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"It seems to me, 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 of the rapist, and not attacking the child.” - Rep. Todd Akin
If you haven’t read or heard that quote, I’m guessing that you haven’t been following the news this week. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a politician flush his career down the toilet in such a glaringly obvious fashion as this. This statement, explaining why Akin doesn’t believe that abortion is necessary in cases of rape, is so blatantly wrong-headed and misogynist that I cannot conceive of any way for him to resuscitate his career.
There has been plenty of analysis about this statement, which includes a disturbing parsing of rape into “legitimate” and (presumably) illegitimate categories (are we ever going to stop blaming the victim?), and a bizarre pseudo-medical “wish it were so” scenario about the risks of pregnancy during rape that can’t possibly be grounded in any true science. It also manages to address the existence of the rapist and the child while entirely dismissing the presence of the woman involved, as if her life and concerns were of no consequence.
But the thing about all this that truly terrifies me is that, as pointed out by Eugene Robinson in today’s Washington Post, Aiken is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Really? How scary is it that a man who believes that a woman’s body can “shut the whole thing down” if she is raped gets to decide Federal policy and spending priorities for Science? No wonder our policies in these areas seem so completely screwed up.
This statement, made in support of an anti-abortion policy position, is the most clear illustration of how the anti-abortion movement has sold it soul, willingly accepting the most misogynist, illogical arguments, as long as they support the ultimate goal of making abortions illegal. In the process, the movement has lost sight of the big picture: there are real people involved, people who have to face real life consequences to their choices, and whose circumstances very often don’t lend themselves to the overly simplistic arithmetic that supports the anti-abortion position. Reality is far too messy for such a simplistic approach.
To those who truly would like to see a reduction in the number of abortions, I would suggest a different approach. Instead of lobbying for a legal ban on abortions and preaching about the evils of abortion, why don’t we try to address the social circumstances that force women to consider abortion in the first place. If we were to approach this issue with an attitude of compassion, instead of one of anger, we might be able to put ourselves into the shoes of the women, to empathize with their situations, and thus find ways to help them. I find it infuriating that so many of those who oppose abortion also oppose almost every reasonable measure that might address the need for abortion, including meaningful sex education for children and social programs that would provide safety nets for at risk populations. And, as illustrated by Aiken, many of those opposed to abortion also seem to be operating from a misogynist world view where any meaningful understanding of the needs of women is simply impossible.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-21 03:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-21 05:36 pm (UTC)My only addition would be some sort of programme, directed at young men from about twelve or thirteen onwards that talks about the responsibilities that MALES bear in all of this. Blaming the use of stimulants, partying, hormones, propinquity etc etc for forcing their attentions on someone who turns them down or is alcohol impaired is not acceptable. Unfortunately, in my country, an probably in yours too, there is a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, boys will be boys attitude from a lot of older men that allows the callow and irresponsible men in our society to thin that it is alright to persist, even force women.
Would that Akin were the only perpetrator though.Rachel Maddow had an excellent piece last night (?) enumerating several others who think similarly, including Paul Ryan. I know that I am not alone amongst my US women friends to find the Romney Ryan campaign terrifying in their attitudes to women. I secretly hope for a HUGE scandal to erupt involving both of them that puts any hope of success in November beyond hope but I know that it is not a nice position to hold. Perhaps I should just pray that God has other plans :-)
Keep writing these pieces Andy. I enjoy reading your 'thought' pieces. You have a fine mind and a way with words
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-21 11:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-21 07:39 pm (UTC)I can, up to a point, excuse ignorance and stupidity in people. Maybe this politician didn't know any better. Maybe he thought he was right.
But when you tell me that he's on a Science committee, well, there's no excuse. It tells me that, like the Texas education system setting out to raise the profile of Texas in American textbooks, and various fundamentalists doing their best to push science they don't like out of their local or state schools, this bloke's fair dinkum about what he said.
I worry for America in so many ways, and this is one of them. You showed me the old Patent Office, and we looked at the potted history of the building, founded in the grand vision by the earliest leaders of the USA that science and invention and technology and ingenuity would serve the infant nation well.
