GOP drinking the 'No such thing as Rape' Kool Aid

Started by Callie Del Noire, August 20, 2012, 06:38:31 PM

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Callie Del Noire

Okay.. I've seen a constant and steady torrent of anti-female reproductive right acts in the last year or so.. but to hear this sort of thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/todd-akin-rape_b_1810928.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/08/19/akin-says-you-cant-get-pregnant-from-legitimate-rape

Would someone tell me that I'm seeign things or it's being spun out of context.. this cannot be honestly be what these idiots think? Women secrete a hormone in 'true rape' that keeps them from getting pregnant? When did we roll back a century or more in our outlook?


And apparently the personhood movement has claimed at least one life in their rush to protect every unborn.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/17/world/americas/dominican-republic-abortion/index.html

TheGlyphstone

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
/meme

Callie Del Noire

I sorta felt that way.. along with .. 'People vote for these fools?'. 3 fingers of Maker's Mark takes a bit off of it.

kylie

    I wondered if it was the 'no such thing as a pregnancy without Cosmic Duty to conceive' Kool-Aid. 

No need to abort if you should have done it naturally if you really needed to....  Was that the idea?

     

Shjade

QuoteA Pennsylvania Republican said in 1988 that rape victims "secrete a certain secretion" during an attack that will kill the attacker's sperm.

My favorite part. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, spermicide was invented needlessly because women make their own naturally when they really don't want to get pregnant!

*facepalm*
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AidaLily

What got me about it was "legitimate rape".  Excuse me. What exactly is a "legitimate" rape?  Not every rape victim goes through super violent almost deadly rape. There are many ways that people get raped, so what on earth did they mean by "legitimate" rape?

Also, women can naturally stop pregnancy by making their whole system shut down? Well darn. I could have saved money on my birth control if I knew that.   ;D
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gaggedLouise

Hmm, episodes such as this are part of what make the US so fascinating: "irrepressibly fun and corny" as a friend of mine put it. Well, not really fun this time, but it's just like in Dallas.


I understand the GOP are trying to pressure Akin to quit his candidacy for a senate seat. On the eve of the convention he's the last thing they could have wished for.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: gaggedLouise on August 20, 2012, 11:54:41 PM
Hmm, episodes such as this are part of what make the US so fascinating: "irrepressibly fun and corny" as a friend of mine put it. Well, not really fun this time, but it's just like in Dallas.


I understand the GOP are trying to pressure Akin to quit his candidacy for a senate seat. On the eve of the convention he's the last thing they could have wished for.

It will take a LOT for him to quit. I'm sure he's stupid enough to not stand down.  Like the guy who tried to smear one candidate while reporting checks he paid a hooker with stolen.

gaggedLouise

Quote from: Callie Del Noire on August 21, 2012, 12:02:58 AM
It will take a LOT for him to quit. I'm sure he's stupid enough to not stand down.  Like the guy who tried to smear one candidate while reporting checks he paid a hooker with stolen.

Can he be bought out? Well, if he resigns from congress he would get a fat pension, wouldn't he - he's past sixty years old already - but maybe he feels that he now has leverage for a bigger money bid in exchange for stepping out and sitting on his hands.  ;D

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Ironwolf85

people on the far fringes of politics are kinda unhinged from logic in general, it makes you wanna slap them
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debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

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Callie Del Noire

#10
Quote from: gaggedLouise on August 21, 2012, 12:08:27 AM
Can he be bought out? Well, if he resigns from congress he would get a fat pension, wouldn't he - he's past sixty years old already - but maybe he feels that he now has leverage for a bigger money bid in exchange for stepping out and sitting on his hands.  ;D

Well the read Im getting is that he's bulling it out. He's got something like 20 hours till his name is stuck on the ballot for good. (5 pm local time).  My read, he's a stubborn prideful man who knows if he steps down he will never again have ANY standing in the party. Period.  He's going to try and win, despite losing support of the party.

