GOP Senatorial Candidate Todd Akin Understands Biology and Women’s Rights
August 20, 2012 7 Comments
How dare Democrats accuse Republicans of waging a war against women, their bodies, and their rights? During a recent interview with KTVI-TV, GOP Senatorial candidate Todd Akin outlined the Tea Party stance toward abortion rights for rape victims.
AKIN: If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down.
You hear that, ladies? If you are raped and it results in pregnancy, you obviously didn’t try hard enough to shut it down.
Of course, as Talking Points points out, Akin’s attitude and understanding is not much different from the rest of his Republican brethren…
EVAN MCMORRIS SANTORO: In 2011, the House GOP was forced to drop language from a bill that would have limited federal help to pay for an abortion to only victims of “forcible rape.” Akin was a co-sponsor on the bill.
…while Garance Franke-Ruta of The Atlantic notes the proud conservative history behind this belief…
FRANKE-RUTA: The push for a no-exceptions anti-abortion policy has for decades gone hand in hand with efforts to downplay the frequency with which rape- or incest-related pregnancies occur, and even to deny that they happen, at all. In other words, it’s not just Akin singing this tune.
It would be nice to see the traditional media realize how extreme the current conservative agenda is. As in, they believe that raped women can self-abort, presumably “shutting that whole thing down” in a way that pleases Jesus, who stated clearly that life begins at conception said nothing at all against abortion rights.
Akin’s defense of his statement doesn’t address his misconception of conception.
JOSH MARSHALL: [T]he statement leaves the obvious question unaddressed: does Akin really believe that women have an innate defense against pregnancy if they don’t consent to intercourse?
As I head to bed, after midnight in California, Akin has twice said that he misspoke and regrets having done so, but so far he hasn’t fully rejected the horrendous idea he espoused, that…
AKIN: If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down.
Akin is just allowing that this is not always the case. And of course, the point behind the whole anti-choice movement is to prevent women from making their own decisions about whether or not to be pregnant. Again, what he said is awful, but also representative.
This has to give the race to Claire McCaskill, right? Right?
About Matthew
Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat.Com™ and commented:
Thank you polentical for this post. Unbelievable just how stupid some males are when it comes to female issues.
Thank you for re-blogging. What makes the stupidity of some males even worse is that it’s so often men who are deciding upon this legislation concerning women!
Send him back to his own time – he’s obviously arrived in The Tardis or something.
It’s a good thing that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside, because there are far too many people who think like that in the U.S.! We’re going to have to pack that thing full.
Oh dear – that bad. It’s a mighty thought, all that lot flying to some outer place – not a great thought for where they land though!
I want to hear from any female voter in MO who is/was planning on Akin defend this. Really. Or any man with a wife or daughter, for that matter.
I agree wholeheartedly. It even stuns me that anyone with a mother could think like this.