Some strategists believe that Rep. Todd Akin may have not only saved the most unpopular Democrat in the U.S. Senate but could well have kept the Senate in Democratic hands. It is too early to tell, but Akin yesterday let the deadline pass for withdrawal without a court order and refused to yield to demands from leading Republicans that he drop out. He appears hoping that the Republicans in the state would prefer to send a man viewed internationally as a dysfunctional moron rather than accept six more years with McCaskill. What is even more disturbing, however, is Akin’s view of his own conduct. In refusing to leave the race, Akin said that he simply mad a bad choice in using “one word in one sentence on one day.”
As now even herders in yurts in Mongolia can tell you, Akin become a global laughing stock when he went on the air and explained “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. You know I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”
That ridiculous statement appears to come down to just one stray word, according to Akin: “I misspoke one word in one sentence on one day, and all of a sudden, overnight, everybody decides, ‘Well, Akin can’t possibly win.'” It is not clear what single word Akin is referencing but I assume it is “legitimate.” He is of course ignoring his breathtaking claim that doctors (still unnamed) have told him that women possess a type of kill switch over pregnancies that they can use to not get pregnant after a rape. That any adult would utter such nonsense raises more questions of Akin’s intellect than his attitude toward women. Moreover, after bringing the unity of the GOP against him (including the national party withdrawing millions from the race against McCaskill), Akin is minimizing his own bizarre conduct and how outrageous his statement was for women, rape victims, doctors, humans, and possibly every mammal on the planet.
Moreover, it is not simply a view that “Akin can’t possibly win.” McCaskill is so unpopular that he could win but that would be even more embarrassing for both the GOP and the country.
Source: USA Today
Juris
Since Akins is running for a US Senate seat, the entire state will vote not just his tribe of neighborhood Neanderthals. That gives us hope. I’m not a fan of the DINO, McCaskill, but for the sake of the country, Republicans should never be permitted to hold any public office–elected or appointed.
I’m glad he stayed in. Let us have this wretched debate as my conservative friends clearly need to hear the word NO. So much for the economy and jobs, and the GOP brought it on themselves.
Let us be clear: Akin spoke his mind. And he is not alone, not by a mile. And every conservative is now going to be asked just how many rights they intend to strip from women of their rights so their sperm can be enshrined.
Missing from Akin’s rhetoric is any concern whatsoever for women, pregnant or not. This is why conservatives will lose now, and for a generation.
Gene, I don’t discount McCaskill’s team in taking advantage of this (although maybe I should). Rather, I discount the general voter. I actually live in his district and it astonishes me how many yard signs I still saw on my way home from work yesterday. Maybe I will see less on the way home today, but I am not hopeful. The people here elected him 5 different times. Don’t overlook the fact that the majority of voters here have known his ultra conservative views for some time, it is only the rest of the world that is just now discovering. For many voters here, “christian conservative” values, especially abortion and Christmas, are at the top of the issue list.
I simply believe that the majority of voters here will overlook this incident or forget about it given the alternative candidate, who is viewed here as being synonymous with Obama. For the record, I am not in that majority.
Wake up: It’s not just Akin
By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor
Tue August 21, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/21/opinion/granderson-gop-rape-abortion/index.html
Excerpt:
(CNN) — They will say this is about one person.
It is not.
They will attempt to distance themselves from the controversy.
But they can’t.
They will even try to claim the whole conversation is a distraction from the “real issues.”
And yet they never shy away from using this same conversation to fire up their base, or hurl attack ads or raise funds.
The truth is the “legitimate rape” comment made by U.S. Rep. Todd Akin — as in pregnancy from “legitimate rape” is rare — is not a GOP anomaly but rather another disturbing glimpse into the viewpoint too many social conservatives have about women’s health and reproductive rights. And if abortion is not among the “real issues,” why is the GOP platform committee considering adding a ban, with no mention of exceptions, to this year’s to-do list?
Last March, in a discussion in the Kansas House about whether women purchase separate abortion-only policies, Republican state Rep. Pete DeGraaf suggested women should plan ahead for rape the way he keeps a spare tire. A few weeks later, Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner, a Republican, said some women might fake being raped in order to get free abortions.
