Women everywhere, listen up. US Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) has something new facts to tell you about your genitals:
“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.”
By Todd Akin’s (R-MO) logic there are over over 32K illegitimate rapes every year:
“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. “
Implicit in resident House GOP rapeologist (specialty rape legitimacy) statement is the idea : if a woman is pregnant after being raped, it’s because her lady vagina anti-rape force fields and photons didn’t activate because they were asking for it. That’s what your womb full of a rapist’s offspring tells you: it was meant to be!
FILE – In this file photo of Tuesday, April 5, 2011, Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, right, a conservative Republican currently running for the U.S. Senate, listens to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., before a news conference on Ryan’s budget agenda, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign on Sunday, Aug. 19, 2012 said Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, disagree with Akin’s comments that a woman’s body “has ways” to prevent pregnancy after rape. Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul says Romney’s administration would not oppose abortion in cases of rape. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
“Legitimate Rape” is also known as “Forcible Rape” according to Reps. Paul Ryan and Todd Akin:
Earlier today, Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) claimed that “legitimate rape” does not often lead to pregnancy because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” This is not the first time the biologically challenged senate candidate tried to minimize the impact of rape. Last year, Akin joined with GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as two of the original co-sponsors of the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” a bill which, among other things, introduced the country to the bizarre term “forcible rape.”
Also, the press needs to stop tip toeing around and trying to explain away Akin’s fanaticism. Usually Ezra Klein has a great wonky, informative column, but this sentence regarding the evidence to support natural vagina anti-rape mechanisms shouldn’t even have been written:
The scientific evidence for this proposition is, unsurprisingly, shaky. Freind later backed off his theory about secretions, switching to an argument that rape would instead “delay, disrupt or prohibit ovulation by preventing the release of hormone-triggering factors.”
source: Rep. Todd Akin is wrong about rape and pregnancy, but he’s not alone.
It’s not shaky evidence, it’s utterly unproven garbage. There is no scientific evidence. Their isn’t any thing even approaching a study that confirms this.
Here’s Claire McCaskill on Morning Joe speaking about her race with Todd Akin:
GOP congressman Todd Akin says he won’t end his campaign as Missouri’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. “I don’t know that I’m the only person in public office who has suffered from foot-in-mouth disease,” said Akin, who appeared on Mike Huckabee’s radio show. “There are so many good people in Missouri who nominated me,” Akin added. “I’m not a quitter, and my belief is that we’re going to take this thing forward.”Akin’s bottom-line? “Just because somebody makes a mistake doesn’t make them useless.”Akin also told Huckabee he meant to say “forcible rape” instead of “legitimate rape.”