Akin Just Saying What GOP Thinks
I’m getting really tired of the pile-on of Missouri Congressman Todd Akin. He isn’t being treated fairly, and I think it should stop.
During an interview Mr. Akin answered a question regarding his views on abortion. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
The idea of ladies having a Venomous Venus Flytrap-like apparatus that slams shut when there’s an unwanted intruder sounds awesome. It’s not true. Last year 32,000 American women were impregnated after being raped. “Legitimately.”
OK, women — we’re kind of mysterious. Most guys didn’t watch those awkward sex-ed film strips in grade school. That thing that looked like a bullhead with horns was on the inside, and they spent more time looking at the JC Penney underwear pages.
I don’t understand why Republicans are piling on Akin. He simply said what other Republican leaders have been thinking and saying for years.
The Supreme Court calls it “disparate treatment.” If everyone shows up five minutes late to work and you’re fired for showing up five minutes late, you have a legitimate case. Todd Akin is being discriminated against by his own party.
I am here to defend Mr. Akin’s ignorance. It’s not that he didn’t pay attention; he actually learned the wrong thing.
Dr. Jack Willke, who helped found the International Right to Life Federation in 1984 and served as president of the U.S. National Right to Life Committee, was his source. This week the not-so-good doctor told the New York Times, “This is a traumatic thing — she’s, shall we say, she’s uptight. She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.” Uptight? Spastic? Really?
Dr. Willke isn’t seen as a quack by the Republican party. He is wooed by candidates. Mitt Romney’s 2007 campaign lauded the doctor’s endorsement stating Willke would be “an important surrogate for Governor Romney’s pro-life and pro-family agenda.” The press release went on, “I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement in our country. He knows how important it is to have someone in Washington who will actively promote pro-life policies.” When Congressman Akin apologized, he did so for using the wrong word. One wrong word. He said “legitimate” when he meant to say “forcible.”
The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act bill, filed last year, co-sponsored by Congressman Akin and VP pick Paul Ryan, used the doctor’s published theory and language of “forcible rape.” Their idea was to remove incest, statutory, drugged or developmentally disabled victims from the list of real rape in order to deny federally funded abortion. Forced birth.
So who called the Code Red on Congressman Akin? Seriously? Mitt Romney was endorsed by the doc. Romney selected Akin’s ideological twin in Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.
Even Rush Limbaugh wanted Akin to drop out. Rush. Yes, the guy who thinks you should take as many birth control pills as you have sexual encounters and likes the word “slut.” Could someone please tell him lady pills are different than Viagra?
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, along with many others in her party, called on Akin to quit. Why? Did she forget when the same people in her party scolded her for running a write-in campaign? The Republicans will vote Monday to accept their plank that has no abortion exceptions for rape or incest. What about the next Papa Pilgrim who moves his family into the boonies so he can rape his daughters in private? What if he impregnates his daughter? Should she be forced to give birth to her half-brother/son?! Are you SERIOUS? Yes. That’s what Republicans want — abortion made illegal including rape and incest. For women who choose to have their rapists’ babies, 27 states have no statutes to protect them from having to share custody with the man who attacked them.
After courting the evangelicals with pledges to ban abortions and gay weddings, the Republicans are about to bring to full term what they conceived. They had no intention of terminating either of those boogie men. The social issues raise money and distract us all (on both sides) from discussing matters more appropriate for government. The Mike Huckabees and Palins and mega-church preachers want their due after falling in line for several decades.
Akin is them. They are Akin. Hypocritical voices are calling for the congressman, who won his primary, to quit. He’s more dangerous to them than anyone else. He exposes their values in a way that most of us can’t accept. Rape is rape. A woman shouldn’t be forced by her government to have a child — it’s so Handmaid’s Tale.
So, Republican elites, back off and let the man run his race and his mouth.
Must see!!!
http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/?utm_source=GoComics&utm_medium=free_email&utm_campaign=user_comic
I love the Raging Grannies. You will, too:
http://www.care2.com/causes/legitimate-rape-is-great-birth-control-raging-grannies-respond-to-akin-in-song-video.html
Caution! Strong language in the last line.
And the hits just keep on coming. Here’s PA Senator Tom Smith, being interviewed by an AP reporter, equating bearing the child of a rapist to having a baby out of wedlock:
https://secure3.convio.net/pn/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2831
Get out the Vote!