And it has been so. "Yankee ingenuity" and scientific progress went hand in hand with the principles of freedom and liberal democracy which Jefferson and his mates stood for in the Eighteenth Century and Lincoln defended in the Nineteenth. And in the Twentieth we saw that progress soar to heights that make me very glad I live in this age and have seen such wonders.
Yet here are Americans, leading Americans, working actively against all reason, against all knowledge, against all that their religion really stands for. What would Jesus do with a rape victim? Give her a bunch of platitudes and tell her the miracles of femininity would keep her safe, and it wasn't much, really?
Jesus would not have been so boneheaded, I think. So unfeeling. So heartless.
If there was ever a case for contraception, for abortion, it is as a counter, a small and inadequate balance to rape. In the Sixties, nuns in the Belgian Congo were taking the pill as a precaution against the very real chance of rape by revolutionaries. Maybe there was an element of racism in that, but it was sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
But that's a rare case, and it is not the duty of a woman to guard herself against the possibility of rape, "illegitimate" or not. Just how would Akin try to define that distinction, I wonder, without being torn to philosophical shreds. The chance of safe medical termination has to be one of the comforts facing a rape victim, I think. One of the scant few comforts against the hijacking of her body and her life.
I also wonder about the "doctor friends" advising Akin. I think that Hitler had similar advisors.
I hope that Akin has flushed his career down the toilet. There's been a sense of outrage and indignation amongst my American and other friends that reassures me on this. But one of the things I worry about is that there is an audience, a constituency, a mindset that accepts Akin's foolish and ignorant opinions as scientific wisdom from a representative chosen to be amongst a group of scientific leaders.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-21 10:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-21 11:08 pm (UTC)I watched The Newsroom yesterday, where a prototype of a Presidential primary debate was discussed, and you could just see the party man's face tighten as he realised what was going on.
Candidates for public office have a duty to the voters, I think, to show what they really think. Sugarcoating and whitewashing, evasion and untruths should have no place in democracy.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-21 11:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 05:33 pm (UTC)http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-doctor-behind-todd-akins-rape-theory-was-a-romney-surrogate-in-2007-20120821,0,80862.story
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-21 09:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 11:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 11:31 am (UTC)Impressive and eloquent
Date: 2012-08-22 11:17 am (UTC)Had to comment on this one because I was so impressed with your ability to express a common-sense and compassionate point of view. It is reassuring to me to know that there are men who feel this way, since I was just reading about the equally boneheaded things being said in the UK (it seems that, even if Julian Assange did everything the Swedish women said he did, it was simply "bad manners," per one MP). After reading his remarks I said "All men are pigs who think with their . . ." And then I looked at this and realized that, Hallelujah!, there are some decent ones. Pete's comments were also a plus -- more than one, in multiple countries even.
I agree that we need to take a more compassionate and pro-active approach to stem the problems of unwanted pregnancies and of violence against women before they start. The old adage of a fence at the top of the hill or an ambulance at the bottom comes to mind. I am all for the fence (no offense to the EMTs in the chat room), but that might require the millionaires and billionaires to pay more than their "fair" "13%" of taxes. I really hope that a)Akin does not win, and b)Obama's campaign is able to get people to see that the Romney-Ryan attitude toward women harms us all. I am worried Mitt the Twit might get elected -- and I am a good little Mormon girl.
6of8
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 11:25 am (UTC)This may be the wisest sentence I've read yet on this subject. Very good post.
I wish the Dems would read your last paragraph and take it to heart.
Now one of Akin's supporters is implying that he isn't aware of any minors becoming pregnant from statutory rape or incest. Then, when called on it, he started crawfishing and said it was taken out of context, that he didn't personally know anyone who had gotten pregnant that way.
Looks like they would have figured out how to keep quiet on this subject by now.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 04:55 pm (UTC)Their lack of basic biology is scary enough but then there is the lack of sociological consequences and no awareness of the physiological, psychological and just plain human implications of their idealogically driven idiocy.
Pete and Andy, we can only dream of more men like you coming forward to demonstrate to women everywhere that there is hope that this 'war on women' will be defeated sooner rather than later