You can't get pregnant from "legitimate rape" -- oh, okay. Thanks Akin!

[Blubbartron]

What I find most disconcerting is this twatwaffle is on the House Science Committee. Imagine if his knowledge of "the science" came from said committee. That's the shit the people running the country talk about.

[Helm]

I really want to write up some sort of response to the topic, but I really feel as if nothing I wrote would do justice towards the severe idiocy being displayed in the original statements by Akin, the fools that defend him and his party members that "distance themselves" more in word than practice.

[Lucavi]

This is the only time I actually support trolling, because the responses by the actual people in question are so hilariously and distressingly terrible that anything that any normal person would and could say would simply be preaching to the choir.

Its not even really trolling either, because no one is taking the side of these idiots and getting riled up; its really just being a smartass, but what the fuck else can you do with politicians like this running for office?

[Alleya]

http://i.somethingawful.com/u/elpint...mandiagram.gif

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news...legitimate.php

[Drex]

Some of my best friends are forcible rape babies

one of my best friends owns a company that employs rape victims, so i am extra sensitive to this issue

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/201...58_480x360.jpg

[zoobernut]

Oh man the Onion is awesome.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-m...-as-dog,29256/

[Seraph]

Oh man the Onion is awesome.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-m...-as-dog,29256/

I liked this one better, was slightly more subtle (as the Onion can be anyway):
http://www.theonion.com/articles/pre...as-ille,29258/

[Helm]

So apparently he's staying in and still has a slight lead? Wat.

[Seanr]

So I'm reading a couple place that Akin and Ryan co-sponsored a bill on Rape previously. Any truth to that? Because if so, I'm looking forward to the Democrats going after that link by the throat.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp201...21.html#item-1

Akin Vows to Stay in the Senate Race
Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), said Sunday that "legitimate rape" victims don't get pregnant (with the implication that his antiabortion crusade need not have an exception for rape victims since they don't get pregnant anyway). Actually, 32,000 women a year become pregnant through rapes. Akin's statement sent shivers through the entire Republican Party as all the leaders had nightmares of the gender gap becoming something more like the Grand Canyon, with women rejecting not only Akin, but Republicans in general.

For people not following discussions of rape in Congress closely, the dog whistle "legitimate rape" may not be obvious. Earlier this year, every House Republican and 16 Blue Dog Democrats voted for a bill that would have redefined rape in federal statutes to be "forcible rape." If this bill had become law, then statutory rape, the rape of a drugged or mentally impaired woman, or any rape where the rapist did not use physical force would not be considered rape. The bill died in the Senate. When Akin said "legitimate rape" he undoubtedly meant "forcible rape" as defined by the House bill but forgot the exact terminology.

Yesterday, many leading Republicans called for Akin to withdraw from the race. The NRSC and Karl Rove's groups pulled their funding immediately. They all applied the maximum amount of pressure they could, but so far, Akin is staying the course. Tuesday is going to be real tough, but if he hangs on until 5 P.M. today, things get a lot more complicated. Under state law, before that time, he can just drop out by saying he is out. After 5 P.M. he needs permission from a judge. A court case about this is not what the doctor ordered (at least not for the Republicans). If Akin drops out, the Missouri Republican Party gets to pick the nominee. They could pick either of the losers in the state primary (former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman or businessman John Brunner), former senator Jim Talent, or someone else.

All this puts the national and state Republicans in a real bind. The more they attack Akin publicly (in order to get him out and also to distance themselves from what he said), the more material his opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) has to use against him if he stays in. But look at this from Akin's point of view. He has spent a year campaigning, begging for money and going through the hell that a modern campaign is. He gave up his safe seat in the House and won a nasty three-way primary. Then he got on television and said what he undoubtedly really believes and suddenly the entire Republican establishment unloads on him. Saturday he was the hero who was going to deliver the Senate to the Republicans and Monday he is a pariah. And now those ungrateful fellows want him to give it all up, just when the polls show him winning big.