Of particular note, AKin was NEVER the choice of the party. He was simply the one that won the nomination. I doubt any calls he's gotten have been very nice from the national party.

Saria

Quote from: AidaLily on August 20, 2012, 10:45:23 PM
What got me about it was "legitimate rape".  Excuse me. What exactly is a "legitimate" rape?  Not every rape victim goes through super violent almost deadly rape. There are many ways that people get raped, so what on earth did they mean by "legitimate" rape?
Everyone's jumping on this "legitimate rape" thing and making fun and jokes about it, but that really just misses the point completely, and it gets Akin off the hook for the real nasty parts of what he said. Honestly, you Americans get so easily distracted by incidental silliness, that you're completely blind to the really sinister stuff going on in your politics.

Here's what Akin actually said. When the interviewer asked a question about whether it's okay for a woman who's gotten pregnant from being raped to have an abortion, he said:
QuoteFrom 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 of the rapist, and not attacking the child.
Take that in. Let it fester in your brain for a minute.

First off, let's just put the whole "legitimate rape" thing aside - it's just a silly distraction. Obviously what Akin meant was a woman's body prevents pregnancy when the woman is raped. He put it in a stupid way, yes, but his point is clear. He didn't mean that some rapes are "legitimate" and some aren't, he just meant to make clear that he was only talking about cases of real rape, as opposed to cases that only appear to be rape (such as consensual sex that gets falsely reported as rape - just keep your claws in for a moment, ladies, and remember, what I'm saying he meant is what he meant, not what I believe). So what he meant was: "If it's a rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

All right, are we done harping on this silly "legitimate rape" thing? Are we finished with making overblown and obviously false claims like that the GOP doesn't believe there's such thing as rape? Are we ready to look at this thing like adults? All right then, let's get serious, because there are serious issues here, and we (or at least, you Americans) need to wake up and become aware of them.

Let's look at Akin's statement line-by-line. The first line is: "From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare." Now one of two things is true. Either:

  • Akin lied about getting his information from doctors, and he really just pulled it out of his ass; or....
  • There are doctors (plural!!!) in the US that believe that a woman can spontaneously abort a pregnancy when she doesn't want it.
What we could hope for is that Akin just made that shit up... because if he didn't, that means there are medical doctors (plural!!!!!!) in the US who subscribe to beliefs about women's bodies from the Dark Ages. Sadly, that happens to be the case. There really are doctors in the US who really do believe that a woman automagically turns on her internal birth control when she gets raped. Are you seeing that, Americans? I think the fact that you have a bunch of medical practitioners believing medical myths that were out of vogue when the Magna Carta was signed would be something more worth discussing than the "legitimate rape" verbal flub. Isn't anyone concerned with how incredibly stupid a doctor can be and still keep their medical licence?

Moving on.

The second line - "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." - is the one everyone's tittering about. I'm not. I don't think most people realize how horribly evil this statement is. Stop laughing and acting bewildered about "what is a 'legitimate rape'?" for a moment and look seriously at what Akin meant, and what that means about what he believes. To put it clearly: Akin is saying that he (and doctors, plural!!!) believe that when a woman is raped - for reals - that she shouldn't get pregnant. He's saying that it is "really rare". Stop and think for a moment about what that really means. It means that Akin and his nutjob doctors believe that if a woman gets pregnant during a rape, that most likely means she secretly wanted the sex.

Did your brain explode when you read that? Did it make you furious? Good. It should make you furious. This is what that man - that man who wants to be in charge of around three million women - actually believes. More terrifyingly, this is also what others like him believe, and there are probably several of them in power right now.

