It was wrong and if he drops out, he'll have more time to spend working on that combover.
Posted on 08/22/2012 3:20:19 PM PDT by shhrubbery!
First, I'm a woman. (Seems to be an important qualification if one is to be allowed to have an opinion on "womens' bodies.")
I'm used to being attacked by the harridans of the Left, who claim that if you're a pro-life, then you're NOT A WOMAN.
But I'm not used to hearing conservatives knee-jerk to the idea that something is "idiotic" just because it's politically incorrect ... according to those same rabid harridans of the Left.
I think, like Akin did, that a woman's endocrine system CAN sometimes "shut down" the process of conception, or implantation, as a result of traumatic stress suffered by the woman.
It so happens there are respected physicians who believe this is possible too: Dr. John C. WIlkie, MD, OB/GYN. And there is some research that tends to back this up (see references at bottom of this page.
We may never have a 100% dispositive study that proves that pregnancy as a result of rape is rare. Real numbers are hard to come by. And sadly, any researcher who attempts an objective study is going to be excoriated like Mark Regnerus (who studied homosexual parenting) or Jay Belsky (who studied the effects of putting children in day care).
But many women know, intuitively, that what Akin said is not "imbecilic." Many women have experience with their endocrine systems going awry, due to stress. I myself have carried four pregnancies to term, but lost one, probably due to stress that caused an endocrine malfunction.
** "Ain't I a woman" is a quote from Sojourner Truth, a strong Christian black woman. She wasn't going to stand for her opinion being shut down because she was (a) a woman and (b) voicing ideas that weren't popular in some circles. And neither am I.
The overreaction to Akin's words is one of the worst I've ever seen. Some conservative women are amongst the worst overreactors. I am especially furious with Michelle Malkin, who has been going on air parroting the "Magic Uterus" meme to ridicule Akin.
STOP IT ALREADY, Michelle. Akin didn't say anything like that, and you are only playing into the hands of the Left by repeating the Alinsky-ite ridicule.
Also disappointing are Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin - both of whom were formerly heroines to me.
Sarah Palin needs to stop advocating for an independent candidacy in MO. Even if that were possible at this point, it would split the vote and hand McCaskill a sure victory.
Ann Coulter today advocated a "write in campaign." Forget about it. I am an elected official myself, and know this is extremely difficult, the exception in AK notwithstanding.
Then there was Dana Perrino's irresponsible suggestion that Republican voters in MO might justifiably "stay home" and not vote. WHAT???
Does anyone really believe that continuing to attack Akin is going to somehow help the top of the ticket? Unless conservatives are willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces, and actually facilitate an Akin defeat-- the only politically realistic things we can do now are to:
STOP the circular firing squad against Akin.
Stop assuming Akin can't win.
Let the voters of Missouri decide. Don't assume they're stupid enough to fall for the lies and tactics of the Left.
I am from Missouri and I live in the same neighborhood (Town & Country) as Akin. The guy is a political hack!
BTTT from another woman...
It was wrong. It was scientifically incorrect. And..above all...it was repugnant. And I too am a woman. One does not have to look far to see why the democrats get the women’s vote. I would not vote for Akin in a million years. He is amazingly ignorant.
FGS, he was promoted by the Left. McCaskill’s PAC helped fund his primary campaign.
He’s an idiot.
Also, I do not know one republican woman who does not agree that Akin is ignorant and stupid. He knows nothing about the biology of a woman’s body. He is callous and ignorant about rape. And none of them would vote for him.
As always, onyx, you are too kind. There is a good reason why McCaskill wants him to continue in the race. In the meantime, we are losing time for a conservative to get in to the race and campaign for this Senate seat. Akin is not thinking of the good of the party. He is thinking of his ego, period.
So is what the women who defended Akin in this thread said wrong?
Thanks for introducing facts to the discussion.
Hopefully, those Abortion Mill Apologist Yellow Bellied RINO’s will take note and apologize to Todd Akin for the savagery they have bestowed upon him over the last few days.
Congressman Akin and the true Conservatives in the should present these facts to the American people next week at the Convention.
I have a question...why, besides pregnancy, does a woman miss her period?
I'm sorry. I find it repugnant, because the implication is that, because actual rape pregnancies are rare, we should write off the women impregnated by rape because of the sanctity of life.
