Akin's pronouncements regarding abortion, "legitimate" rape, and the hitherto unknown ability of the female reproductive system to differentiate a rapist's sperm from that of a non-rapist landed him in all sorts of hot water from all sides. Seems like his primary sin as far as the Republicans are concerned is saying publicly what many of them already believe. The Democrats, for their part, were all over yet another poor goofball who simply expressed in simple, direct language his screwy, widely-shared, and nothing-new misogynistic RW thinking. What I don't understand is why people are upset about all this only when Akin says it. It's not exactly news. Paul Ryan has sponsored a bill in Congress which parses rape in the same way minus the unsupported medical justification. Yet he didn't get in trouble. And the Republican platform, which will almost certainly be approved in the next few days if God calls off the hurricane, simply bans all abortion period without even bothering with the forceable/legitimate garbage. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/21/republican-party-abortion-ban-endorsement And if all that wasn't enough for the party of getting-the-government-out-of-your-life, they want to make sure that my partner and I have to go to somewhere civilized like Canada to tie the knot. And that even when said knot gets tied it vaporizes as soon as we cross the border and are back in the land of the free. Again, this from the proposed Republican platform. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/waymon-hudson/election-2012-lgbt-equality_b_1819184.html
Tak, I think that I've posted the same point in another thread or at least something similar. Why is Paul Ryan, a guy that has sponsored or co-sponsored the very same type of bill in congress with Akin getting a pass on all of this while he tells Akin to get out of the race? If the idiots on the Right and the press would simply lay out the recent past legislation and let people compare the Right’s policies with Akin's comments, it would be clear that there is really no difference. Akin is now being defended by the likes of Huckabee and good old Joe "deadbeat dad" Walsh. Akin's crime was saying what he, what they all believe out loud. In the Republican Party, you have to say one thing and then do something else or your constituents might figure out that you are hoodwinking them. They aren't the brightest lot and as long as the party elites can keep them focused on hating Obama, they can do pretty much do whatever they want.
As you say, Akin's sin as far as Republicans are concerned is being honest about their shared beliefs. And if he had just used a religious justification rather than attempting a medical one there probably would have been less fuss. You can get away with just about anything if you attribute it to your "faith".
Rape involving a man and a woman involves heterosexual sexual intercourse. Heterosexual sexual intercourse can result in pregnancy. As far as Republicans are concerned once a woman is pregnant, no matter what the circumstances, it's out of her hands. She has become merely a vessel and she is having that kid unless the God who gave it to her decides to take it away. End of story, full stop.
Oh, you are completely forgetting about the magic vagina. I wonder how many of our resident Right-wingers also believe in the junk science Akin is espousing? I just thought that people who lived in this century had dismissed the crackpot nonsense that the educated among us put to rest decades and decades ago but apparently science moves a little more slowly for some folks. It’s sort of like the theory of throwing a woman off of a cliff and if she dies she wasn’t a witch but if she lives she is definitely a witch. I just wonder what century some of these idiots think they live in?