Take a moment to let that sink in. Callie Del Noire mentioned seeing a lot of attacks on the reproductive rights of women, and asked if that was really a "thing"... well there it is, in stark relief: that is how some of the people in your government look at women. And everyone has to take a long, hard look at themselves and ask... how could it have possibly gotten to that point. How in the hell is it possible for someone who believes that women who get pregnant from rape secretly enjoyed it to get elected to Congress? You have to figure that around 50% of the people who voted him in (over and over!) are women. (And it's highly unlikely that all of the other 50% - men - consider that kind of attitude toward women to be acceptable.) How could that happen? What is going on? These are the questions you guys should be asking yourselves. How is it possible that a person that misogynist can be elected to Congress? What on Earth does that man bring to the table that is so important that it made it acceptable to overlook his hatred of women? (And no, this misogyny isn't something he's never demonstrated before, because he was preventing women from getting abortions from at least 1995.) I don't care what his economic platform is; is there seriously no-one in Missouri with a more-or-less similar platform that isn't that ignorant and hateful?

American women, what the hell is going on? Are you all sleeping in on Election Day? Seriously, what the hell? You don't seriously mean to tell me that every other potential candidate for the seat was worse, do you? You don't seriously mean to tell me that your only options, through all the primaries right up to the election proper, were either "rape pregnancies mean the victim had fun!" candidates... or worse, do you? So what's happening? Why has this man been allowed to get as far in politics as he has? Who the fuck is he running against? Hitler McStalin?

Let me point out something that you should chew on: everybody's chuckling about this "legitimate rape" thing, but Akin can - and apparently did - just point out that it was just a verbal misstep. And it was. People trip up on words in live interviews all the time, choosing the wrong word and all, and not saying what they really meant. It's no big deal. Akin can just honestly say that he didn't mean to say "legitimate rape" (because it sure looks like he really, honestly, didn't mean to say that)... aaaaaaand he's done. Because, really, all he did was trip over his tongue in a live interview, and no one can reasonably justify destroying someone's political career because of a tongue slip. He gets off with little more than a few days worth of public humiliation in the media, and then life goes on. The next story comes along and the media runs after it like dogs chasing a car, and Akin fades into the background and ultimately once again wins his election - for whatever reasons he's won the last five times. What? How did that happen? I'll tell you how it happened: it happened because everyone was too busy giggle-snorting about the "legitimate rape" thing to notice the real problems in what he said - problems that I'll bet he's hinted at before - that he buys into 15th century medical myths, and thinks that rape babies mean the rape was good times for the mother.

Why is there any tolerance for a politician like Akin? Let me put it another way: would you accept electing a shameless racist? Even if their economic or foreign policies were brilliant? If you wouldn't tolerate a shameless racist in government, why would tolerate a shameless misogynist?

~sigh~ Oh yeah, there was one last sentence to look at: "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 of the rapist, and not attacking the child." And there you have it, ladies... when talking about the case of a woman who was raped and got pregnant, Mr. Akin cares about justice for the rapist... he cares about justice for the foetus...

... but there's not... one... fucking... word... about... the woman.

In fact, the only thing you can even deduce about the woman's role in all of this, indirectly, is that the woman is evil... because she's "attacking the child". Yeah, that's right, ladies. That man - representative in Congress for the state of Missouri - just slammed a rape victim by implying she hates babies and wants to hurt them.

American women... seriously... what the hell? You've had the vote since 1920. You make up roughly 50% of the population (and with male supporters, that clearly makes women and their supporters a huge voting demographic). Politicians should be terrified of saying crap like what Akin said in public, let alone taking away control of your bodies from. What's going on?
Saria is no longer on Elliquiy, and no longer available for games

Beorning

I agree that there's a nasty subtext in what Akin said... Following his logic, if a woman claims to be a rape victim and happens to be pregnant because of it, then she's lying about her rape. Because she wouldn't get pregnant from a real rape, right? Niiiiiice.

gaggedLouise

Quote from: Beorning on August 21, 2012, 05:51:56 AM
I agree that there's a nasty subtext in what Akin said... Following his logic, if a woman claims to be a rape victim and happens to be pregnant because of it, then she's lying about her rape. Because she wouldn't get pregnant from a real rape, right? Niiiiiice.

