonchick
@Robin G.:
This is the same idiot who wants to end federally funded lunches for needy children (in fact, end all federal funds for any type of education, including Pell grants and loans) and repeal all of the voting rights acts over the last 40 years.
And he still has a chance to beat McCaskill. (!) It is difficult to overstate how utterly reactionary the religious right has become.
In an especially vomitous example over at Wingnut Rod Dreher’s blog post on Pussy Riot, fucking insane Catholic Opus Dei wannabe Erin Manning buckled on her chilice and declared how she wanted to see the Russian girls try that in a Catholic church in Texas when real men bring guns into the sanctuary…
…while the knucle dragging “Lord Karth” opines:
A real piece of work called Anglican goes full metal Cromwell:
(“slag” is an obscure insult for women similar to “cunt”.)
Continuing…
Roland De Chanson:
“Sicilian Woman”:
These people all vote.
mamayaga
@Baud:
True, and beyond that, we’re all ultimately Africans. Try that on your wingnut uncle.
catclub
@mamayaga: Please adjust your snarkometer.
slag
@catclub: FWIW, I laughed.
LanceThruster
@beltane:
The saddest part to me is that whether in a red, blue, or purple state, there’s decent people amongst them being subjected to such primitive mindsets.
Courage.
dance around in your bones
OK. I haven’t even read one comment yet but I just wish I had the power to make this guy live
one dayone weekFuck it, man, ONE MONTH as a woman.Maybe he would learn a thing or two.
Jennifer
I guess I’m never going to get out of moderation, for using that word that has the same letters as “insect” but slightly re-arranged, and that is defined as “sex between family members.” So, here, let me repeat, with “insect” standing in for the offending word (and also, I had made a factual error in the original comment, which is corrected here):
Really, it’s just a re-boot of the “God’s protective shield” argument used by one Fay Boozeman, an alleged physician (eye doctor) and anti-abortion nutjob who was appointed to head the Arkansas Health Department by fellow nutjob Mike Huckabee, and whose brother John is now the Republican Senator from Arkansas after defeating Republican in all but name Blanche Lincoln.
Maybe there’s something in the water up in them thar hills.
Just to add: as sick as this shit is, it’s an improvement over the argument put forward by former Republican House representative for south Arkansas, Jay Dickey, who once told an audience that insect was “a family matter, to be handled within the family.” Because a family where there’s insect going on is exactly the type of family that’s best equipped to handle its own dysfunction, dontchaknow.
Patricia Kayden
Is McCaskill using Akin’s words against him in ads? My blood ran cold just reading this post. How do the Repubs get away with their anti-women stance? I must be missing something because I’m not seeing why any woman would vote for them.
celticdragonchick
@Jennifer:
Christ. That guy is actually a distant relative of mine. *spit*
Mnemosyne
I pointed out in the comments below that this is an old, old myth about pregnancy that probably dates back to the Greek belief that a woman’s orgasm was just as required for pregnancy as a man’s ejaculation. If you believe that, then it’s a small step to assuming that a woman who says she got pregnant after being raped must be lying because she must have had enjoyed it in order to get pregnant, amirite?
It’s so weird how these ancient beliefs work themselves back into our consciousness. What’s next, deciding that any woman who has twins must have cheated on her husband?
celticdragonchick
I seem to be having moderation problems…
NancyDarling
@Jennifer: Jennifer, I’ll go you one better. Several years ago when the LA lege was discussing abortion/insect and related issues, one of their legislators got up and said “I’ve been thinking. When you are breeding dogs, sometimes you breed daughter back to father. These pregnancies due to insect might produce a real smart kid.”
True story.
pseudonymous in nc
Either McCaskill is a very lucky politician, or Missouri is a very fucked state.
I bet his “doctors” not only include Randy Pandy Paul, but also Tom “rampaging gangs of high school lesbians” Coburn and Paul “batshit” Broun. The GOP medical caucus graduated from Hollywood Upstairs Medical College.
Ash Can
@Corner Store Operator: This occurred to me as well. I recall seeing polls that had McCaskill trailing at least one of the other GOP candidates by double digits. I should think that if Akin keeps this up, McCaskill has a pretty good shot at keeping her seat.
NancyDarling
@Jennifer: I too am in moderation. Here it is with the offending word modified.