I click on this web site and I got this
” Navigation to the webpage was canceled ”
Sooooo do you think it was “pulled” ?
I did hear the nut on either Cnn or MSNBC tonight–can’t remember which.
I thought this is what he said—-I couldn’t believe it. WOW!!!!!! These guys need to crawl back under their rock.
I agree with everything in this piece, but I wish Shannyn had not brought the “Pilgrim Family” into the mix. Papa put his family through hell, and they deserve to be left in peace. It is not fair to bring their name and situation up only to make a point.
These guys do like to mess with words.
They think they can finesse a phrase and reframe an argument to minimize a devastating fact.
It is not a politicians decision to make. It is a private decision.
I Agree!!!! It is between a woman, her Doctor and her God.
I talked about this one day when I had my check-up. My Dr. is a Rep. and we like to bat politics around. When the subject came up—–I told him what I thought. He agreeded.
We didn’t agree on the Tax thingy!
I can’t wait until my next 3 mo appt. I will be interested in talking about what has happened on this subject since I was last in his office. I might even convince him to change and vote Democrat!
Shannyn has come to the defense of Rep. Akin (R. Mo); in doing so, she lays the blame for medical misinformation squarely at the feet of the person from whom he received the information in the first place, one Dr. John C. “Jack” Willke of Ohio.
At this time, I feel I must come to the defense of said Dr. John C. “Jack” Willke.
I think it only fair.
To Ms Moore and all those who are questioning this beloved and long-time medical Doctor’s comprehension of basic human biology, who are calling him “quack”, “charlatan”, and “snake oil salesman”, (or worse!) and are demanding his medical license be revoked, I begin by citing his own words: “This [rape] is a traumatic thing — she’s, shall we say, she’s uptight. She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.”
The good doctor says a woman in the process of being raped is [over-all] “uptight” and [her vaginal opening is] “tight” – not necessarily the words I would, personally, have used, but he is absolutely correct in his ‘observation’ of the woman’s emotional and physical state. I am sure he is, naturally, comparing her emotional and physical state to that of all women, in general, who, let’s face it, aren’t, at the drop of a hat, always, shall we say, “in the mood.” Were that the case, were women reliably “in the mood” (with or without ‘foreplay’) when ‘it was time,’ they would most-reliably be self-lubricated and there would be no need for the old tried-and-true K-Y jelly and/or other personal lubricants. {Here I must note: In 2009, “First-quarter sales of personal lubricants soared 32% to $41.2 million, according to Information Resources Inc.” And those sales figures, the latest I could find, are just for One Quarter! [ http://tinyurl.com/8aqhkuq ]}
To be sure, there are many factors that would lead a woman to seek out such a personal lubricating product, a product which allows what is called “penetration” to occur without undo ‘difficulties’ on the part of the penetrator; among these factors are: taking certain anti-depressants, lactation, taking certain birth control pills, onset of—or in the throes of and/or completed—menopause, and the taking of a variety of other prescribed medications. Point is: If, because of medication(s) she’s taking, failed ‘connect’ of amorous advances/bumbled foreplay, stressors of everyday life, etc., a ‘normal’ must sometimes enlist the assistance of a personal lubricant to help her be physically ‘more receptive’; for the woman under attack, the ‘natural’ lubrication for Sure isn’t going to be there. Plain old mental, emotional, and/or physical Duress has a way of doing that; Extreme Duress, does that exponentially more.
Additionally, since we’re ‘in the vicinity,’ anyway, his statement that “the tubes are spastic” falls right along with the previously discussed ‘receptiveness’ of the female body in reaction to the act in question: rape. The fallopian tubes are only about 4-6-inches long and meet the uterus at it’s very tippity-top edges – like the horns of a bovine meet the very tippity-top edges of their heads and stick out from there. Any trauma done to the uterus, will, of necessity, ‘reverberate’ in the fallopian tubes; violent trauma – logically and naturally – causes an even more ‘violent’ reaction – spasms, if you will. It’s all just plain old biology.
To fault the good doctor for passing on his facts on basic biology, Ms Moore, is wrong. Everything he said is absolutely, positively, [air quote] technically [/air quote] correct. You just have to look at it the right way – aren’t you feeling a bit better now that you know “*how* to look at what he’s said? Thought so.