Actually, I heard some years ago of a geneticist who claimed the opposite. He stated that women were genetically programmed to bend to violence when sex seemed around the corner, and to be more susceptible to getting pregnant and (without any issue of conscious will) let the body accept the growing foetus, when they are raped by a stranger than during nice "home sex", since this would have been a genetical advantage - during the elder stone age, that is. Now, our genetic makeup hasn't changed much at all since the days of hunting mammoth herds, remember - and the scientist in question was working from the supposition that in those days, humans did not always live in steady monogamy (might well be true). So if the guys would actually have a better go at spreading their genes around by raping women they found ón the road - or the enemy's women - and women would be more inclined to bear children with several men, that would be an advantage for spreading both humans as a species and the genetic material of any strong individual, according to said geneticist. (I've been refraining from posting this because of a fear it would derail the thread, but as insane science goes this is a keeper...)

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

desert ashes

#14
Quote from: Saria on August 21, 2012, 03:00:55 AM
Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Everyone's jumping on this "legitimate rape" thing and making fun and jokes about it, but that really just misses the point completely, and it gets Akin off the hook for the real nasty parts of what he said. Honestly, you Americans get so easily distracted by incidental silliness, that you're completely blind to the really sinister stuff going on in your politics.

Here's what Akin actually said. When the interviewer asked a question about whether it's okay for a woman who's gotten pregnant from being raped to have an abortion, he said:Take that in. Let it fester in your brain for a minute.

First off, let's just put the whole "legitimate rape" thing aside - it's just a silly distraction. Obviously what Akin meant was a woman's body prevents pregnancy when the woman is raped. He put it in a stupid way, yes, but his point is clear. He didn't mean that some rapes are "legitimate" and some aren't, he just meant to make clear that he was only talking about cases of real rape, as opposed to cases that only appear to be rape (such as consensual sex that gets falsely reported as rape - just keep your claws in for a moment, ladies, and remember, what I'm saying he meant is what he meant, not what I believe). So what he meant was: "If it's a rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

All right, are we done harping on this silly "legitimate rape" thing? Are we finished with making overblown and obviously false claims like that the GOP doesn't believe there's such thing as rape? Are we ready to look at this thing like adults? All right then, let's get serious, because there are serious issues here, and we (or at least, you Americans) need to wake up and become aware of them.

Let's look at Akin's statement line-by-line. The first line is: "From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare." Now one of two things is true. Either:

  • Akin lied about getting his information from doctors, and he really just pulled it out of his ass; or....
  • There are doctors (plural!!!) in the US that believe that a woman can spontaneously abort a pregnancy when she doesn't want it.
What we could hope for is that Akin just made that shit up... because if he didn't, that means there are medical doctors (plural!!!!!!) in the US who subscribe to beliefs about women's bodies from the Dark Ages. Sadly, that happens to be the case. There really are doctors in the US who really do believe that a woman automagically turns on her internal birth control when she gets raped. Are you seeing that, Americans? I think the fact that you have a bunch of medical practitioners believing medical myths that were out of vogue when the Magna Carta was signed would be something more worth discussing than the "legitimate rape" verbal flub. Isn't anyone concerned with how incredibly stupid a doctor can be and still keep their medical licence?

Moving on.

The second line - "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." - is the one everyone's tittering about. I'm not. I don't think most people realize how horribly evil this statement is. Stop laughing and acting bewildered about "what is a 'legitimate rape'?" for a moment and look seriously at what Akin meant, and what that means about what he believes. To put it clearly: Akin is saying that he (and doctors, plural!!!) believe that when a woman is raped - for reals - that she shouldn't get pregnant. He's saying that it is "really rare". Stop and think for a moment about what that really means. It means that Akin and his nutjob doctors believe that if a woman gets pregnant during a rape, that most likely means she secretly wanted the sex.

Did your brain explode when you read that? Did it make you furious? Good. It should make you furious. This is what that man - that man who wants to be in charge of around three million women - actually believes. More terrifyingly, this is also what others like him believe, and there are probably several of them in power right now.