Former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum suggested doctors who perform an abortion on a woman who becomes pregnant from an attack should be thrown in jail and this year suggested rape victims who become pregnant from an attack should be forced to keep the baby and “make the best out of a bad situation.”
Pressure builds on Akin to leave race
Rep. Todd Akin’s empty chair
RNC: Akin must decide his own future
And we’re to believe Akin is just a one-off.
Please.
More than 200 Republican members of Congress joined him in co-sponsoring House Resolution 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, when it contained language restricting the exception for federally funded abortions to “an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest.”
Forcible rape.
That’s not too far from “legitimate rape”
The Ties That Bind Paul Ryan and Todd Akin
Rape-denier Todd Akin is right in line with the GOP’s staunchly anti-abortion platform. And so is Ryan.
BY Marilyn Katz
August 21, 2012
http://inthesetimes.com/article/13718/the_ties_that_bind_paul_ryan_and_todd_akin/
Excerpt:
Republicans, heeding their media strategists, are trying to distance themselves from Todd Akin’s absurd comment that women cannot get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” But we shouldn’t let them get away with it. Rather than making him an outlier, Akin’s comments are consistent with the words and actions of the Republican Party—including its latest darling, presumptive vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
Ryan is being touted as an economic expert, but his legislative focus on economics is relatively new, whereas his anti-choice record is pages long and more than decade old. Of the 81 bills Ryan has sponsored or cosponsored in this congressional session, only three have dealt with the economy. The greatest number of bills he has backed on a single topic—10—have to do not with controlling the economy but controlling women’s bodies and what we can and cannot do with them.
Juris,
Perhaps, but I think you discount the field day McCaskill’s PR weasels will have with this given that 1) Akin just alienated the majority of female voters and 2) McCaskill’s being a female. It’s a natural double play in the sense of propaganda. I think the only way this dies down is if Claire’s team drops the ball before election. And make no mistake, I loathe Claire McCaskill, but compared to this Neanderthal? I really hope she wins again (gag).
The sad thing is that this will blow over for most voters in Missouri prior to the election, which is a long time away in the perspective that there will be plenty more events that cause media hysteria from now until then. I do not have any faith that voters will remember this or “get it” that this guy is bats*it crazy.
“The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office” Will Rogers.
Thank you, Todd Akin
The candidate exposed his party’s misogyny, and the swift backlash is reason for defenders of women to celebrate
By Joan Walsh
8/20/12
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/20/thank_you_todd_akin/
Excerpt:
I shared a panel with actor Gabrielle Union on MSNBC’s “Now With Alex” today. It was a full hour devoted to women on the first business day since Rep. Todd Akin made his repugnant comments about women’s bodies preventing them from conceiving in cases of “legitimate rape.” I had been a little glib and hugely political about it, when Union revealed that she’s a rape survivor herself, and shared her sorrow and anger at Akin’s idiocy. It became personal. The outrage that is Todd Akin became even more abhorrent.
So I’m celebrating reports that Akin has been asked to step down by GOP leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He is leading McCaskill in polls; this is big news. Defenders of women’s rights can celebrate. But not too much; whatever becomes of Akin — and, so far, he’s maintained that he’s planning to stick it out — he was presenting what has become GOP dogma: that women are using the excuse of rape to get around laws prohibiting abortion except in cases of rape or incest. Mitt Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, joined Akin in co-sponsoring HR3, a bill designed to redefine rape, to limit access to public abortion funding only to cases of “forcible rape” (exactly who would be making the distinction between “forcible rape” and, I don’t know, “illegitimate rape,” was never defined).
Regardless of his future, Akin himself has made clear that he is in his party’s mainstream. He didn’t mean to use the term “legitimate rape,” he told Mike Huckabee during a radio interview. “I was talking about forcible rape. I used the wrong word.”
Akin’s source on female bodies and rape: Dr. John Willke
Rape Pregnancies Are Rare
John C. Willke, M.D.