And even under the best of circumstances, the ‘chances’ of a female becoming pregnant —even when she wants to!—are long: “a normal, healthy woman regularly having intercourse will get pregnant are only 20 to 40 percent during any given cycle” [ http://tinyurl.com/9ykr259 ] Again, the wise doctor is correct in his biology; just because sperm has been deposited in her vagina, that does not mean a female will (automatically) become pregnant. See? You’ve just got to ‘hear’ what he’s saying, Shannyn. That’s all.
Now that we’ve laid those mis-conceptions [pun intended] to rest, needs be to examine what Else the wise doctor says on the issue.
According to multiple, Multiple, sources: “The authors asserted that a douche, vaginal scraping and medications administered quickly after a rape “invariably” prevents pregnancy. “If the rape victim would report her assault properly, there would be, for all practical purposes, no pregnancies from rape,” the couple [Dr.& Mrs. JC Willke –“Handbook on Abortion,” 1971] wrote.
I defy anyone with an ounce of intelligence –or compassion– to deny that reporting an assault is not in the victim’s best interest; anyone! (Although I’m seriously wondering what he and his wife figure constitutes “properly”, but I digress…) That being said, what *precedes* his sage, fatherly advice to females, is what REALLY draws my attention: “a douche, vaginal scraping and medications administered quickly after a rape ‘invariably’ prevents pregnancy.”
So…what he’s saying to females who have been so traumatized by rate, what he’s advocating for them to do, what the advice/hope/help he’s offering and reassuring them with, is: taking “medications” [does “Morning After Pill”/”Plan B” ring a bell with anyone?] douching [with a strong spermicidal/disinfectant chemical(s)], or “scraping the uterus,” which by definition is a D&C [the purpose of which is to ‘clean’ the uterine wall and in the process, will remove any fertilized egg.] Wise and medically sound information, all.
Wait…what?
Say WHAT?
Well, I’ll be damned.
What he’s saying is…
WTF? — OMG!
HOLD THE PRESSES! — this man, this idol and mentor of the anti-choicers, this paragon of wisdom on all things female-reproductive, this … this … this…
(Words to adequately ‘name’ him, utterly fail me! I’m truly gobsmacked!)
I will say this though: he is even WORSE than his detractors say he is. He’s ‘conveniently forgotten’ to tell his loyal followers that THAT – “a douche, vaginal scraping and medications” (AKA an outright D&C/abortion and/or use of chemical aborticants/RU-486/etc., to get the same result; no pregnancy) –is *exactly* what he’s said…Consistently. For over three decades!
Well, I’ll be…
The man is talking out of both sides of his mouth! And no one is ‘catching it’ — everyone is only ‘hearing’ what they want to hear. Huhmm; I’ll be… The side the anti-choicers love, though, is the one that makes him all the money and provides his ego with tons of fame and adulation…the other side is only the factual and biological truth. He only emphasizes the former…
What a right, royal SonofanUnholyBitch!
The whole lot of the Uteri-Patrol fanatics and their followers are… Arrrrgh! beth.
P.S. Oh, by the way, and with all joshing/rebuttal and/‘defense’ of Willke/view-correcting facts aside, Excellent article, Shannyn. Seriously, thank you. thank you, thank you! b.
More on Willke:
http://worldofsuck.net/index.php/doctor-of-lies-john-c?blog=2
I rarely visit HuffPo, but Eve Ensler’s post is priceless:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/todd-akin-rape_b_1812930.html
This is an excellent article. I hope everyone forwards it to Akin, Ryan, and their Repub congressmen.
And don’t forget Rep. Smith, who equated a rape baby to … wait for it … having a baby out of wedlock!
We shall look for all Republican challengers to incumbent Democratic Senators and Incumbent Republican Senators for re-election and tie this nonsense to them all. That’s what platforms are about. Then ask voters in those states with Senate elections where are the jobs created by the GOP.
Shannyn, I read this post earlier, but refrained from commenting until the fire died down a bit and I no longer felt steam pouring from my ears.
I’m too through with these fearful, silly men and their endless fantasies of various iterations/manifestations of the vagina dentata. I think that behind all the bravado and posturing is their certainty that they’re undeserving of the love (including sexual love) of any woman, ever. They know they’re unworthy of us, and in response to their own feelings of inadequacy, they create endless ways and means to subjugate that obscure object of desire. If they were more accepting of, and honest about, their own sexuality, perhaps they wouldn’t find ours so threatening.