I know my opinion will be unpopular with many on this site, but in my opinion, no woman should be forced to bear a child that is the product of a rape. For the record, I think mid to late term abortion is wrong. But, that's not the issue here--a woman who has been forcibly raped, which makes it "legitimate rape" as opposed to statutory rape, or claimed after the fact rape, will almost certainly be keeping an eye on her reproductive status, and will have the opportunity of very early termination. Therefore, my abortion objections are not violated.
Sorry guys, flame away, but that's the way I see it. By the way, I also think that an uncompromising position here against any pregnancy termination from the very moment of conception (rather than drawing the line later) is very likely to repel voters who are looking for an alternative to Obama's Marxism, and even those who are repelled by his over the top love of abortion.
Your reply reminds me of Pauline Kael's famous quote. This was almost a quarter century ago. Kael could not understand how Nixon won. Why, nobody she knew voted for him!
He knows nothing about the biology of a woman’s body.
I do, and I think he was right.
He is callous and ignorant about rape."
"Callous"? That's a new bit of invective. What's your evidence for that?
I don’t understand why Akin said what he did, but it was unacceptable.
Also, I do not know one republican woman who does not agree that Akin is ignorant and stupid.”
If the herd is offended, can we really be sure it deserves to be?
And you wonder why we do not get the woman’s vote.
I don’t argue that he’s wrong. But I don’t understand what is repugnant about it. He likely believes it and I’m sure he heard it from someone he trusts (a doctor perhaps —they aren’t all always right I have learned thru the years, I present you with breastfeeding advice as evidence). So, given his view that abortion is the killing of a human, and if his expertise is not biology/science/medicine, why is what he said “repugnant”? Why is it simply not wrong?
Nothing wrong about opinions. The majority opinion is that akin is an insensitive moron and is only thinking of himself.
He messed up bigtime and needs to go away.
Happens often in extremely lean female athletes.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why he said what he did.
There's no class and respect in Michelle to do this. Anyone that could listen to that is totally off and must have some freak -ness to think that it's ok. I think we may lose since the pundits are inferring in the worse possible way. Write ins-third party-flip flops-blackmail all for making the conservative move further to the middle. The worse part people can't understand what they are doing.
He isn't an ObyGyn, he's running to take a seat in the senate. Not what I would consider a prerequisite to being a senator and voting to protect our sovereignty as a nation.
Is he a conservative and a patriotic follower of the US Constitution?
It was wrong and if he drops out, he'll have more time to spend working on that combover.
This isn’t really a matter of opinion for you to agree or disagree with. This is a matter of fact. Womens’ bodies either shut down during rape, or they don’t. Since pregnancies occur from rapes ... clearly they often don’t.
He was factually wrong, and an idiot for even bringing it up. How women physiologically respond to rape is entirely irrelevant to the question he was asked.
His point was that abortion is wrong, even if the woman was raped. Why in the world does he need to add commentary about which rapes are legitimate, and how he thinks womens’ bodies respond when his answer is the same regardless of the circumstances of the pregnancy?
SnakeDoc
if the rapist is inelligible for the death penalty, why should the child be? what did the child do to merit the death penalty?
Akin could be one hundred percent right on this and still lose because he’s too freaking stupid to get out of the way of his own mouth.
“I know my opinion will be unpopular with many on this site, but in my opinion, no woman should be forced to bear a child that is the product of a rape.”
If that is your belief, do you also believe that a mother of a five year old child that was conceived by rape should also be alowed to murder that child?
If not, why not?
His guard was down. He attempted an earnest answer to a gotcha question, not realizing it was a gotcha question.
This happens to practically every politician at some point. If it hadn't happened to Akin, it would've happened to some other GOP candidate later on this year, before the election. (And all other GOP candidates can thank Akin for reminding them to get their answers to "gotcha" questions ready!)
Even so I don't see anything terrible in what he said. In fact, I agree with it, which is the point of this post.
Excellent questions.
And you wonder why we do not get the woman’s vote
...well I guess it’s cause you’re demonstrating how irrationally emotional the women voters are. You have NO scientific proof to back your feelings, yet you are sure the winner of the vote has to go... ahhh the Stupid Party that I too often have to support. Let’s go all out for pro Abortion Romney and throw the conservative respect Life and wives guy under the bus... great move in Dallas
ymmv
What was wrong with it? Everything. He was wrong. About everything. Not just wrong but ignorant.
