It's not even "objectively," any more. It's simply so, and has been since at least 1988 -- or at least, that's when it first came out in public, from as far back as Melissa Block's research went:
Another example from 1995 - this is North Carolina State Representative Henry Aldridge, who said: The facts show that people who are raped, who are truly raped, the juices don't flow, the body functions don't work and they don't get pregnant.
And a similar statement turns up from 1988. Pennsylvania Republican State Representative Steven Friend says: The odds of a woman becoming pregnant through rape are one in millions and millions and millions. He says, the trauma of rape causes women to secrete a certain secretion - those are his words - which has a tendency to kill sperm.
So
Todd Akin's just another in a long line of misinformed,
pro-rape Republicans ... who had the bad luck to say what he thought in front of a reporter with a microphone (or a note pad) .... and then had to "correct" his "misstatement." (Note:
Steve King is odious for a variety of reasons additional to this head-in-the-sand stance on pregnancy as a result of rape, but that doesn't absolve him any more than it does Akin.)
The Republican party's current darlings, the oh-we-are-so-mistreated TEA Party, object to the notion women might have the same freedom when it comes to sex that men do (in other words, a baby is your punishment for not keeping your knees together enough) -- but of course, women always want sex, in this fantasy-world of theirs, even if the woman in question is mentally incompetent or under the age of consent. If she says no, it's just for show, and a real man would ignore what she says and do what she wants... see "The Fountainhead" for the justification. It's just another place they cherry-pick their Biblical references to reinforce their selfish stance, just another Ayn Rand tenet for their lack of logic, just another feather in their bigoted caps. (See, if gays are allowed to live openly, then the we-are-so-mistreated straight males might find themselves the object of similar attentions! Quelle horreur!)
Since well before the 1973 US Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, inflamed so much of our national discourse with a poisonous focus arising out of the cult of the fetus (a relatively new thing, since as late as after the Civil War but before the turn of the century, most US laws and attitudes did not recognize the personhood of the fetus before "quickening" ... which, perhaps not coincidentally, is about the earliest time a fetus may reach viability with medical intervention. Our modern super-NICU abilities to save deliveries from the 26th week onward are even newer than the cult of the fetus, by the bye), the notion that an abortion is always murder has been promulgated via every kind of junk science and religious or moral dreck misogynists could find somebody to spew. The cult of the fetus is a throwback to the "every sperm is sacred" myth.
But if you really look at what the Republican party stands for, listen to what they offer ... it isn't just women they feel entitled to despoil. It goes beyond that ...
Over the orange fleur-de-Itzl with me, for more:
It isn't just a woman's right to choose the GOP finds objectionable, although that's the one right they're most volubly dedicated to repudiating -- at least in their current public vision for America. Missouri Senate-wannabe Todd Akin and VP-prospect Paul Ryan have famously authored several bills to take away women's rights in the USA. As Talking Points notes,
Akin is perhaps the boldest among a crop of conservative 2012 nominees who could hamper GOP efforts to take back the Senate in the fall. Akin has called for an end to the school-lunch program and a total ban on the morning-after pill.
His claim about “legitimate” types of rape is not completely foreign to the current Republican Congress, however. 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.
Akin's history includes suggesting rape never occurs within marriage:
Talking Points Memo highlighted Akin's earlier comment that he would like to ban the morning-after pill because he believes it is “a form of abortion, and I think we just shouldn’t have abortion in this country,” and his concerns that a 1991 anti-marital rape law in Missouri might be used “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/...
It's not even just women and children, or just the poor, or just the all-volunteer military, or just our national social-safety net. Those are all targets of the GOP's anti-tax agenda; they're boasting about that. It's not just worker-safety or anti-pollution regulations that, from the days of FDR to the triumph of Phil Gramm, once protected the nation's CUSTOMERS against the ravages of crooked bankers' gambling (notice how you're not a customer anymore, but a consumer? Thank the GOP. Customers were the folks whose business kept stores open, factories running, our economy strong. Consumers? We're just another variety of parasite!). The GOP has no patience with anything from which they cannot derive a
profit.
Akin leads their charge against science, facts, and intellectual probity.
It’s bad enough that, 12 years into the 21st century, leading members of a major American political party would refuse to accept the reality of evolution, deny the overwhelming evidence of climate change or spread false rumors about vaccines.
But by screwing up the facts of life — and callously insulting rape victims in the process — Akin sank to a new low.
....
Dr. Douglas Laube, past president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, called Akin’s statements “beyond belief.”
The idea that a rape victim’s body will somehow block conception “is just an illogical, misogynistic stretch of the truth,” Laube said. “It’s just sad that there are going to be people who believe that.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/...
Believe it? That's not nearly strong enough -- the GOP must trumpet it, name & claim it proudly ...
because in their world, the selfish always wins.
Yes, some programs do need to be cut and we do need to filter out as much waste as we can, but we do not need to willfully misunderstand what President Obama meant when he said that successful businesses did not get there alone. They were inspired and supported, at least in part, by public works and public programs that we should all want to stay in place — for example, the bridges and roads that Congress seems intent on either not building or keeping from being improved.
Of course, that’s not what the Republicans want you to believe. Their hustle is all about the self. Forget everyone else.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/...
This isn't, as the President noted, your grandpa's Republican party ... or even your dad's.
These days it's not even just union-busting, but a campaign to end all forms of worker protections starting with the Affordable Care Act and going right through destroying the federal minimum wage requirements ... it's not even just our nation, which arguably the GOP succeeded in despoiling with the Bush V. Gore decision of 2000 ... it's our space program, the very idea that science trumps superstition, our dedication to further exploring our world's seas or skies or land, any notion that we might have common ground with a neighboring nation or another religion ...
It's everything that stops them getting what they want, or makes them give a moment's thought to what might benefit someone else. Their attitude goes beyond even pro-rape "writer" Ayn Rand's claim that no real woman would object to being raped, if the rapist were "artist" enough.
In the end it's ourselves, our future, our national security we're staking on these cretins -- and if they win, we lose everything.