Take a moment to let that sink in. Callie Del Noire mentioned seeing a lot of attacks on the reproductive rights of women, and asked if that was really a "thing"... well there it is, in stark relief: that is how some of the people in your government look at women. And everyone has to take a long, hard look at themselves and ask... how could it have possibly gotten to that point. How in the hell is it possible for someone who believes that women who get pregnant from rape secretly enjoyed it to get elected to Congress? You have to figure that around 50% of the people who voted him in (over and over!) are women. (And it's highly unlikely that all of the other 50% - men - consider that kind of attitude toward women to be acceptable.) How could that happen? What is going on? These are the questions you guys should be asking yourselves. How is it possible that a person that misogynist can be elected to Congress? What on Earth does that man bring to the table that is so important that it made it acceptable to overlook his hatred of women? (And no, this misogyny isn't something he's never demonstrated before, because he was preventing women from getting abortions from at least 1995.) I don't care what his economic platform is; is there seriously no-one in Missouri with a more-or-less similar platform that isn't that ignorant and hateful?

American women, what the hell is going on? Are you all sleeping in on Election Day? Seriously, what the hell? You don't seriously mean to tell me that every other potential candidate for the seat was worse, do you? You don't seriously mean to tell me that your only options, through all the primaries right up to the election proper, were either "rape pregnancies mean the victim had fun!" candidates... or worse, do you? So what's happening? Why has this man been allowed to get as far in politics as he has? Who the fuck is he running against? Hitler McStalin?

Let me point out something that you should chew on: everybody's chuckling about this "legitimate rape" thing, but Akin can - and apparently did - just point out that it was just a verbal misstep. And it was. People trip up on words in live interviews all the time, choosing the wrong word and all, and not saying what they really meant. It's no big deal. Akin can just honestly say that he didn't mean to say "legitimate rape" (because it sure looks like he really, honestly, didn't mean to say that)... aaaaaaand he's done. Because, really, all he did was trip over his tongue in a live interview, and no one can reasonably justify destroying someone's political career because of a tongue slip. He gets off with little more than a few days worth of public humiliation in the media, and then life goes on. The next story comes along and the media runs after it like dogs chasing a car, and Akin fades into the background and ultimately once again wins his election - for whatever reasons he's won the last five times. What? How did that happen? I'll tell you how it happened: it happened because everyone was too busy giggle-snorting about the "legitimate rape" thing to notice the real problems in what he said - problems that I'll bet he's hinted at before - that he buys into 15th century medical myths, and thinks that rape babies mean the rape was good times for the mother.

Why is there any tolerance for a politician like Akin? Let me put it another way: would you accept electing a shameless racist? Even if their economic or foreign policies were brilliant? If you wouldn't tolerate a shameless racist in government, why would tolerate a shameless misogynist?

~sigh~ Oh yeah, there was one last sentence to look at: "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 of the rapist, and not attacking the child." And there you have it, ladies... when talking about the case of a woman who was raped and got pregnant, Mr. Akin cares about justice for the rapist... he cares about justice for the foetus...

... but there's not... one... fucking... word... about... the woman.

In fact, the only thing you can even deduce about the woman's role in all of this, indirectly, is that the woman is evil... because she's "attacking the child". Yeah, that's right, ladies. That man - representative in Congress for the state of Missouri - just slammed a rape victim by implying she hates babies and wants to hurt them.

American women... seriously... what the hell? You've had the vote since 1920. You make up roughly 50% of the population (and with male supporters, that clearly makes women and their supporters a huge voting demographic). Politicians should be terrified of saying crap like what Akin said in public, let alone taking away control of your bodies from. What's going on?

What the heck...

Okay, taking a moment to step back from the issue at hand to address the issue of what the hell are you doing calling out every single American woman?  What makes you at all think that every American woman votes for politicians like Akin?  It's really difficult accepting and/or reading the point you're trying to get when you're too busy insulting half of the United States population.  Maybe you need to take a step back instead of advising every American woman to do so and reevaluate how you've decided to approach this discussion. 

