Seriously, do you think Akin believed that outlandish bullshit or was it more a matter of . . . .

[Stinky The Clown]

. . . . upholding the party line of being against *any*thing that advances women's health freedom?

I actually believe these morons (and make no mistake, Akin is not one bit unusual) are far more about staying in the thrall of extreme right wingers than hold such out of the mainstream views.

The Akin Notion has been around a looooong time among the hard right religionuts.

[ellenfl]

1. rachel's explaining that now. eom

[Panasonic]

2. Uh, Steenky...

Are we talking about this dude:



OR


Your pick....

[karynnj]

3. Strange as it is, I think he believes it

Here is an article speaking of this strange idea surfacing several times from far right legislators. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/20/rep-todd-akin-is-wrong-about-rape-and-pregnancy-but-hes-not-alone/

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Neither of us can know for sure, but that article tells me I'm correct

(I am honestly not trying to argue with you.)

I read that and take away that those who hold this view are simply parroting some right wing big hair preachers so as to endear themselves to the knuckle dragging mouth breathers.

I have NO idea if your interpretation or mine is right.

What I *do* know is these people are toxic to America.

[freshwest]

15. Remember the GOP lawmakers who wanted every woman's pregnancy tracked and to charge a woman

With murder if she didn't go to term?

He said that women were lying about rape to get around abortion laws, so the exception had to be removed as well as the incest and health of the mother provisions.

They want to hide their SIN.

This is Rush's line also.

Because women cannot be trusted, they lie since they want to keep on having unprotected sex with as many men as possible and keep their girlish figures by getting abortions.

To keep getting more men to have sex with them.
Women are all born nymphomaniacs, just can't get enough like something out of a porno movie.

However, according to Rush, all women are just gold diggers and take advantage of men by using their sexuality to get the men's money.

See a pattern here? Men who have such view of women really should STFU because they hate women, can't get along with them, have issues that transcend any of the so-called facts or ideas that they present.

But they'll get away with it, since the media puts these guys and the church is handling the rest of the propaganda to make everyone go along.

[karynnj]

21. Like you, I really don't know

I was shocked reading the articles that explained that this strange claim was not original to Akin. I fully agree with you that this should be toxic to most of America.

I think that part of the panic of the party and Romney is that they know that this comment, while extreme, is NOT completely out of their rightmost mainstream. It is not far at all from Ryan, who is already becoming a liability with his tax plan and his Medicare "solution". This may be the eye opener that some of the less political people need to see that this is NOT the Republican party they may have grown up with.

This really can be a mess for the Republicans that goes beyond the Missouri seat, that weirdly they are still favored to win. In Akin, they have someone who likely does not think he did anything so wrong that he should step down in disgrace. This is clear seeing that he chose to go on two right wing radio stations. (This also let us see something about the hosts. Huckabee tried to help him walk this to what Huckabee (not me, you or anyone here) thinks is a sufficiently safe place - that he meant "forcible" - when he said "legitimate. Note this ignores his bizarre medical claim. Hannity seemed more interested in persuading him to step down. This shows Hannity is likely more political than a true believer. (Caveat - I heard neither in their entirety so my comments may be completely off.)

What this whole thing leads to is shining a bright spotlight on a significant part of the Republican party's opposition to ANY abortion and even many forms of contraception. On the other side, what I wonder is whether the RW for whom this is the most important issue will react with fury that a man they respected, who did not do anything they consider immoral or unethical, was pushed out. Not to equate them in any real way, consider the anger here when Weiner was forced out.

The other negative is that in order to diminish the reasonableness of allowing a raped woman to refuse to bear the rapist's child, they mentally smear the woman who was the victim. First by questioning if there was "enough" force used, now by claiming that if it truly was rape, there would be no pregnancy. This is unconscionable. I can only imagine the horror a woman, trying to heal from the nightmare of rape, must feel as she gradually finds that she is bearing that man's child. While there may be some who reconcile themselves to carrying the baby, I know that I would have found it a daily reminder of the worst moment of my life. ( As one never raped, I can't really know how I would react - what I do know is that either way, it would be of upmost importance that the decision would be mine - especially as rape itself, by definition takes away the woman's right to control her body and life. )

What the Republicans hate is that Akin's comments might make people, especially women, realize that when it comes down to it, they really do not fully agree with the idea that abortion should never (or never other than given the imminent loss of life of the mother) be legal is really a step too far. (Note - I am pro-choice, but I am specifically speaking here of pro-life women who genuinely are of the opinion that abortion is murder. Some of them will believe that it is still wrong and they personally would carry the child. Others might wonder if they mentally could live with this. )

[surrealAmerican]

4. I rather think he does believe it ...

... but only because it so fits his ideology that he didn't question it.