If we don’t get “the women’s vote” it’s probably because we never stand up for our principles but instead wilt away and refuse to make our case. Is abortion wrong? If so, why? If it’s not wrong then it should be legal no matter what the reason. If it’s wrong, why is it ok sometimes? We don’t like to talk about that stuff, but we had better because right now the left owns this issue.
The herd does not think. It just emotes. Even conservatives, as this election cycle shows, are prone to emotionalism and hasty (and ignorant) decisions.
I wonder what the majority opinion would have been had the media started the opposite meme (which gets to the crux of what bothers me about this whole affair).
Also, I do not know one republican woman who does not agree that Akin is ignorant and stupid.
____________________________________________
You dont get out much doya kid ???
These threads have quite a few..
You sound like Willard and his phony sanctimonious “millions of Americans were offended” by Akin and so Willard de3cided he too was “offended”
However as a woman who was rapped years ago Akin did not offend ME
What the ignorant pathetic We Willie had to say was offensive to me...
If Willie hadnt oped his big ugly stupid mouth this would have blown over as a local occurrance in MO
but NOOOOOOOOOO Willie has to make it into a crisis so he could use it to get rid of a future truly conservativce pro-life opposition in the Senate to his liberal agenda..
This travesty that Wilie made it into has kept going because he put his 2 bits in...
Conservatives needed the 100% Akin in the Senate and now we may have to put up with another liberal voting RINO..
Thanks Willard you really know how to advance Conservative principals..
I think he wanted to say - wanted to have it be true - that pregnancy as a result of rape happens very rarely. That's because he's not confident in saying that an unborn baby should not be killed because of evil actions of his father, even though nobody would say that a 2-year-old should be killed because his father raped either his mother or someone else. It always comes down to dehumanizing the unborn child because we really can't "see" him in the way we see a born child.
He also wanted to say that forcible rape is a subset of rape-legally-defined, which is true but irrelevant.
Because he is not an Ob/Gyn is even more reason for him not to say what he did. He was wrong. Period. I do not want a Senator who is so ignorant about any subject who does not know when to shut up.
Someone who gets it.
I say we settle this once and for all and ask Bill Clinton if it’s possible for a woman to become pregnant after she’s been raped.
This older politician decides to talk about "legitimate rape". What other kind of rape is there? It's incredibly offensive to women. It's either rape, or it isn't.
Akin was talking out of his hat about a field he has no expertise in and he was wrong.
Agree. It not only politically stupid for Michelle to do this, but class-less.
My hope is that the voters of Missouri will be as enraged over this as I am. If they are, they will go out in droves to vote for Akin, partly to spite the smug pundits -- but mainly to defeat both McCaskill and Obama this fall.
I am in San Antonio. That is my fault, not yours, that you think I am in Dallas. I am not being emotional or irrational. Akins is ignorant. And does not have the republican party’s best interest at heart. How many leading Republicans have told him to drop out of the race now? He refuses to even acknowledge their counsel. He is tone deaf. He has nothing but his ego in mind. And we are running out of time to get a conservative in the race with time to campaign. His history speaks for itself. There is nothing irrational or emotional about this.
> His point was that abortion is wrong, even if the woman was raped.
Pregnancy is a result of fertilization. Why should it matter how the fertilization occurred in a discussion that is about willfully killing the baby?
Michelle is right.
I work with the Republican party in Texas. I did not say that lightly.
Is the best treatment for a rape the murder of a baby?
He was wrong to be anti-abortion? Is he wrong to be pro life, pro 2nd Amendment, pro Constitution, pro America, pro God?
You seem like a pretty emotional broad, maybe you can tell me: What is it about women that they feel such an irresistible need to jab scissors into a defenseless human's head and kill him or her?
If not, why not?
Because it's too late. The child has achieved human status. We can debate when this human status is achieved. There are those who oppose condoms because it interferes with conception. There are those who oppose female birth control (or the morning after pill) because it interferes with fertilized cell implantation. Where do you draw the line as to when the fetus is developed enough that it is part of the human family? I think it's around 4 1/2 months, myself. Five years after birth is well past that.
You may be a woman but since you don’t parrot the PC line, you have no right to speak as a woman. Just as Clarence Thomas has no right to speak for blacks, even though he is one. You must be the RIGHT KIND of woman ... or black ... or other “victim.”
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