US Republican ignorant of female biology. Again.

[TheDoctrineOfEnnis]

www.salon.com/2012/08/19/todd_akin_legitimate_rape_stops_pregnancy/

Opening quote: ?First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,? Missouri Senate hopeful Todd Akin said in an interview Sunday, explaining why his ideal abortion ban wouldn?t include an exception for rape. ?If it?s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,? he added.

Aargh! If he believes the rights of the fertilised egg trump the rights of the woman regardless of circumstances of conception, OK, that is his position. I completely disagree but at least it might be a consistent stance. But saying, yeah, well, it hardly ever happens anyway and if it does happen it's the woman's fault cos her body didn't stop it is just mind-bogglingly stupid.

I wish there was some kind of basic competence exam for would-be politicians.

I think he's heard how female orgasm helps the sperm in the right direction and decided that women who don't orgasm don't get pregnant, so if you were raped you didn't orgasm from it so didn't get pregnant.

The man is an utter moron. Obviously fed a pile of drivel by his rightwing politicos, and not enough sense to check the ACTUAL facts of the situation, because they don't actually matter, all that matters is his Belief.

Fuckwit.

Mooncup, obviously only the "total stranger grabbing you in dark alley" is a "legitimate" rape. If you got pregnant from rape then yours must have been one of those non-real ones, by someone you know. Or you simply didn't struggle enough to make it real. Might have even been drunk or in a short skirt, we all know that in this case it does not count..

"Legitimate rape"????

does he mean "rape in a dark alleyway, with a knife held to your throat by a man wearing a balaclava" as opposed to other sorts of rape, which are presumably "illegitimate". Perhaps he thinks that the foetus (not forgetting it is of course conscious from the moment of conception) is frightened to death by the violence of the "legitimate" attack, and so there is no pregnancy.

Perhaps someone should buy him a dictionary and bookmark it at the "legitimate" page and the "rape" page. A book on basic biology might be too taxing for him.

www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/george-galloway-assange-only-accused-bad-sexual-etiquette#comment-250216

thought I'd add here rather than start a new thread, but the jist is, if the woman is 'already in the game' - i.e has had sex once and has fallen asleep - it is not rape if she wakes to find some a man penetrating her, just 'bad etiquette', according to George Galloway.

I always knew he was a contemptuous wanker anyway but this is just....

Perhaps he's thinking of female rabbits reabsorbing their foetuses and assuming that all pregnancies can do that. Or that a body should be able to expel the evil within it if the souls is pure enough.
Who knows what foul nonsense is bubbling in his brain and then spewing out of his mouth.

I'm so angry about it, and the comments underneath are just as bad! I've been trying to counteract them but feel I'm a fairly lonely voice which is sad.

JA hero for the masses, couldn't possibly do anything could he?
Because no man put on a pedestal before has ever proven himself to be a complete arsehole

Clearly, all us women are just Witches...and it's witchy magic that men don't understand.

bloody hell, you couldn't make this up, could you? how do these massive bell ends get elected?

(I am still utterly confused by the Assange case - I cannot for a second comprehend why Ecuador thought their actions were right.)

What an utter prick GG is! Tapping on the shoulder and saying "do you mind if I do it again?" mutuality, participation and enthusiastic consent have really passed him by, haven't they?

Twatbadger.

George seems a bit confused. He seems to be saying he doesn't believe the women who have accused Assange, but in fact does believe that Assange had sex with Woman A when she was asleep. So does believe her, just doesn't believe it was rape. Only then he goes on to say he doesn't believe her. In which case why make up a piss-poor 'legitimate rape' myth about how, if it had had happened - which it didn't but if it had - it wouldn't have been rape anyway.

If he doesn't believe the allegations - fine, he can say so although I can't see any reason why he needs to say so publicly. If he believes having sex with someone who is asleep isn't rape, he can say so - but he would be wrong.

Fortunately by being unable to articulate either of these two opinions coherently he has succeeded in making himself look like a giant turd.

George being discussed on In The News thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1544794-George-Galloway-insertion-not-rape?pg=4&order=

Both these men make me want to shriek. That they're both politicians as well as utter, utter fuckwits is the most depressing thing I think. Ugh. Just, ugh.

I think what's particularly galling (pun intended) is that if these were female politicians coming out with similar utter shite on another subject, t'internet would be full of 'irrational females, emotional kneejerk reaction' etc etc. Yet these two, whilst being widely condemned for their ludicrous 'opinions' are not also being pilloried for being unable to string a coherent argument together. The utter randomness of their thought processes makes them unfit for public office, even if what they were spouting today was not massively offensive.

I know EXACTLY what has happened here
He has been watching too much sci-fi
And has mistaken women for vulcans, or summat

What a terrifying bastard that man is

Sardine, Vulcans don't believe in violence

Yes, GGG is a terrifying bastard rape-denier, though.

But they do have a lot of control over their bodies
Hence being able to understand they were pregnant and, like, put a stop to it
Or summat

Can there be any other explanation?

Can a grown man in a Western civilisation, with free universal education, and who holds a position of some power, REALLY BELIEVE that women can put a stop to unwanted pregnancies just by sort of shutting it down somehow inside? I mean WTAF?!!!

Ah, sorry SQ, my turn to be confused, you meant Akin not GG .

I am worried that Akin "spoke to a doctor" on this subject (unless that was Dr Teddy Bear, who lives at the end of his bed). If a real doctor, that's another terrifyingly wrong person in a position of some power! Also as tribpot says, Akin is on the Science committee of the House. Presumably he plays Angry Birds during committee meetings.

IIRC, in the middle ages (when people really didn't know anything much about internal female biology), medieval medicine taught that women could only get pregnant if they had an orgasm. Maybe because a man needs an orgasm to produce sperm, so they thought it must be similar for a woman. So, in the middle ages, if a rape victim became pregnant, a lot of people would assume that it wasn't possible for her to have been raped.

So maybe Todd Akin has come across this medieval belief, which has now been proved to be wrong, and is willfully ignoring all the knowledge that has been gained since then about how reproduction actually works.

How someone so ignorant about basic biology has managed to get onto a committee on science (which has jurisdiction over non-defense federal scientific research and development in the USA) is mind boggling.

The USA is basically going back to the Dark Ages as fast as possible. This particular horrible fuckwitted man is one of many. Don't forget his little mates want women who miscarry to be charged with murder and given the death penalty if found guilty, and the word 'victim' to be removed from legal use in cases of rape and DV only - the word 'accuser' must be used instead.

If that's true, StormGlass, it's particularly weird given that many women don't have vaginal orgasms at all.

I have read a couple of pieces of research (neither of which I can remember the authors of), one saying that women were slightly more likely to get pregnant after rape than after normal intercourse and the other slightly less. So I had assumed he had read the latter research and massively over-extrapolated. I don't think he's going to explain the source of his beliefs, so we shall never know!

this just keeps getting better and better

alex.
well that's ok then. Who cares about the incubator anyway..

is that real?!