Vagina, vagina, vaGIna, VAGINA. V-a-g-i-n-a. Akin, Willke, Ryan, et al., it’s true. You’ll always be unworthy little worms, cowering before the majesty and mystery of the great goddess. I would pity you if you were not so dangerous, and so inimical to mine own interest.
More needs to be said about this Dr. Willke . He needs to be exposed.
The only name I can come up for him is QUACK!
Rush Limbaugh knows that the Republicans are going to get their Ass in a sling if they bring all of this up at the Convention. But—–how are they going to avoid it when it is in their platform? Also how are they going to avoid what Ryan has done while in Congress. They can’t shove all of it under the table.
Just like Rommney can’t shove his History under the table.
How any woman votes Republican is beyond me. They must be brained washed by their husbands.
The Republican Party has been jerked sooooo far to the right, that they can’t get it back to center.
The Tea Party owns them.
If they come out winning—-it will only be because they prevented people from voting—those that they know would be voting for the Democrats.
Lest we forget, Willard Mittens was pro-choice before he was anti-abortion; “And I will not waver on that”. Mittens and Little Chicken George-” He Who Will Not Be Mentioned In Tampa” make me almost long for Tricky Dick!
Lest we forget, Willard Mittens was pro-choice before he was anti-abortion; “And I will not waver on that”. Mittens and Little Chicken George-” He Who Will Not Be Mentioned In Tampa” make me almost long for Tricky Dick!
Thanks for a great article, and for keeping this topic front and center.
It seems that the Akins and Wilkes of this world must be closet perverts; they spend and inordinate amount of time contemplating women’s body parts.
From the party that wants no regulation for anything else comes intrusive regulation for women.
And I think Rush Limbaugh is Gay–even if he has married several times.
The saddest part of all is that there are women who vote Republican who absolutely agree with this. Are they sane? Have they been raped or known anyone who has been raped? Do they care? All good questions. The ones that I know may have been appalled by Akin’s words but they still agree with the basic underlying tenet…the only “choice” a woman should have is childbirth full stop. If you do not want kids, there is no reason to have sex full stop. They believe it to their very core. Some are fundamentalists but more are Catholic. Each and every one of these women, that I know, made the choice to have children and not one of them can remotely connect with any one of us who states that we “choose” not to. They cannot understand this. Nothing can ever make this idea clear to them. This choice is, to them, anathema to being a woman. And because a woman is “built for having babies”, this must be their primary goal in life full stop. It should supercede any other goals, desires, priorities. if you don’t have enough money to raise that child it is your fault. If you are in a horrible relationship and cannot afford to leave it because you have children, somehow that is your fault. And by god, you should not be asking the government that forces you to have a child that you do not want and cannot take care of for any help whatsoever once that child is born. Because then you are low-life, scum sucking drag on the “makers”. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make lemonade.
It is my body and my choice and always will be. It is only a matter of whether it is safe or not.
These same people are pro-war, anti-environment, pro-military, pro-killing abortion doctors, anti-public schools, I’ve got mine, too bad you won’t get yours, etc,etc,etc.
My personal favorites in the anti-choice irony department are those that go on and on about personal responsibility, and yet choose to have children they have no reasonable expectation of being able to support without public assistance funded by my tax dollars.
You are right that they simply cannot grasp that not all women can or want to have children, or that having children is not necessary to have a life that is healthy, happy, and complete. It is offensive that they judge women based on their choice and ability to procreate, and thus reduce them to the level of livestock held for breeding. There is so much more to women than that.
“Some are fundamentalists but more are Catholic. Each and every one of these women, that I know, made the choice to have children and not one of them can remotely connect with any one of us who states that we “choose” not to. ”
I would add that we have quite a few Mormon families in my corner of the world and they tend to have larger families than the Catholics I know. Somewhere along the way, having a large family as a goal seemed to change for many Catholics, but the Mormons are the ones I know who have a child every year. But no, I don’t think they understand or want to understand any women who don’t see that as their main goal in life.
We knew we wanted two children, we planned for them, spaced their birth so we didn’t have two babies at the same time and I am so thankful and feel so blessed. However, even as a stay at home mom (because we could afford for me to stay home) I didn’t feel like that was my only reason for living. I volunteered with the schools and Camp Fire and community organizations that help the poor. Now that our girls are grown I’m still volunteering. And I’ve always been a reader and interested in what is going on in the world. I have a number of other things that I love to do as well.
