The GOP keeps just giving.
The Rep. Candidate for Senate, Todd Akin from Missouri, made a statement on TV to the effect that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy. The female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down, he said.
Huh? Seems like a candidate for our BrainTurnedOff Hall Of Fame.
I know, Mr. Akin retracted that statement saying he was really talking about “false rape” or “forcible rape”.
We’ll come to that later.
Lets’ talk first about “legitimacy” of rape. If you look up the Merriam Webster Dictionary, for a definition, you get a bunch of definition. For brevity, lets stick to what kids learn in school. It could mean:
1 : born of parents who are married <legitimate children>
2 : LAWFUL <a legitimate claim>
3 : being in keeping with what is right or with standards <a legitimate excuse>
Context is important here, folks. We’re ruling out (1) – it refers to children and their parents [we don’t know if Mr. Akin is a legitimate child, but lets not stray away].
(2) refers to legality. If you look up the definition of rape (not the plant), it is connected to unlawful acts. By that rape is by definition unlawful – there is no such thing as lawful rape. I have never been to Missouri, but I would thing that is true even there.
That leaves us with (3).
Here it gets interesting. “What is right or with standards”. Interesting.
Lets say Mr. Akin misspoke, and meant to say illegitimate. That still leaves the distinction between those type of rapes, and by filling in what he didn’t say but one can logically conclude, is that new “legitimate rape” would not have the effect about the pregnancy.
OK, lets talk about “forcible” rape. There would then be “non-forcible” rape, wouldn’t be?
See, that is important for many GOP members.
In fact, last year, Mr. Akin joined forces with GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan to co-sponsor the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”, which introduced the awesome new term “forcible rape” . Federal funds can only be used to pay for abortion in cases when a woman is raped; the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” sought to chip away at that exception by clarifying that only pregnancies resulting from “forcible rape” would qualify for federally funded abortions. The true meaning of “forcible rape” was never clearly defined, and the term was eventually removed from the bill.
Now, the Romney-Ryan campaign said the men disagreed with Akin’s statement and that “a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.” Funny, since Ryan was one of the original co-sponsors of the “forcible rape” bill and has said that abortion should be illegal in all cases except when the mother’s life is in danger.
Read more about this here The Official Guide to Legitimate Rape
Some other tidbits from Akin’s past: He praised a militia group linked to anti-abortion extremism in the 1990s and voted against creating a sex-offender registry in 2005.
You can find more about this here Link to Miami Herald Comment