Life Issues Connector, April 1999
http://www.christianliferesources.com/article/rape-pregnancies-are-rare-461
Excerpt:
Finally, factor in what is certainly one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that’s physical trauma. 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. So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one knows, but this factor certainly cuts this last figure by at least 50 percent and probably more. If we use the 50 percent figure, we have a final figure of 225 (or 370) women pregnant each year. These numbers closely match the 200 that have been documented in clinical studies.
Akins thinks he only said one word wrong. That one word sends his comments into the hyperspace of wrong words. But, that’s not even the dumbest thing he said. I guess he wants us to forget he completely invented a biology of a woman’s reproductive system. The really scary thing is that by his own words on Sean Hannity’s radio show (heard it on Chris Matthews’ show), he said he had read about a woman’s ability to auto-abort the sperm of certain rapes.
Is “legitimate” rape the same as “forcible” rape? Akin’s views on women and abortion seem to be in sync with the views of many of his fellow Republican Congressmen–including Paul Ryan.
Todd Akin, Paul Ryan, and Redefining Rape
By Nick Baumann
Sun Aug. 19, 2012
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/todd-akin-paul-ryan-redefining-rape
Excerpt:
On Sunday, Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), who is challenging Sen. Claire McCaskill in the Missouri Senate race, used an interview with a local television station to defend his belief that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape: He claimed that women who are the victims of “legitimate rape” are unlikely to become pregnant. Akin said that the female body has “biological defenses” that prevent rape victims from getting pregnant. (That’s not true.) The implication of his position is that if you were raped and became pregnant, you must have actually wanted it—it wasn’t really rape.
This isn’t the first time Akin has expressed fringe views about rape in the context of the abortion debate. Last year, Akin, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and most of the House GOP cosponsored a bill that would have narrowed the already-narrow exceptions to the laws banning federal funding for abortion—from all cases of rape to cases of “forcible rape.”
Drugged, raped, and pregnant? Too bad, says the House GOP.
After I reported on the “forcible rape” language in January 2011, a wave of outcry from abortion rights, progressive, and women’s groups led the Republicans to remove it. But a few months later, in a congressional committee report, Republicans wrote that they believed the bill would continue to have the same effect despite the absence of the “forcible” language.
**********
The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape
Drugged, raped, and pregnant? Too bad. Republicans are pushing to limit rape and incest cases eligible for government abortion funding.
By Nick Baumann
Fri Jan. 28, 2011
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/republican-plan-redefine-rape-abortion
Excerpt:
With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to “forcible rape.” This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. (Smith’s spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.)
Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old’s parents wouldn’t be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. They also wouldn’t be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense.
There used to be a quasi-truce between the pro- and anti-abortion rights forces on the issue of federal funding for abortion. Since 1976, federal law has prohibited the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest, and when the pregnancy endangers the life of the woman. But since last year, the anti-abortion side has become far more aggressive in challenging this compromise. They have been pushing to outlaw tax deductions for insurance plans that cover abortion, even if the abortion coverage is never used. The Smith bill represents a frontal attack on these long-standing exceptions.
In Magic Teflon Vagina Juice, Church Lady does the top ten for Todd Akin.
They’re many labels one can put on those who do not believe in the right of a women, an adult, to choose whether or not to have an abortion. Conservatives, with their hearts, believe women do not have enough sense to make that decision.
Republican plank opposes all abortions
By Callum Borchers
http://bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/08/21/gop-platform-committee-would-ban-abortion-even-save-woman-life-adding-furor-over-senate-candidate-offensive-remarks-rape/z8RUoesNCeEfX5N0BXqWtJ/story.html
Excerpt:
The Republican platform committee approved language on Tuesday seeking a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to the life of a pregnant woman, a position Democrats quickly labeled the “Akin Plank,” after embattled Representative Todd Akin of Missouri.
