“Legitimate Rape” and Abortion
P. Schultz
August 20, 2012
“Asked in an interview on a St. Louis television station about his views on abortion, Mr. Akin, a six-term member of Congress who is backed by Tea Party conservatives, made it clear that his opposition to the practice was nearly absolute, even in instances of rape.
“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said of pregnancies from rape. “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: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.” [NY Times, August 20, 2012]
These are comments by a Tea Party type trying to defend his position that women who have been raped must be forced to carry any pregnancy that results to term. Let me rephrase that: These are comments by a Tea Party type who argues that a woman who has been brutalized and forced by a psychopath or sociopath into what is euphemistically called “having sex” must carry the criminal’s child to term, thereby forfeiting her right, her moral right to determine whose child or children she will bear.
Oh yeah, this certainly confirms for me that Mr. Akin, a six-term Congressman, is a man of high moral principles. His moral principles are so high, in fact, that I can barely see them. His moral principles lead to allowing rapists to determine for women whose children they will bear. And note should be taken that while he is in favor of punishing the rapist, he is also in favor of punishing the woman by forcing her to carry the child to term. And he manages to justify this by indicating that if a woman does get pregnant as the result of an act she considered rape, then that act could not be a “legitimate rape.” I guess this means she must have, at some level of consciousness, really wanted “it.”
This is Paul Ryan’s position as well and it is beyond me why the Democrats don’t repeat, over and over and over again, that Ryan and other “right wing” Republicans favor forcing women to bear the children of those who have brutalized them and raped them. It cannot be because the American people agree with the Akin/Ryan types; because they don’t. I would imagine that even a majority of Catholics, at the very least, do not agree with Akin/Ryan types. Heck, most Catholics don’t agree with their church on divorce or artificial contraception or even gay and lesbian sex. Why would anyone think that they would think that rapists, including apparently incestuous rapists, should be empowered over their victims, that the act of rape should be “legitimized” by forcing a woman to bear her attacker’s child?
By the way, if you want to talk about “legitimate rape” then Mr. Akin and Mr Ryan are your men: Because their policies/preferences would do just that, legitimate rape! Ah yes, the moral high ground. Looks a lot like immorality to me.
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