Why It’s So Important For Rape To Be ‘Legitimate’

Todd Akin (R-MO): Legitimately creepy

Daily Kos

by Dante Atkins

Sun Aug 26, 2012 at 06:00 AM PDT

Unless you’ve been spending the past week or so living under a rock—and given the political climate these days, it would be hard to blame you for doing so—you can’t have missed the fact that Republican Congressman and newly minted Senate nominee from Missouri, Todd Akin, went on a St. Louis television station and proceeded to stick his foot so far down his mouth that his toes tingled his duodenum.

Akin’s comments, which have led panicked Republicans to call for him to drop out of the race lest his misogynist toxicity metastasize to infect the Romney/Ryan ticket and Republicans across the nation, centered around two atrocities: first, the absurd idea that female reproductive anatomy can shut down in response to rape and somehow prevent conception; and second, the use of the term “legitimate rape” to describe the circumstances under which a woman’s magic ovaries would somehow initiate the aforementioned shutdown of reproductive capacity. Taken together, the comments as a whole were designed to justify Akin’s opposition to any exemptions for abortion, even in cases of rape or incest: After all, per Akin’s logic, if a woman gets raped, she won’t get pregnant; so if she’s pregnant, well, no exemption is required.

The biological aspect of Akin’s comments seems to have drawn more scorn and outright mockery: After all, how can someone pretend to take a leading role in legislating women’s bodies without even knowing the basics of how they work? The comments about “legitimate rape,” however, were a different story, as seemingly every Democratic candidate and committee in existence sent an email to their lists seeking to raise money and respond to Akin’s outrageous implication that some rapes are okay.

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Bob McDonnell, Virginia Governor: ‘War On Women’ Is ‘Political Theater’

Huff Post

Laura Bassett

Posted: 03/21/2012  4:19 pm Updated: 03/21/2012  4:29 pm

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has drastically slipped in the polls after backing two controversial anti-abortion measures over the past several weeks: the fetal personhood bill and the mandatory ultrasound bill. But in an interview on CNN Tuesday night, he said the “War on Women” is something Democrats have invented.

“This ‘war on women’ argument is very unfortunate,” he told John King. “It’s false, and it’s been the political theater for the Democrats for the past couple of months.”

He continued, “Listen, if I had Obama’s record on jobs, on spending, on debt and deficit, on energy, I would want to talk about something else, too. And, John, that’s really what’s going on. And it’s just very unfortunate that this politics of division, separating men from women, rich from the middle class, continues to be the theme of this campaign.”

If recent polling is any indication, Virginia voters disagree with McDonnell on this point. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows that McDonnell’s approval rating dropped a net 13 points in March to its lowest level since June 2011. The dip in support occurs in the month that McDonnell helped GOP legislators write a bill that requires women to have an ultrasound procedure at least 24 hours before having an abortion, even if the doctor deems it medically unnecessary.

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Virginia Poll: 52% Oppose Ultrasound Law

Politico

By TIM MAK | 3/21/12 8:04  AM EDT

A majority of Virginians stand against the state’s new law that requires  women seeking an abortion to  undergo an ultrasound before the procedure, a new survey shows.

Fifty-two percent of voters said they opposed the law, compared with 41  percent who support it, according to a Quinnipiac  University poll released Wednesday.

Further, an overwhelming 72 percent of Virginians said that the  government should not make laws aimed at changing the minds of women who are  seeking abortions.

Men disapprove more strongly of the non-invasive ultrasound  law than women: 56 percent of men are against it and 38 percent back it,  while women disapprove 49 percent to 44 percent.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74295.html#ixzz1pmBhObKp

 

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