The wording of the GOP’s call for a “human life amendment” is no different from what the party approved in 2004 and 2008, but proponents and opponents alike greeted it with renewed zeal two days after Akin said he “understand[s] from doctors” that rape-induced pregnancies are “really rare,” and that “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
The remarks by Akin, a Republican trying to unseat Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, placed abortion and rape at the center of the national political scene. Akin rejected calls from presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and others in his own party to withdraw from the race, requesting “forgiveness” in a new TV ad and allowing a Tuesday deadline to pass without removing his name from the ballot.
GOP leaders worry that Akin’s refusal to leave the race will help reelect McCaskill in a close contest that could determine which party has a majority in the US Senate.
Akin’s remarks put a light on the platform’s call for a ban on abortion that otherwise might have drawn little attention. The Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, noted that the absolute abortion ban “is the platform of the Republican Party; it is not the platform of Mitt Romney,” though the former Massachusetts governor has said in the past that he endorses identical language.
His TV ads asking voters to demonstrate their “forgiveness” illustrate how fully he misses the point. It’s not that he made a “mistake” that needs to be “forgiven,” it’s that he said something that reveals deeply disturbing information about what and how he thinks–beliefs and attitudes that surely have a profound effect on his legislative activities. This is what he truly doesn’t seem to get.
Akin’s Spiritual Mentor: Women Occasionally Invite Rape, Victims Are ‘Hysterical’
By Zack Beauchamp on Aug 20, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/20/713571/akins-spiritual-mentor-women-occasionally-invite-rape-victims-are-hysterical/
Reverend D. James Kennedy (Left) and Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO).
Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) spiritual mentor Reverend D. James Kennedy harbored extreme and sometimes flatly misogynistic views about rape and abortion, according to a ThinkProgress review of Kennedy’s sermons on the topic. The Senate candidate, who set off a massive controversy by claiming this weekend that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant, has deep ties to Reverend Kennedy, having cited some of his sermons as key intellectual influences and having been named in Kennedy’s book How Would Jesus Vote? as one of the Reverend’s “favorite statesman.”
Kennedy, who the Anti-Defamation League has termed a “Christian supremacist,” repeatedly railed against legalized abortion, calling it the “American Holocaust” and suggesting that it would lead inevitably to genocide in the United States. But Kennedy’s discussions of rape and abortion in particular betray extraordinarily disturbing views about rape victims:
1. Kennedy believed that rape victims who chose abortion are “hysterical.” In “Abortion: Myths and Realities,” Kennedy labels victims of rape who chose unsafe abortions when safer procedures are illegal “hysterical,” saying “We are told by some of the radical feminists that the women will become hysterical, that they will abort themselves with coat hanger.” Abortion rates are, in fact, higher in nations where the procedure is criminalized, and men describing women whose choices they disapprove of as “hysterical” has a storied sexist history.
2. Kennedy suggests rape victims can be responsible for being raped. In “Life: An Inalienable Right,” Kennedy expresses concern that rape victims who chose to get an abortion are occasionally responsible for their own rape, saying that “Even if they want to say the woman had some part in it—which in most cases they probably don’t—surely the baby did nothing wrong, so the only innocent party is killed and the rapist often goes free.” He doesn’t elaborate on how this might be true, but another Kennedy sermon says “the immodest woman is contributing to the lust of other people” by wearing revealing clothing.
3. Kennedy held that the Bible should set our laws about rape and abortion. Kennedy is very explicit on this point, saying “In the Bible, the child of rape was allowed to live and the rapist was put to death. Today, we find that the penalties against rape have become more and more lenient, whereas the child is now the subject of capital punishment. Justice has been totally destroyed and perverted in that the guilty are practically allowed to go free and the innocent are killed.” This fits with Kennedy’s general view that we should “rebuild America based on the Bible.”
4. Kennedy thought husbands should determine if their wives can have abortions. Though not specifically addressing rape, Kennedy approvingly cited a Roman prohibition on abortion motivated by the husbands should have control over women’s reproductive choice, saying “That newly created life is as much the husband’s as it is the wife’s. Historically, it is interesting to note that when the Roman Empire did away with laws that allowed abortion, it was done not because of the woman or the harm that abortions were doing to women (and indeed they do vastly more harm than most people are aware of), but because the husband was being defrauded of his progeny.” Interestingly, Akin has worried that criminalizing marital rape provides women “a legal weapon to beat up on the husband.”