Who knows what kinds of pressure will yet be brought to bear on Akin today. The national party and some of the superPACs have already cut off his funding, but he can probably make up some of it by getting donations from people who are indeed opposed to all abortions, even in the case of rape. Some anti-abortion groups have doubled down on their support for Akin.

For the record, McCaskill called for him to stay in the race since there was a primary and Missouri Republicans said they wanted him. They should be entitled to the candidate they chose according to her. As an aiside, McCaskill is a former prosecutor and has prosecuted hundreds of rape cases.

If Akin stays in, Obama and the Democrats are going to use him as the poster boy for what they call the Republicans' "War on Women." Between the forcible rape bill, the attempts to get contraceptive services out of Obamacare, Rush Limbaugh's attack on Sandra Fluke, and now this, they are going to talk about women's issues until the cows come home. This is why the entire Republican leadership desperately wants Akin out.

Akin canceled an appearance on CNN last night, which prompted host Piers Morgan to call him a "gutless little twerp," not the kind of language journalists normally use.

More at the link about other things

[Demosthenes11]

holy shit those onion articles.

the onion seriously does a better job of calling people out than our real fucking media

[Demosthenes11]

how did that double post...

[Sera]

double post accident. dunno what happened. sry.

[Sera]

The doctor that he was talking about? He's real.

The Doctor Who Taught Todd Akin All About Legitimate Rape is A Real Guy.

When Todd Akin said that he learned from "doctors" that women's reproductive organs can stop themselves from getting pregnant from "legitimate rape" (sort of like high tech, high security spy facilities that women can control with their minds) the world balked. What doctors? Dr. Spaceman? Dr. Nick? Dr. Pepper? Dr. Mcgillicuddy? Turns out, it's a real guy. His name is Dr. John Willke, and he's the sort of guy who declares himself the "founding father" of stuff. He's Send People Bloody Baby Dolls, Chuckle While Lying, Heavens Gate Cult Dude Nuts.

I don't have the wherewithal to form sentences right now, because I get an allergic reaction to overwhelming stupidity from people in positions of power that causes my fingers to swell up and me to exhibit physical symptoms consistant with Kuru, otherwise known as Laughing Disease. It's exactly what it sounds like. But just to give you an idea the kind of junk this guy's been dealing, here's a helpful rundown, compiled by the great Abigail Pesta at The Daily Beast,

Willke founded the Life Issues Institute, an organization with an official stance against the Morning After Pill, even though the Morning After Pill is just a super high dose of birth control pills.
He's written a book called Abortion & Slavery, which — I can't even. You know where slavery false equivalencies grow, comparisons to Nazis can't be far behind.
Like many of his allies on the pro-sperm-is-magic. On the Life Issues Institute website, he writes,
If and when a sperm does penetrate the shell of the ovum, it sheds its tail, and will proceed slowly into the center of the ovum. Its 23 chromosomes will line up next to the ovum's 23 chromosomes, thus constituting a new cell, a fertilized ovum of 46 chromosomes. From the entrance of the sperm until the first cell division is a period of about 24 hours.

What is present at fertilization is an entire new human body, even though it is yet a single cell. This is the most complicated cell in the universe, for it contains within itself all of the information that is needed for this human to develop into a mature adult.

First of all, a human stem cell is totally not the "most complicated cell in the universe." Actually, stem cells are incredibly simple and possess the ability to produce much more complicated cells, like neurons or other tissue. But yeah. Sperm= life juice and penises = basically Gandalf's staff. Sure, Dr. Willke.

He doesn't think Akin's jaw-dropping gaffe is that big a deal; just a "slip of the tongue." The issue, he explains to TDB, is that Akin used the word "legitimate" rather than "forcible," which is what he meant, which means that Dr. Willke legitimately believes that ladies have magical parts that can be controlled by their witch-minds.
Etc. The man's a quack.