There's no actual way of knowing what Akin feels is legitimate rape and what he doesn't.  At the surface he's an older generation, white male from a conservative and Christian background.  Legitmate rape, to him, could be the near death violent ones, reported true cases of rape (and not the, "I'm reporting rape because of -insert here- and not because I was actually raped,") or somewhere in between.  The fact is, he made a poor word choice.  Word choices happen to be essential, because one incorrectly chosen word can change the entire tone of a message.  As proven with this incident. 

Women in America may have had the right to vote since the 1920's and we may have had ten more million votes than men in the last Presidential elections, but where in that does it tell you every single woman thinks the exact same way?  Where are your statistics that say every woman is on the current feminist movement?  Where are your facts that say every American woman think, vote, and behave in the exact same way? 

Apparently when attacking every American woman for not being fearsome, you're unaware or blind to the fact that women in America are not on equal standing grounds as men.  That's a fight still going on, maybe even swept under the rug.  (It's likely just as ignored that the original purpose to the feminist movement was about having a choice -- not being today's perceived feminists.)

Moving onward.



Frankly, above everything else, Akin was a fool for not looking further into this or either letting his beliefs blind him.  He's not alone in that.  My view point: there never has been nor will there be enough separation of church and state in our government.  Religion is going to effect our laws, policies, and those that make them until more than enough realize, accept, and understand that morality is not a religious concept and that our laws and the way we govern ourselves has to stem from simple morality and not the man made churches. 

Should he be crucified for his remarks?  Yeah, because he was stupid enough to make that speech without someone walloping him over an editing stick.  And, probably more importantly, because his beliefs don't jive with how women should be treated according to my beliefs. 


Sadly, as much as I don't agree with what Akin said or his beliefs, in America, he's allowed to have them. 
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leave me with the
taste of your sin
they will lie about you, insult you, hurt you,
betray you, injure  you, set you aflame and
watch you burn. but they will not, shall not,
c a n n o t, destroy  you. because  you, like
R o m e, were built  on ashes, and you, like
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Valerian

It seems to me that the main reason that the 'legitimate rape' phrase is getting most of the attention is because that's the sort of phrasing that Akin and his ilk want to put into the laws they're itching to pass.  Well, that and it's so easy to make fun of.  :P  However, certainly not every American is focusing on only that, and as Moirae points out, not every American woman can (or should) be expected to vote in lock-step with every other.  That's basically one of the things that bothers me most about the "new" Republican party -- anyone who doesn't vote the party line 100% of the time suffers for it.

Really, I think it's fine that Akin's so hyped to stay in the race.  Of the three possible Republican candidates there, he was the one the party liked the least.  The Democrats agreed -- incumbent senator Claire McCaskill actually spent her own campaign funds on several ads designed to get Akin the nomination.  She figured she could beat him, and now I'm thinking she's had the right idea all along.

Akin's pretty doomed if the Republicans follow through with their threat to pull the funding he was counting on.  A group Karl Rove backs was also planning ads to support him, and they're threatening to pull out, too, trying to force Akin to quit.  But the more he gets backed into a corner, the more determined he is to stick it out.  And I'm okay with that.  If he stays in, he'll get trounced, and the Republicans will lose a senatorial seat that they were counting on.  They thought they had an easy win.
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

gaggedLouise

Quote from: Beorning on August 21, 2012, 05:51:56 AM
I agree that there's a nasty subtext in what Akin said... Following his logic, if a woman claims to be a rape victim and happens to be pregnant because of it, then she's lying about her rape. Because she wouldn't get pregnant from a real rape, right? Niiiiiice.

Not to mention he'd probably take it as a given truth that no woman can get raped by her lawfully wedded husband.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Callie Del Noire

Akin isn't the party favorite, despite (or because of ) his past associations with Ryan. If he was a party nobody that had no standing with Ryan the party machine wouldn't be so eager to distance him from the National leadership. His past actions, and similar outlook with certain candidates is a reason for this fervor.