Given that Akin’s rhetoric and policy views bear clear marks of Kennedy’s influence, it’s perhaps no surprise that Akin co-sponsored (with Paul Ryan) a bill that could, by limiting federal funding of abortion to cases of “forcible rape,” make rape survivors give birth to their rapist’s child.
Wake up: It’s not just Akin
By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor
August 21, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/21/opinion/granderson-gop-rape-abortion/index.html
Excerpt:
(CNN) — They will say this is about one person.
It is not.
They will attempt to distance themselves from the controversy.
But they can’t.
They will even try to claim the whole conversation is a distraction from the “real issues.”
And yet they never shy away from using this same conversation to fire up their base, or hurl attack ads or raise funds.
The truth is the “legitimate rape” comment made by U.S. Rep. Todd Akin — as in pregnancy from “legitimate rape” is rare — is not a GOP anomaly, but rather another disturbing glimpse into the viewpoint too many social conservatives have about women’s health and reproductive rights. And if abortion is not among the “real issues,” why is the GOP platform committee considering adding a ban, with no mention of exceptions, to this year’s to-do list?
Last March, in a discussion in the Kansas House about whether women purchase separate abortion-only policies, Republican state Rep. Pete DeGraaf suggested women should plan ahead for rape the way he keeps a spare tire. A few weeks later, Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner, a Republican, said some women might fake being raped in order to get free abortions.
Former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum suggested doctors who perform an abortion on a woman who becomes pregnant from an attack should be thrown in jail and this year suggested rape victims who become pregnant from an attack should be forced to keep the baby and “make the best out of a bad situation.”
More than 200 Republican members of Congress joined him in co-sponsoring House Resolution 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, when it contained language restricting the exception for federally funded abortions to “an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest.”
Forcible rape.
That’s not too far from “legitimate rape”
So vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan can try to backpedal away from Akin as fast as he can, but his name is still on the record in support of that bill, with that language. He can say he’s in line with Mitt Romney and would not ban abortions in the case of rape, but it’s his name attached to House Resolution 212: Sanctity of Human Life Act, which would have done just that.
No wonder Romney chose Ryan as his running mate; he admires the speed with which the congressman from Wisconsin flip-flops.
I thought that numbskull was from the rural part of Mizzura, considering the hairdo, big forehead and right to lifer pubgullion. But a guy on the marina here went to high school with Todd at a place called John Burroughs in a suburb of Saint Louis called Ladue. He says that Todd was a square ass but that the whole school had a mindset which Chas (not his real name) calls “Our sh__ dont stink.” One story is that back in 1965 or so some of the prep boys were going over to the Illinois side of the river to watch good soul music at some club owned by the mob. It was the only integrated music place in the whole metro area at the time and had Muddy Waters and others. One of the prep kids from Ladue got shot on the parking lot and the gang of s dont stink crowd quit going. Todd’s dad was some rich guy who built a huge mansion in Ladue. In recent years it was taken down and the lot subdivided to make more money for dad in his dotage to the annoyance of the s___ dont stink neighbors. Todd went to college and then some divinity school. Chas says Todd was not the brightest. Chas says that the GOP crafted the Congressional district so as to encompass lily white suburbs, mostly rich. Todd once said, back in his prime time before he was elected to Congress, that the rich will get richer and the poor will get blacker. Todd was a draft dodger. Todd is not the guy whom Roseann Roseann O’Dana made fun of on Saturday Night Live, altho Chas opened the conversation today with “Helloooo Toooodd!”
The word he claims was wrong was “legitimate” People of his ilk believe sluts will lie and claim to have been raped just to have one of those sweet, sweet, abortions. But all he was really doing was repeating BS that has been part of the anti-choice lobby manure spreader for years. “Rape victims don’t get pregnant” is an old canard.
BTW he later back peddled on his “apology” while being interviewed by Hannity for his radio hate roundup.
Stalin, Hitler, Bush…… All just misunderstood…..