The last few days in the US have been so bizarre that I often wondered whether I was on a different planet. No I am not talking about the brilliant scientific achievement of landing a robot on Mars, rather I am talking about the controversy regarding rape in the US political discourse. Yes , rape.
The headlines and the chatteriti have done nothing else but talk about rape the last few days. In the Republican view, there are all varieties of rape - from legimitate rape, forcible rape to statutory rape. A candidate for the Senate no less talks about how a woman can not get pregnant because of rape.
“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Tod Akin, the Republican candidate for the senate from Missouri, 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.”
And what pray is “illegitimate rape”? Akin offered some ideas when he co-sponsored a bill that tried to change language about federal funding for abortions for victims of “rape” to cover only “forcible rape.”
But his biological nonsense expands the question of what even that means. What is his picture of the sort of rape scenario that would cause the female body to “shut that whole thing down,” absent divine intervention? Does he think that all rapes unfold like abduction scenes in silent movies, with someone thrown over the shoulder, kicking and screaming, and that the violence somehow causes the machinery to go offline, or activates some hormonal force field? What about rape at gunpoint, when a woman’s best option for staying alive might be staying very still, and her best option for staying sane to be as detached as possible? Or does Akin think that doing what one could to survive would delegitimize the rape—or that a legitimate victim is one who sees rape as a fate worse than death? Is it fear that shuts that whole thing down, or disgust? Fear and sex and pregnancy are not strangers. What about someone who is twelve years old, or mentally incapacitated, or unconscious? The problem here is not just whether Akin thinks conception during rape is possible, but what he thinks rape is.
And what are the facts: According to a 1996 study by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. The journal put the national rape-related pregnancy rate at 5% among victims age 12 to 45.
The headlines and the chatteriti have done nothing else but talk about rape the last few days. In the Republican view, there are all varieties of rape - from legimitate rape, forcible rape to statutory rape. A candidate for the Senate no less talks about how a woman can not get pregnant because of rape.
“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Tod Akin, the Republican candidate for the senate from Missouri, 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.”
And what pray is “illegitimate rape”? Akin offered some ideas when he co-sponsored a bill that tried to change language about federal funding for abortions for victims of “rape” to cover only “forcible rape.”
But his biological nonsense expands the question of what even that means. What is his picture of the sort of rape scenario that would cause the female body to “shut that whole thing down,” absent divine intervention? Does he think that all rapes unfold like abduction scenes in silent movies, with someone thrown over the shoulder, kicking and screaming, and that the violence somehow causes the machinery to go offline, or activates some hormonal force field? What about rape at gunpoint, when a woman’s best option for staying alive might be staying very still, and her best option for staying sane to be as detached as possible? Or does Akin think that doing what one could to survive would delegitimize the rape—or that a legitimate victim is one who sees rape as a fate worse than death? Is it fear that shuts that whole thing down, or disgust? Fear and sex and pregnancy are not strangers. What about someone who is twelve years old, or mentally incapacitated, or unconscious? The problem here is not just whether Akin thinks conception during rape is possible, but what he thinks rape is.
Of course, he is citing scientific evidence to back his statement -Dr. Jack C. Willke, the father of the antiabortion movement and a physician and former president of the National Right to Life Committee. He is the oft-cited source of the theory that rape-related pregnancies are “rare.” The theory is sometimes used by antiabortion advocates to argue that abortion laws should not contain exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest. Willke believes that trauma caused by violent rape causes a woman’s reproductive system to shut down.
And what are the facts: According to a 1996 study by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. The journal put the national rape-related pregnancy rate at 5% among victims age 12 to 45.
The tragedy is that Akin sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology!
And the fact is, as Obama put it, " rape is rape".
And the fact is, as Obama put it, " rape is rape".
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