But there's one issue on which Dr. Willke and I agree — we both think Todd Akin should stick with his campaign for Senate, carry that thing until the bitter end. Even though we know his campaign has a fatal defect and likely won't survive.

More here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ng-father.html

Dr. John Willke, a self-described “founding father” of the pro-life movement, is popping up in the news this week, credited with a dubious honor—helping to inspire Rep. Todd Akin’s controversial views on rape.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Dr. Willke said he believes Akin simply made “a slip of the tongue.”


The "March for Life" rally on Jan. 23, 2012, in Washington, D.C. (Brendan Hoffman / Getty Images)

Akin, a conservative Republican congressman from Missouri, has been trying desperately to un-ring the bell he rang on Sunday when he declared in a TV interview that what he called “legitimate rape” rarely results in pregnancy. “The female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” he said in the interview.

His comments drew a furious backlash. There were calls from within his own party, as well as from Democrats, for him to quit the current Senate race in Missouri, where he is running against Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill. President Obama called Akin’s remarks “offensive.” Mitt Romney called them “insulting.”

Amid the uproar, The Washington Post cited the longtime pro-lifer Dr. Willke as being historically influential in the conservative school of thought on rape and pregnancy, digging up an essay he wrote more than a decade ago on the topic. A slew of sites ran with it from there.

Dr. Willke, the president of a pro-life group, the Life Issues Institute, and also a physician, has been active in the movement for decades. In the 1970s, he wrote a book called Handbook on Abortion, which he updated and republished in seven editions over the years. In 1984, he helped found the International Right to Life Federation, a group that connects global pro-life groups. And in 1999, he wrote an essay saying that pregnancy from rape is rare. That’s the piece getting cited in the media now.

In that essay, Willke argued that factors such as physical trauma, stress, infertility, and birth control make it highly unlikely for women to get pregnant from rape. “There’s no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape,” he said. “This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation, and even nurturing of a pregnancy.”

He offered up a complex mathematical calculation in the essay on how he arrived at his theory that pregnancy from rape is extremely rare. He also drew a distinction between “forcible rape,” statutory rape, and date rape. He said date rape counted as “forcible rape,” but that statutory rape was in a different category, as it could be consensual.

He continues to hold these views today. “The whole business of fertilization with a woman’s body is a delicate mechanism,” he told The Daily Beast. “A lot of things contribute to it.”

Lynn Paltrow, the executive director of the advocacy group National Advocates for Pregnant Women, dismisses Dr. Willke’s claims as “junk science” in the “abortion re-criminalization movement.” She said such remarks from both Dr. Willke and Akin “reflect what’s really going on—such profound disrespect for women and pregnant women. These comments get enormous coverage in the media and get treated as if they’re serious.” She added, “Women’s bodies are set up to reproduce. It doesn’t really matter what their head wants.”

Dr. Willke said he thinks it would be “absolute absurdity” for Akin to quit the race over the rape flap. “We’re in a political campaign season, and if you’re a Democrat, you’re gonna take advantage of this,” he said. He added that Akin “made one big mistake—a factual error. That’s what blew this up. He said if it’s a ‘legitimate’ rape. That’s a contradiction. There’s actual rape and there’s attempted rape. Nothing’s legitimate about it.” He believes Akin meant to say “forcible rape.”

“I’m getting pretty old. I’m in my late 80s, but I think I will live to see abortion end.”
Akin does, in fact, say that he misspoke, and that he meant to say “forcible rape,” not “legitimate rape.” In an apology, he said, “Rape is never legitimate … I used the wrong words in the wrong way. That sparked a new round of fire, with observers questioning the difference between rape and “forcible rape.” (The Missouri reporter who interviewed Akin has his own regrets, telling Talking Points Memo it was a “brain fart” that he let Akin’s comments slide.)

