This Man Makes Rape Even Sadder

As reported by NBCNews, The NY Times, the Christian Science Monitor and many others, Rep. Todd Akin said a very stupid thing.  While being interviewed during his campaign to unseat the Democratic incumbent Akin was asked his opinion about abortion in the case of rape.  He did not answer well:

“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.  But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

Perhaps Rep. Akin needs to find some smarter doctors.

Verdict

He later apologized for the word “legitimate” in his remarks.  We’ll grant grant the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t mean to imply that any woman who became pregnant after a rape was raped incorrectly.  Disturbingly however we’ve found no evidence that he actually corrected his thinking on the subject.

As the Washington Post Reports studies conclude that as many as 30,000 pregnancies a year are the result of rape with as many as six percent of fertile victims becoming pregnant.  There simply is no “automatic” defense against pregnancy in cases of rape.

In fact the entire argument that women can “shut that whole thing down” seems to have been invented completely from whole-cloth by Republican Stephen Freind when he was defending his own anti-abortion bill in the 80’s.

Considering his apology and the unscripted nature of the statement we slap Rep. Akin with a reduced charge of Dickory in the Third Degree.  However we recommend that continuing to propagate this groundless myth will be seen as clear malicious intent to deceive.

One response to “This Man Makes Rape Even Sadder

  1. Pingback: Paul Broun Sadly Sits on the Committee on Science and Technology | SadPolitics.com

Leave a Reply