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Sunday, August 19, 2012

Todd Akin As Republican Paragon of Science

I assume you have already read about Republican Todd Akin's appalling insistence that women who are raped should be forced to carry any resulting pregnancy to term, because a few cells little distinguishable from a wad of chewed gum is a person but an adult pregnant woman is not a person but an incubator. I assume you have already read about Todd Akin's utterly ridiculous "theory" that women who are being "legitimately raped" cannot conceive because of unspecified magical powers they possess against such an eventuality. I assume you have already read that just last year Akin joined with Republican Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan as original co-sponsors of the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill which, among other things, proposed the notion of "forcible rape," which in implying that there can be such a thing as "non-forcible rape" amply demonstrated long ago the misogyny and lunacy of Akin's views on the matter and also that they are widely shared and absolutely the Republican party line (Ryan was vetted and still approved, after all). I wanted also to be sure that you know that Todd Akin was chosen by congressional Republicans as an apt person, indeed as one of the most apt people in their caucus, to sit on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.



TPM:
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… 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.”

1 comment:

jimf said...

> I assume you have already read about Todd Akin's utterly
> ridiculous "theory" that women who are being
> "legitimately raped" cannot conceive because of
> unspecified magical powers they possess against such
> an eventuality.

That reminds me of something from J. R. R. Tolkien's
essay "Laws and Customs Among the Eldar" (in _Morgoth's
Ring_, Vol. 12 of _The History of Middle-earth_).
A footnoted earlier version of a particular paragraph has:

"But among all these evils there is no record of any
among the Elves that took another's spouse by force; for
this was wholly against their nature, and one so forced
would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos.
Guile or trickery in the matter was scarcely possible
(even if it could be thought that any Elf would purpose
to use it); for the Eldar can read at once in the eyes
and voice of another whether they be wed or unwed."

Charming notion in a fairy tale; not at all charming when
anything similar is put forth by a Republican congressman
from Missouri, not Middle-earth.