I wonder what these women who think their only purpose is to have a gazillion children do when the children are finally grown and leave home. Or are they the grandmas taking care of the grandchildren so their daughters can work and still have more babies. The ones who stay home tend to be so consummed with their children that they have no sense of who they are or what they find interesting except their children. They don’t understand me and I certainly don’t understand them.
Arghhh! Mr Akin, not My Akin.
Whoops, hit submit before I was done. I’m sure My Akin would be delighted to take care of the 30,000 + babies that are born in the US due to rape. It would only be legitimate, after all, as he is essentially leaving the mothers with a lifetime of re-raping. What is his address, now…?
Then there are the children left to public assistance because their mothers were prevented from an abortion, regardless of rape. The many unwanted and unintended pregancies may cost more for all.
what does the female body do when it is an illegitimate rape?
and who decides if it is legitimate, the decider? ( he did not do such good job deciding )
what is a legitimate rape, a GOP sanctioned rape.
what if the raped person is a boy congressional page.
so many things i did not know that i did not know.
VAGINA , yeah i said it , loud ! VAGINA, take that evangelaban. even Jesus passed through one.
Right on, Shannyn! Surely the Mittser with his unparalleled business acumen can figure out that it will be less expensive for Medicaid to pay for abortion of a fetus with severe genetic abnormalities such as Tay-Sachs or anencephaly than to pay for their care after birth. After all, it’s all about the $$$ with them, isn’t it? Oh wait… After they’re born the Repubs don’t care. They don’t mind if the baby must suffer whilst the parents go broke trying to care for the baby, forcing them into bankruptcy so they can’t take care of their other children. No food stamps for you! George Carlin had it pegged.
Akin’s sins were multiple. First, his comments were …. well, everyone and their neighbor has kicked in on this one. Second, Akin’s idiotic babbling handed a lifeline to McCaskill’s faltering campaign and may have handed back a Senate seat that the Republicans figured was in the bag. More importantly, Akin’s comments were so spectacularly crude that they focused the national media eye on them. This is absolutely not what the Republicans want to be talking about. They gain no votes talking about abortion or even most social issues. People to whom abortion is a driving issue have long since made up their minds. It is one of the most clearly defined differences between the parties. Romney can only lose votes talking about it. If he doesn’t demand that we hunt down abortion providers, he loses Tea Party votes. If he says that pregnant rape victims must have secretly wanted it all along, he loses everyone else. Romney picked Ryan because he wants to talk about the economy – the old Republican line about how the country really needs a good corporate CEO in charge. This is why the Republicans want Akin to quit. They don’t disagree with him – they just don’t want Akin on television defending himself and reporters asking Republican spokespeople just how exactly does the Republican Platform differ from Akin. Romney understands that his only chance is to convince America how wonderful it would be if the United States just became a subsidiary of Bain Capital.
Sen. McCaskill’s campaign is her’s to loose. She may be a good Senator to Missouri. We know she has been a good Senator to McDonald Douglas, General Dynamics, Boeing, etc. Which Senatorial service may appear shady, but has kept a few more Missourian employed..
It’s a two-part deal: Part one is they are afraid Akin will lose to Claire McCaskill. She was a pretty strong candidate from the get-go, but this clinches it.
Part two is more obvious, and Shannyn covered it well: He has pulled back the curtain on the Republican party’s core beliefs. Not just that this type of rape is more wrong than that, or that abortion is the wrongest of the wrong, but that women need big, strong men to control their vajajays at all times.
They used to say they wanted to shrink government so it’s small enough to drown in the bathtub. Now they want to make it even smaller, so it will fit in the uterus.
Truer words were never spoken.
I suspect that those Republicans crying for Akin to bow out of the race are doing so out of fear that his statements make him more likely to lose to his Democratic rival rather than out of any sense of outrage over his asinine statements about rape which, as you have pointed out, are not inconsistent with the Republican platform. At least the Republican platform’s banning of all abortions without rape and incest exceptions is consistent with their “personhood” stance. One can’t truly believe that a zygote is a legal “person” and also condone terminating a rape/incest pregnancy as Romney reportedly has said he does. Paraphrasing George Carlin -according to the Republicans if you’re pre-born you’re sacred, if you’re preschool. you’re F***ed.