Jennifer, I’ll go you one better. Several years ago when the LA lege was discussing abortion/insect and related issues, one of their legislators got up and said “I’ve been thinking. When you are breeding dogs, sometimes you breed daughter back to father. These pregnancies due to insect might produce a real smart kid.”
True story.
celticdragonchick
@Robin G.:
This is the same idiot who wants to end federally funded lunches for needy children (in fact, end all federal funds for any type of education, including Pell grants and loans) and repeal all of the voting rights acts over the last 40 years.
And he still has a chance to beat McCaskill. (!) It is difficult to overstate how utterly reactionary the religious right has become.
In an especially vomitous example over at Wingnut Rod Dreher’s blog post on Pussy Riot, fucking insane Catholic Opus Dei wannabe Erin Manning buckled on her chilice and declared how she wanted to see the Russian girls try that in a Catholic church in Texas when real men bring guns into the sanctuary…
…while the knucle dragging “Lord Karth” opines:
A real piece of work called Anglican goes full metal Cromwell:
(“slag” is an obscure insult for women similar to “c**t”.)
Continuing…
Roland De Chanson:
“Sicilian Woman”:
These people all vote.
ABL
@jwb: o_O
celticdragonchick
Could one of the front pagers deal with the moderation queue??
Chris
@UncommonSense:
Quite a few. My cousin the fundiegelical nut once posed that as an open question on Facebook – “what should the penalty for abortion be?” About half the responses said “same as for murder.”
beltane
@jwb: During the middle ages it was commonly thought that in order for a woman to become pregnant both she and her partner had to have climaxed, and so pregnancy was sometimes used as a defense against a rape charge. Of course, back then they had little knowledge of biology so the error was excusable to a degree. I’m finding it very, very hard to believe there are people this ignorant living among us today in what is supposedly a technologically advanced society.
Violet
I’m glad he’s said this now before the election. Hopefully some women’s group can run with it.
Chris
@Baud:
KHAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!!!”””
? Martin
The thing that pisses me off about this stuff, is that every time it happens, I need to make sure yet another conversation with my kids takes place. Just in case.
This bullshit is dangerous.
Patricia Kayden
So I guess all those Black slaves who got pregnant when raped by their White masters weren’t really raped according to this idiot?
When will Akin be hauled in front of the “leftwing” media to answer questions about his views?
Kane
Go ahead, tell me again how there’s no republican war on women.
Heliopause
@Violet:
A recent poll had Akin up by the implausible margin of 14 amongst women.
RedKitten
Good — it’s starting to gain some traction with the media, including the St. Louis media.
Bruce S
Actually, if you truly believe abortion is murder, opposing it even in cases of rape and/or inc**t is a logical conclusion.
Just saying…that’s how crazy, invasive and inhumane the premise is.
Bruce S
Actually, if you truly believe abortion is murder, opposing it even in cases of rape and/or inc**t is a logical conclusion.
Just saying…that’s how crazy, invasive and inhumane the premise is.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
Please for God’s sake don’t let them hear you say that. They WILL take that statement seriously and run with it.
kerFuFFler
“…the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Hmmmm, perhaps we should test this hypothesis—–on women who are willing to vote for Republicans! (Except that, eugenicist that I am, I’d be reluctant to cross sociopaths with morons.)
RSA
@jwb: And if you try a Google search on the terms rape, pregnancy, and statistics, you’ll come across stuff like this: “To get and stay pregnant a woman’s body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions. There’s no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy. So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one knows, but this factor certainly cuts this last figure by at least 50 percent and probably more.”
The entire piece is couched in scientific/statistical terms designed to persuade readers that “Assault rape pregnancies are extremely rare.”
Looking through the peer-reviewed literature, though, we find this: The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. (That’s in the U.S., out of about 6 million per year.)
KT
Since most of these fine folks see the Bible as the word of God and use it as justification for their “pro-life” stance, it follows that God must be A-OK with rape.
Child rapists, gang rapists, fathers who fuck their daughters, God gives you a hearty thumbs-up. Go forth and multiply!
It’s too bad we can’t just give these sociopaths their own country, or shoot them off into space. The country and the world would be so much better off if we could rid ourselves of these wackos.
sophronia
Because there are no other people involved in this situation who need to be considered. No siree. Just the rapist and the “child,” nobody else at all.