-He's closely tied to Paul Ryan on the personhood issue.
-He's similar in opinion to a large portion of the GOP leaderships 'public stance'
-He's visible, in a BAD way, too close to the National Convention.

Definitely the absolutely worse time and place for that statement.

Now consider that he had to get the nomination largely by HIMSELF. He's quite aware that the state level party leadership might not be behind him and now that this has come up..the National GOP isn't. American Crossroads is already pulling $5 + million dollars in ads out of the state race.

Despite this.. despite his deplorable statement and outlook (and I won't post some of the 'explanation' articles I've read trying to tune his statement..) he is STILL almost dead even in some polls with his competitor.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/todd-aikin-claire-mccaskill-poll_n_1814849.html

That is some scarey stuff. Again my read on Akin, he's too stubborn, prideful and now resentful to back down. He knows he's done for in politics unless he wins. He can ask forgiveness if by some miracle he wins this seat. Assuming he comes to the party with a seat that puts them in the majority in the senate.

Otherwise, politically he's toast. And he's a political creature. He'll turtle down, last out the convention and play the aggrieved party being picked on by the 'leftist liberal media' which WILL win him some points in the state he's running.

Frankly, the stakes for Akin (and the GOP) are fairly high here. He stays at his post, wins, and he'll be in a senate office for SIX years.. lots of time to put his foot down and choke out future support out of the national party. If this was a more progressive state he'd be toast, but Missouri is fairly conservative.

It's distasteful. It's stupid. The 'Legitimate Rape' comment was bad enough, but could be an honest verbal gaff, but this thought that a woman won't get pregnant unless she wants too.. that's stupid. Willfully and resolutely refusing to accept the facts stupid.

I noticed that the 'Personhood' bill that he and Ryan sponsored would have effected a LOT of things.. like In Vitro Fertilization.. Notice that despite the fact that the bill (and other GOP actions) directly effect that that Mitt Romney has SEVERAL grandchildren due to that process. (At least one of his sons have fertility issues).

The GOP is a mix of men wanting to be in power, and people they are beholding towards for support (conservative Christians) and now we're seeing the results of the leadership's personal actions and their 'spoken' outlook confliciting.

Fun note.. for a man who is married as a Roman Catholic and opposed to birth control, Paul Ryan and his wife have very few children for a marriage of something like 12 years. Only 3 children in 12 years? We'll never know if they are really good at timing or being two faced.

Callie Del Noire

Looking at the news, with something like 4 hours to go, Akin has indeed turtled down.

And the GOP party statement vs Abortion has stayed the same.. 'We support a personhood amendment'

So if he doesn't drop dead between now and 6 PM his time.. this is going to get a LOT of press time between now and the GOP national convention next week.

Shjade

Quote from: Saria on August 21, 2012, 03:00:55 AM
How in the hell is it possible for someone who believes that women who get pregnant from rape secretly enjoyed it to get elected to Congress?

It's actually a little bit worse than that. Technically, Akin's statement could be interpreted as saying that not enjoying or wanting the sex is irrelevant, that as long as you unconsciously are compliant via subsequent pregnancy it's still an "illegitimate" rape claim.

He doesn't care if you hated every second of it if it was what you "needed" on a genetic/procreative level.

Quote from: gaggedLouise on August 21, 2012, 06:19:34 AM
Actually, I heard some years ago of a geneticist who claimed the opposite. He stated that women were genetically programmed to bend to violence when sex seemed around the corner, and to be more susceptible to getting pregnant and (without any issue of conscious will) let the body accept the growing foetus, when they are raped by a stranger than during nice "home sex", since this would have been a genetical advantage - during the elder stone age, that is.