It's so pathetic too - the sort of "information" that middle schoolers tell each other before they know any better.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. I'm inclined to think he believed it.

His district wasn't exactly known for being high information demanding. He's just now having his beliefs tested on a state level.

What I do think caught him by surprise was the national backlash, and his party members denouncing his words. He wasn't expecting any of that I'm thinking.

[Cerridwen]

7. He believes it.

I've met these men. They think any woman who is raped had it coming. She was a whore, stupid, weak, or some such other not-really-a-valuable-human type of not-really-a-valuable-human.

When it happens to men, they put the man in the same category. They were stupid, or weak, or not-really-a-man; because, you see, in their little pea-brains, human=man.

I've met them. They are real. They are toxic. If I could wave a magic wand and mark them in some way to make sure they could not, in any way, contribute to the gene pool, I would. You can't educate them; there are no teaching moments with them. When rape happens to someone they love, they don't re-evaluate their values and opinions about rape; they re-evaluate their opinion of the person who was raped. To them, being a victim is an insult to their "masculinity."

Until we get their ideas out of our society and off this planet, rape will forever be the victims fault.

[Fumesucker]

22. I agree with you, I've met met them too.. n/t

[loyalsister]

23. He definitely believes it

Oddly enough, I have also met well- meaning men who believe it. They are usually in their 70s + and still believe that it is the responsibility of men to "provide for and protect" women. They see rape as a failure on their part to protect their wives and daughters and look for any possible refutation.

Beyond that, I think they also honestly believe that at least one good thing could come of a tragic event. The joy of motherhood is god's will. As a matter of fact, my own pro-life mother once said that.

I think younger legislators who have adopted these ideas are more political. They had modern sex education classes. They know better and I think they also know that their status within the power structure is jeopardized.

[hamsterjill]

24. Definitely, he believes it.

I've met these men, too. And you're absolutely right in that they re-evaluate their opinion of a person, particularly a woman, when something happens to that person.

It amazes me how sincerely similar these types are to the Taliban. And I'm not joking...

[Major Nikon]

8. He believes it

It's not as if he's the first moran to come up with this shit. It's well circulated among the creme-de-la-dumb of the forced pregnancy crowd.

http://www.christianliferesources.com/article/rape-pregnancies-are-rare-461

[barbtries]

30. wow.

this is authored by someone with an "MD" after his name. from the article:
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.

now i know, he did believe it. and no wonder. give me a break.

this article is more reality based: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/how-often-does-rape-lead-to-pregnancy/261307/

From a holistic perspective, one might hypothesize that a woman's body could respond to the extreme stress and trauma of enduring rape in such a way that she would be physiologically more likely to miscarry (or not to conceive at all). There is a multi-million dollar alternative reproductive health market aimed at optimizing an environment for conception -- sexual positions, foods, colors, aromas, feng shui -- so there could be something to a theory that the other, much darker end of that spectrum functions analogously.

But that doesn't hold, to any relevant degree. A widely-cited 1996 study from the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology sampled over 4,000 women and found that the rape-related pregnancy rate was 5.0 percent. That is, after being raped once, a woman had a 5.0 percent chance of pregnancy. That number includes rapes in which condoms were used. Small studies from other countries have reported the percentage to be much greater.

The AJOG called their finding "a significant frequency." Whether or not that percentage varies somewhat from the pregnancy likelihood in consensual sex is rendered moot by the fact that the study reported a total of 32,101 cases of rape-related pregnancy over the course of the year (in the United States alone). While specific numbers are contested, there is similarly overwhelming evidence of rape-related pregnancy by the tens of thousands in places like Rwanda where there was mass rape in the course of genocide.

as for the article you shared, i find it hard to imagine that the author is actually a medical doctor. do they have fundamentalist medical schools now too?

[Major Nikon]

32. Evidently he's a real doctor

His letter got plenty of attention at the time it came out, so I'm sure if he wasn't a real doctor I would have heard about it.