Experts say it’s hard to know how many pregnancies actually result from rape, as women don’t always report attacks. Different organizations offer different calculations. The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, or RAINN, crunched the numbers this way: in 2004, 64,080 women reported being raped. The incidence of pregnancy for one-time unprotected sexual intercourse is 5 percent, the group says. By applying that rate to 64,080 women, the group estimates that there were 3,204 pregnancies from rape that year.

RAINN notes that there are factors not taken into consideration in its calculation that could increase or decrease the number of pregnancies. For instance, the group notes, rape can be oral or anal, which would lower the number of pregnancies. Also, some rapes include multiple incidents of intercourse, which would increase the chances of pregnancy.

Dr. Willke, who also served as president of the National Right to Life Committee for 10 years, said he expects to see abortion outlawed in his lifetime. “I’m getting pretty old. I’m in my late 80s, but I think I will live to see abortion end,” he said. “We know far more today about the process of pregnancy today than we did 20 or 30 years ago.” He cites the moment sperm meets egg as the moment that human traits such as hair color and eye color are determined. “We didn’t know that years ago,” he said.

States enacted a record 135 abortion restrictions last year, such as requiring women to view ultrasounds before abortion and banning abortion at the 20th week after conception, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that focuses on reproductive rights.

Paltrow, the activist from National Advocates for Pregnant Women, charges that the pro-life movement is “at odds with itself.” She said, “On the one hand, they claim that rape doesn’t cause pregnancy. At the same time, they say pregnancy from rape shouldn’t justify abortion. Which one is it?”

Oh and this tumblr is awesome: fromtalkingtodoctors.tumblr.com
example
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9...6e6o1_1280.jpg

[Byrthnoth]

The doctor that he was talking about? He's real.

Doctor Who Taught Todd Akin All About Legitimate Rape is A Real Guy.

Slander. Unwarranted. Slander! I hope everyone goes to jail.

[Bregor]

Could we just remove Akin from Congress and replace him with Akon?

http://yinnyang.co.uk/wp-content/upl...st-Had-Sex.jpg

[Sera]

Guys, simmer down. It's our fault. We just misunderstood him.

lol

Embattled Republican Congressman Todd Akin (R-MO) is digging in, and digging his hole deeper, telling Mike Huckabee, on his radio show, that he has already decided not to exit the Missouri race for US Senate, and according to MSNBC, telling conservative radio host Dana Loesch that his comments about “legitimate rape” were meant to differentiate them from what he calls “false rapes,” building on his prior explanation that he meant to say “forcible rape.”

The Akin problem just gets worse and worse for the national Republicans, as the Missouri congressman continues to expose voters to the party’s regressive attitudes and policies toward women. Already, Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” have become inextricably linked to vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s sponsorship of “forcible rape” language in federal abortion law, and now, Akin has cracked that code for voters by essentially revealing that lots of rape victims are just lying sluts.

On MSNBC a few minutes ago, Tamron Hall reported that Akin is staying in the race for US Senate in Missouri, and relayed Akin’s comments to Dana Loesch, in which he explained that his “legitimate rape” comment was meant to refer to “false rapes.”

While the Ryan/Romney ticket has tried to put some distance between themselves and Akin, both men have significant policy and political ties to the comments that got Akin in trouble, and not even a fast exit by the Missouri congressman will keep the press from asking them tough questions about reproductive freedom between now and Election Day. If Akin makes good on his promise to stay in the race, however, the resulting fallout could overshadow the Republican National Convention that begins next week, and shift attention away from Romney’s economic message.

http://static01.mediaite.com/med/wp-...kn-300x194.jpg

[zoobernut]

What the fuck is a false rape?

The things being said by this douche just boggle the mind. Really my mind has been boggled.

[zoobernut]

Super double post go! Something is up today with all the double posts.

[Helm]

I don't even...

[BaneTheBrawler]

That man has a diglet for a mouth. Just keeps digging...