Superpowers of the female body
So you all have seen this already:
Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill, justified his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.
“Let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work, or something,” Akin said. “I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”
I could say a lot of stuff here about wingnuts and “legitimate rape” and oh, the fact that this guy is buddies with Paul Ryan, but never mind. Here’s what I’m thinking about: Rep. Akin is an industrial-strength godbag who thinks every word in the Bible is true. So, presumably, he thinks that God Himself specifically equipped women with the magical, hitherto unknown superpower ability to “shut that whole thing down” so as not to get pregnant from rape. But why only that? Why didn’t God go further, and give us the superpower ability to, I don’t know, secrete a toxin that would instantly dissolve the human penis that’s being forced into our bodies? Or maybe the superpower ability to cause the owner of said penis to keel over and die? Or even better, perhaps we could have the superpower ability to detect a potential rapist before he even gets started, and then emit a fantastically noxious pheromone that would knock the fucker over and render him senseless.
It’s peculiar, isn’t it? This God that Rep. Akin believes in is an interesting dude. His priorities are so…interesting.
15 Responses to “Superpowers of the female body”
-
quixote says:
Society isn’t literally burning women at the stake yet (post-feminism! yay!), but the anti-science attitudes are well into torturing and killing people. As for pillorying women, that’s a near daily occurrence in its modern media form.
I wonder if, when some people wanted the clock turned back to Norman Rockwell they didn’t know how easy it is to overshoot in those homemade time machines. The Dark Ages with Facebook. Progress!
August 20th, 2012 at 11:28 am EST -
Chio says:
Oh, if I ever create a video game featuring zombie rapists, I will have to steal some of your imagery, Violet!
So obvious what the dude is doing. People create fantasy to support their beliefs. Dude is against abortion but the majority find it cruel to force women and children who are raped to proceed with the pregnancy. But then… if anti-choicers are against abortion because it’s a life, what should a rape matter? It sucks, but victims should go ahead and be forced to give birth to their uncle’s child so that they won’t be murderers. But that’s just sick, to make a woman or child do that! The majority of us get that. Enter the magical forces that you describe so well. Takes away the entire issue so that they can remain faithful to “life” while applying a sort of Dungeons and Dragons mystical force to women.
-
Toonces says:
Life clearly starts in the testicles. I mean, unlike women’s eggs, we can see sperm moving with a microscope. And they look like little ghosts, which is God’s way of telling us that they are souls. Billions of ghost-babies are clearly M-U-R-D-E-R-E-D every day when men discard their “spirit”, their Holy essence — in tissues, socks, toilets, bed sheets. Every sperm is sacred and it’s time we stopped letting these callous, monstrous, M-U-R-D-E-R-E-R-S off the hook.
I love how the woman doesn’t even exist in the punishment scenario — it’s the rapist or the “child” who is punished. *VOMIT*
-
Carmonn says:
I think we should refer all of these questions to the global epicenter of human rights and transparency, they’ll settle it.
Quick, someone get Ecuador on the line.
-
Violet Socks says:
Good one, Carmonn!
-
Allison says:
Hey we don’t need no stinkin’ birth control! We can just shut that thing down whenever we want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-
Unree says:
What’s interesting to me about Todd Akin is how the dude managed to cross some wingnut line. Republican men are queuing up to denounce him even though from where I’m standing, he’s not that far from respectable Rethuglicans like Rick Perry and Paul Ryan and Mike Huckabee. What is the line?
-
Violet Socks says:
The line is that this is an election year and the GOP needs McCaskill’s seat and they need to avoid toxic problems like this for Ryan/Romney. They don’t give a shit about what Akin said and most of them agree anyway. It’s purely the timing of the thing and how it will play with voters.
-
Sameol says:
Not to mention, he handed them all an opportunity to try and position themselves on Team Reasonable Pro-Woman. We’re not scary extremists like that weird Todd Akin, no sirree.
-
Violet Socks says:
I’m tempted to start a blog pool on Akin’s odds of making it through the next 24 hours. I’m wondering if he’ll even make it through the night.
-
Violet Socks says:
Just saw this on Real Clear Politics—it’s Akin explaining to Sean Hannity that he only said “one word” wrong:
“..And I think that strong voting record and that record that is the exact opposite of hers — the question is, does that overcome, you know, the question of people that are upset over one word spoken in one day in one sentence. And I think that there is an awful of people that believe in mercy and forgiveness and God’s love. I made a single error in one sentence,” Akin said.
A single word. He thinks the only problem is the word “legitimate.” This guy is such a one-man clown car, I am PRAYING he stays in. Please oh please.
-
Sameol says:
McCaskill said in a statement that the race should not be decided on backroom politics, then told Morning Joe, “I really think that for the national party to try and come in here and dictate to the Republican primary voters that they’re going to invalidate their decision, that would be pretty radical.” Genius and good for her.
-
bemused-leftist says:
I saw this tweet to @akins:
“The female body has ways to shut down your whole election.”
-
tallbacka says:
It’s not only in Ecuador they know the differance between real rape and slut sex, it is depressing to see the number of leftists and progressives who fall over themselves to defend Saint Julian
-
ER says:
It’s just another version of, “If you dress like that, you’re just asking for it.” Next: Akin et al. will institute Sharia law and women will be required–upon pain of stoning–to wear head-to-toe veiling.
Can’t wait.