It's not really all that surprising. There are plenty of doctors who are also fundy shitbags willing to spew pseudo-science in order to further their warped anti-female fundy agenda. You have to remember these people are idealogs and their fundy agenda trumps all other considerations like reason, truth, and even common sense.

[uponit7771]

9. Rachels goin over it now, Akin is a moderate!!

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. I think Aiken believes it...

He is religious right, and a lot of the stuff they push (opposing birth control and keeping women in line because Eve screwed mankind over with a snake) are just part of their patriarchal religious beliefs.

It doesn't excuse it, mind you, but it does explain it.

[lib2DaBone]

11. Oh Ya.. he's a Evangelical Warrior....

He believes every single word.. as pumped into his brain by preachers...

[hifiguy]

12. This was not an accident. It's what these wacked out fundymentalpatients

really believe down to the center of their empty skulls. They are so far divorced from reality and the world as it actually is that they are functionally, if not actually, psychotic.

[CabCurious]

13. He absolutely believed it. There is no other explanation. nt

[baldguy]

14. I think he's a fucking idiot - therefore he really believes it.

Of course, it could be that he's simply evil.

[Coyotl]

16. Their problem is that they can't lie to all the people all the time, so true beliefs slip out

They are usually spinning their words to fit the political need of the moment, staying inside a set of lines that is necessary to succeed politically. This is what is known as a rare moment of truth! His real thinking got out of the box!

[Warren Stupidity]

17. Of course they believe it.

This is the rationalization for denying abortions to women who have been raped. If they are pregnant then it was not a legitimate rape, if they aren't pregnant, it was a legitimate rape. It is the same as proving that a woman is or is not a witch. If she survives the test, she is a witch. These fuckers are whackadoodle nutjobs. The whole party has been hijacked by their whackadoodle wing.

[moondust]

18. I think he believes it.

It didn't seem scripted or rehearsed.

Perhaps the 2010 midterms emboldened the freaks to "come out" after some years of hiding under their rocks as civilization moved on without them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Yes he believes it. He's really stupid.

When he was serving in the MO House, he claimed women couldn't get HIV because their bodies are "self-flushing".

[customerserviceguy]

20. I think he really believes his bullshit

Fundies need to feel that ALL abortions are bad, therefore should be made illegal.

Since rape happens, they have to always find a way to either blame the victim (date rape, where by going out with the guy, she asked for it) or some sort of divinely created mechanism whereby the jump-out-of-the-bushes rapist doesn't often get to pass his genes along.

In order to be a fundie, you need to wish away all kinds of scientific truth; surely the concept of "legitimate rape" is in line with that deliberate ignorance of reality.

[Arkansas Granny]

25. Make no mistake about it, they believe this crap. It's part of that willful ignorance that

permeates the RW. They don't know the facts, they won't learn the facts, but they will take the word of some jackass who says he's an authority on the subject. If it agrees with their "biblical knowledge" then they just put it into their active belief system with no further research to ascertain whether the information is correct or not. It's much easier to let someone else do the hard work of thinking and making decisions for them as to what kind of a platform they should support.

[barbtries]

26. i don't know.

it's actually the first time in my fairly long (56 years) life that i heard that. just when i thought nothing could cause my jaw to drop. it's hard to believe that he actually believed what he was saying. and for him, it's bad no matter how you slice it. he's either a real MCP or really stupid. he could of course be both, but he cannot slither out of at least one.

[The Midway Rebel]

27. They are true believers.

They are the same on climate change.

[Spazito]

28. He believes it and he's not the only one...

Ryan co-sponsored a bill that brought into discussion the obscene term "forcible rape" which is just another way of saying "legitimate rape".

[grasswire]

29. true believer

as someone said on MSNBC last night -- once in a while they slip and say something they usually try to keep from the rest of us. That's why they now consider him unreliable. He can't filter his speech.

I spose that someone ought to visit their churches now and then to keep an eye on them. Or listen to local hate radio stations.

[stevenleser]

31. The really scary thing is, what is unacceptable now, tends to be acceptable GOP talking points later

Remember when it was disgusting to be against abortion in the case of rape and incest?

Now, in the GOP, that is OK.

This is twice now that attacks on the definition of rape and women's ability to be treated have happened in the last 15 months. In two years, will this be the new normal in the GOP?