Schlemizel
How to define a “legitimate rape”? Well the Old Testament suggests that it can’t take place in a city since the woman’s cry’s would be heard so thats right out and it must be her fault. But if by chance it takes place in country the rapist must pay her dear old dad 30 scheckels of silver, must marry her and can never be divorced.
That all seems so fair to me.
hitchhiker
Little known fact — the Puritans believed this, too. Their preachers emphasized that husbands needed to take care with the sexual act so that their wives could become pregnant.
Which means that Mr. Akin is several centuries off in his thinking. But we knew that. Come on, Claire. Let’s see those ads. This is the reason you wanted him for an opponent, right?
BC
See what’s missing in this sentence about the rapist? It’s the woman, who is invisible. He sets this up to be about a rapist and a child – but the woman who is the victim of the rapist is no where to be seen.
Cap'n Magic
From his Wikipedia entry:
Wonder what happened to this issue?
xian
I guess the new Republican slogan is “you didn’t rape that.”
dance around in your bones
I just – wish Akin could live for a day/week/month/months in a female body.
I mean, there is a reason they say abortion would be a sacrament if MEN got pregnant.
Fuck that Via.gra shit.
Mnemosyne
@hitchhiker:
Yep. It was pretty much a “fact” right up to Victorian times, when suddenly women were asexual creatures who put up with their husbands’ demands for sex in exchange for food and shelter. Science said so!
The Victorians were way, way more fucked up than people ever give them credit for.
greenergood
Yeah, all the women in Bosnia and Rwanda didn’t mind being raped, obviously, because the special vaginal anti-rape sealant didn’t work, and they had lots of cared-for, happily anticipated babies – NOT. I have been reading this thread with tears streaming down my face, because women know being raped is a) not good, and b) will or has happened to lots of us, while there’s a lot of guys in this world that think a) yeah, go on and do it ’cause you won’t get caught, and/or b) she was a slut anyway, because she was dressed inappropriately and thus was willing. And how do I discuss this topic with my mom, who thinks Ryan’s no abortion-despite-rape-or-incest-cause-I’m-a-Catholic approach is a good thing? I despair.
SiubhanDuinne
@RedKitten:
Of course, you know when (if) he’s called on it, he will piously and self-righteously howl that his words were “taken out of context” and this is all just a distraction from economyjobcreatorstaxesseriousissues.
YellowJournalism
So, do these super-secret secretions stop the spread of STI’s and HIV, or is it only a form of birth control? And if it’s a legitimate form of birth control, when will Republicans start adding rape role play to their Sex Ed agendas?
1badbaba3
See? No difference atall between Democrats and Republicans.
Kathy in St. Louis
This is my representative. He’s as nutty as owl shit. Always, has been, always will be. He is some sort of ordained hats and horns minister, has been hiding in congress for years, never does a thing for missouri and helped found the tea party coalition. Please send money to Claire. She’s between a rock and a hard place here in Missouri which has become a red state with crackers falling out every door. Some of here policies are rather tentative, but, hey, she’s all we’ve got. Anything other than this lunatic.
Sherlock Hound
@NancyDarling:
Please let this story get out! I have the most overwhelming thought to say to that pol in LA: “Woof! Your mom…”
With pols like these I feel not the slightest guilt for the vicious insults formed in my mind towards these people.
Sherlock Hound
@NancyDarling:
Please let this story get out! I have the most overwhelming thought to say to that pol in LA: “Woof! Your mom…”
With pols like these I feel not the slightest guilt for the vicious insults formed in my mind towards these people.
slightly_peeved
@mamayaga:
Maybe Republicans will now seek to redefine Genghis Khan as history’s greatest ladies’ man, covering Europe in his rampage of seduction.
Or they’ll just claim that Europe is wall-to-wall sluts. They could get Romney to say it on his next trip over there.
xian
@Corner Store Operator: isn’t that a pretty dangerous game to play?
gelfling545
@Loneoak: SO THAT”S why he has feathers on…
never mind.
xian
@RSA: I saw that quotation posted twice by the same troglodyte on fb comment threads on the Akin story at Talking Points Memo.
TenguPhule
Only if they come in two ton pallets dropped directly on their heads.
TenguPhule
I swear that been used in a porno somewhere.
TenguPhule
I though that was what the Father/Daughter Purity Pledge Dances were for?