Rape? No problem! Women must have an orgasm to get pregnant.

Todd Akin, U.S. Representative for Missouri's 2nd congressional district, member of the Republican party, current candidate for the U.S. Senate, and poster boy for all things medieval such as the Earth is flat, has managed to turn himself into the talk of the nation in one fell swoop. To recap this unusual (oh hell, it's jaw-dropping) story, the St. Louis television station KTVI-TV aired an interview on Sunday, August 19, 2012 with Representative Akin during which is was questioned about his no-exceptions view on abortion. When asked in the case of rape whether a woman who became pregnant should have the option of abortion he replied:

Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s 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.

"If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

What?

Mr. Akin now finds himself in the middle of a firestorm heck a s**tstorm of controversy as feminists, doctors of biology and even his own party are piling on to condemn him with all due haste. Despite calls for his withdrawal from the Senate race, Mr. Akin at last reading is sticking to his guns although he is trying to be a tad contrite about his remarks.

The comments made by Mr. Akin cover the spectrum of women's issues from a woman's right to decide, the legitimacy of rape, and the punishment for rape. Considering that approximately 50% of the population of the United States is female and hence fifty percent of the voters are women in this a presidential election year, everyone connected to politics is doing their best to distance themselves from any of these ideas out of fear of alienating those potential voters. Yes the Conservatives would love to pander to the pro-life ideology but must do so gently so as to not make women vote Liberal. They can't have Rush running around calling the ladies sluts just because they want access to birth control.

While Mr. Akin seems to manage to stir up the outrage of everybody and anybody, his curious statement rang a bell with me and sure enough the papers have been awash with historical background pieces about this oddest of notions: a woman has to have an orgasm to become pregnant. This belief as it is dates back to the Middle Ages when it was thought that pregnancy was tied to the big O. A woman was only going to get pregnant if she enjoyed intercourse. This was the basis of the idea that if a woman got pregnant from a rape, she really wasn't raped because she enjoyed it. In fact, a British legal text called "Fleta" dating from 1290 enshrines this concept with:

"If, however, the woman should have conceived at the time alleged in the appeal, it abates, for without a woman's consent she could not conceive."

This idea continued to persist. The Guardian reported that the 1814 opus Elements of Medical Jurisprudence by Samuel Farr stated:

"For without an excitation of lust, or the enjoyment of pleasure in the venereal act, no conception can probably take place. So that if an absolute rape were to be perpetrated, it is not likely she would become pregnant."

So much for the background. These ideas are very much alive today and persist in the halls of religious Conservatism. Christian Life Resources reprints an April 1999 article by John C. Willke, M.D. (president of the National Right to Life Committee in the 1980s and early 1990s) which speciously argues that rape is so traumatic, any woman's biology would be so messed up, she couldn't get pregnant.

Every woman is aware that stress and emotional factors can alter her menstrual cycle. 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.

David Frum (The Daily Beast) points out that Todd Akin did not make a mistake; he did not commit a gaffe. No he was reiterating a opinion deeply ingrained in the Conservative ideology. Life begins at conception therefore anything afterwards is murder. It isn't just Todd Akin, it's Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, or any one of a number of the GOP.

How screwball are these ideas?
I continue to be stunned, like jaw-droppingly stunned, at what people hold for the truth. They have no proof, no documented evidence, no factual data confirmed by a university sanctioned analytic methodology of double blind testing with a statistically significant cross-section of the population. No, they just keep passing around whatever cockamamie idea the next person in their infinite wisdom has seen fit to share with the world. I'm sure any one of us would laugh if somebody said they believed the world was flat and at the end of the day, who cares because such a belief doesn't affect our day. (Wikipedia: Flat Earth Society)

But what about birth control? What about abortions? And what about universal health care? I don't care if you think the world is flat or if you believe in the golden plates but I do object to your beliefs curtailing my rights and freedoms. Maybe you've drank the Kool-Aid but I have not.

In talking about Obamacare being passed, I wrote:

A report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies states: "Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States." (Wikipedia: Uninsured in the United States: Consequences)

Just imagine. People do not have any health coverage because they can't afford it. Statistically, out of that group of more than 40 million uninsured, eighteen thousand die from lack of proper treatment or timely treatment. Note that the source of this information is not some fly by night back alley source; it's the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies for God's sake. When I published this, a commentator wrote to me and said he didn't believe it; it was all just a bunch of liberal B.S. What!?!

Final Word
This coming November 2012, the United States is holding a presidential election to decide if Barak Obama, the Democrat and liberal candidate or Mitt Romney, the Republican and conservative candidate, will lead the country for the next four years. We have two opinions, two approaches, two ideologies at odds with each other as to the best way to run a country and benefit a population of over three hundred million people. After listening to Todd Akin, Rush Limbaugh, and others from the Conservative ilk, I can sum up how this ideology looks upon all women in America:

If you sluts would stop cumming, you'd realise you don't need birth control or abortions. Stay at home and think what Romney could do with all that money saved.


References

The Guardian - Aug 20/2012
'Legitimate rape' – a medieval medical concept by Vanessa Heggie
The idea that rape victims cannot get pregnant is a very old medical theory

This Week - Aug 21/2012
'Rape can't cause pregnancy': A brief history of Todd Akin's bogus theory
Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), the Republican challenger to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), is fighting for his political life after the broadcast Sunday of a local TV interview in which he said that "legitimate rape" rarely, if ever, results in pregnancy. But his misguided belief that rape victims don't get pregnant is hardly a new idea.

Christian Life Resources - April 1999
Rape Pregnancies Are Rare by John C. Willke, M.D.

The Daily Beast - Aug 20/2012
Akin's Abortion View: More Widespread in GOP Than You Think by David Frum

Published on Aug 20, 2012 by fox2nowSTL
Rep. Todd Akin's Comments on Abortion from the Jaco Report

my blog: Rush Limbaugh: That's spelled with one F and one U
Recently, the world has been atwitter on Twitter and other social media commenting left, right and centre about one Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Of course, it is easy to pile on by calling him an anal orifice or a Neanderthal or a meany... (I consult my notes) oops, that's a f**kin' meany... however I can't help feeling there is more, much more not just to this particular story, but to what the story represents. This is the tip of the iceberg.

my blog: Obamacare: Congratulations on doing the right thing, America!
Obamacare is not perfect. But it is a step is the right direction. Socialism? Is helping your neighbour socialism? Is helping your country socialism? Is spending more on uncompensated charity care than on insuring people not very astute? Is spending more than any other country on health care but only ranking 72nd in the WHO's health assessment ranking something anybody would not want to turn around? Would you let 18,000 people die unnecessarily each year because they have no health insurance? You have a right to be free. You have the right to work, succeed, and travel. Shouldn't you have the right to be healthy?

my blog: Planned Parenthood: addicting children to sex!!!
Over the past few years, I have heard right-wing people in criticizing Barack Obama make comparisons to Nazi Germany, trying through hyperbole (I think they actually believe this to be a valid comparison) to make things out worse than they are. But just imagine what would happen if Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann or even the president of ALL, Judie Brown, somehow came to power. We would all be knocked back to the dark ages. We would be burning people at the stake, using blood-letting as a home remedy and putting chastity belts on girls. Am I exaggerating? Planned Parenthood gone. Legal abortions gone. Sex Education gone. Free condoms gone. Sex gone.

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2012-08-21

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