While also likely crackpot science theorizing, I have to say, considering both claims (natural spermicide vs. violence-induced fertility increase) from as objective a standpoint as I can manage (read as: "pretending for a moment that neither claim sounds fucking loony"), the latter claim sounds somewhat more plausible. It's not as if rape-designed mating rituals are unheard of in nature, after all (see dolphins for details). I can almost think of it as semi-plausible...by comparison to the other side, at least.
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Serephino

Why has Anne Coulter gone on national television and said in an interview she agrees women shouldn't have the right to vote?  That one has me scratching my head too.  I can't understand how even a conservative woman can support this crap, but they do.  Also, as I've said before, most candidates aren't stupid enough to say something like that publicly.  They just co sponsor and vote for the bills, and hope no one notices.  Sadly, most people don't.  At a family event a few weeks ago, when politics inevitably came up, I told them about congress.org.  My aunts and uncles, who are even more informed than the average citizen, didn't know you could go look at the voting record of your rep.  They listened to what that candidate said during the campaign (usually a load of crap) and never thought much about it after the election. 

It's only been recently that political activists have been making people aware.  My email inbox is full of petitions and candidates asking for money.  Before I signed up for these things, my reps could've all voted yes on a bill the redefined rape, and as long as that bill didn't pass, I would've never known such a thing was even on the floor unless it was reported on the news.  Even then, the news usually only tells you if it passed, not how the reps voted.

I do try to stay on top of things, and I do vote. 

Callie Del Noire

One of the 'arguements' for 'what he really meant' was that a violent rape would actually physically shock the body and theoretically hinder pregnancy.

THEIR words.. not mine.

Me.. My mind boggles at the sheer stupidity of that article to the point I didn't keep it on my browser long enough to track it. That was one of the most stupid claims I've had the misfortune to waste time reading. I've seen friends traumatized by rape. To claim if it's violent enough that you won't get pregnant is foolish. No rape is .. 'unharmful'.

Oniya

I've been seeing people quote the 'but infertility experts say that stress can decrease fertility!' line.  What I've been pointing out to these people is that the stress that an infertile couple experiences has a gradual onset over the course of months or years of trying and failing to conceive.  This affects both parties - men and women - by making sex a chore, possibly decreasing sperm count through frequent attempts at inopportune points in the cycle, and so forth.

By contrast, the stress experienced by a rape victim is sudden-onset, affects only the victim, and begins comparatively close to the incident. 
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Serephino

Let's not forget that not all rape is violent.  I was taken advantage of while passed out drunk.  I guess since I put myself in that situation I really wanted it, and it was my fault...  I already have a hard enough time not blaming myself without that asshole blaming me too.  I'm sure there are women who would lie about it to get an abortion, but I would rather see 10 women who lie get one than let one woman who really was raped suffer.  I'm generally anti-abortion, but even I understand and can sympathize with what being forced to carry a rapist's baby would do to a woman.  That would be just cruel.

As for the theory of the opposite being true, it's actually not so far-fetched if you think about it.  Our ancestors used to live in small clans.  Just reproducing with each other would result in the same genes being passed around, and eventually they'd all end up related, if they weren't already.  However, if you have this one female that's out gathering, and a male from another tribe comes across her and overpowers her, any resulting pregnancy would bring fresh blood and possibly stronger genes into the clan.

Our ancestors used to kidnap women from other clans all the time.  On that one Discovery Channel show, the people who study this stuff think Neanderthals and the more modern human type cross bred that way.  Something about people of European descent having some similar gene...   

AllieCat

The GOP's official platform will call for a constitutional amendment completely banning abortion. No exemptions at all.

No rape.
No incest.
No 'health of the mother is endangered'

None of that.

So Akin isn't some right wing nut.. he just did the one thing that the R's couldn't stand for.. he told America the truth on what he and other R's see as true (did you see the American Family Association suggest that AKIN is the one being 'Forcibly Assaulted' because people called him on his remarks

It's sad, because one of the few Republicans I'll vote for is running for re-election this year (Scott Brown). And to his credit, he opposes some of the insane things that are in this platorm. However, I cannot and WILL not vote for anyone who associates themselves with the party. Maybe after the right of the right wing currently in control of the Republican party gets kicked in the metaphorical balls a few time, they'll let the sane people take control.