Posted on 08/29/2012 3:00:11 AM PDT by sheikdetailfeather
Missouri Republican Todd Akin is vowing to continue his Senate campaign, though the question increasingly is: to what purpose? His continuing candidacy is harming the social-conservative wing of the GOP that he claims to be defending.
Mitt Romney and other Republican officials sensibly disavowed the Congressman after his recent comment that "legitimate rape" can be a contraceptive. For Mr. Romney, this was something of a Sister Souljah moment—not that he's getting much media credit for it. But rather than leave the race to another Republican who might be able to win, Mr. Akin has since cast himself as a pro-life martyr. He's blaming "party bosses" who he claims don't really care about the sanctity of life the way he does.
He's also received some unfortunate cover from Mike Huckabee, the talk show host and former Arkansas Governor, who wrote in an email to supporters: "Is this what the party really thinks of principled pro-life advocates? Do we forgive and forget the verbal gaffes of Republicans who are 'conveniently pro-life' for political advantage, but crucify one who truly believes that every life is sacred?"
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Apparently enough of them support him to make up for the willy nilly weak wristed Reince Republicans who don't.
My apologies. I thought that one had been closed.
The only thing that should “count” is that this malapropistic jackass loser is going to lose a seat that was almost a mortal lock.
Oh, and one other thing that should count: This not-ready-for-prime-time idiot has also damaged Republican candidates elsewhere, to the point that to minimize the damage this schlub has done, folks have had to cut him off entirely. THAT'S why Reince Preibus said what he said about money and the moron - to make it darned near impossible to plausibly tie the horse's ass to the rest of the party
It really doesn't matter how [self-]righteous the candidate might be. If he makes himself unelectable, then it doesn't help our cause in anyway shape or form either for him to continue, or for any of us to give him support.
I may write a check to the RNC today for figuring out how best to use limited resources: DON'T BACK MORON LOSERS.
As to the science of it, sorry, I know women who became pregnant as a result of rape. The “science” behind his assertion is iffy. Probably true in some cases, not true in others. But that's irrelevant. Like it or not, here is a possible message that comes through from this filth-bucket's comments on “legitimate rape” and pregnancy:
“IF YOU BECAME PREGNANT AS A RESULT OF RAPE, THAT'S YOUR FAULT, AND YOU PROBABLY WEREN'T ‘LEGITIMATELY’ RAPED, AND YOU PROBABLY LIKED IT, TOO!”
D'ya think that the Dems are going to impute that meaning every chance they get? D'ya think a substantial number of voters in the middle might buy that? D'ya think that's the 20% of folks that abandoned the Akin, pre-dumbass remark, turning a 10% lead into a 10% gap??
I know that's not what he meant. Unfortunately, that is the easily-inferred meaning of it. When you're in politics, mostly, you're paid to talk. If you can't figure out the unintended easily-inferred meanings of your words, go do something for which you're better qualified. Like washing windows.
He's a moron for saying what he did. Too stupid even to be a US Senator (and that's a very, very low bar, as we see with the likes of the Kenyan anti-Christ and its sidekick, the biden).
He's verminous filth who deserves every evil thing he gets for refusing to step aside to allow a candidate who doesn't shove his foot so far down his throat it comes out at the other end.
sitetest
However, intercourse several days before ovulation can result in fertilization, if everything is going normally for the woman, because the sperm itself can live in the woman's genital tract 2-5 days. (The variability depends on the amount and quality of the woman's fertile mucus, which keeps the sperm alive up to 5 days, but only if the mucus is optimal quality.)
So you could say the ovum fertilization has to happen within a 12-hour window, but the woman's fertile phase is about 5 days IF she's got good fertile mucus AND, of course, if she ovulates.
That means that under optimal conditions, a woman could receive sperm on a Monday, ovulate on Friday at midnight 12:00 a.m., and the egg be fertilized say before lunchtime on that same Friday.
Now if she would ordinarily have ovulated at midnight on Friday but got raped Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, the stress-fear-rage-pain she experienced could well cause an adrenaline spike which then delays that ovulation a couple of days or more, meaning the rapist's sperm will die off and her egg, when it fimally is released by her ovary, will not be fertilized.
The only time she could have conceived in that cycle, is if she ovulated at 12:00 a.m. Friday as was normally expected, and then was raped afterwards, at some point on Friday before about noon.
You following this?
("Too much information," I suppose.)
Anyhow, this is all somewhat imprecise because women's hormonal interplay is intricate and influenced by a whole lot of things, including her body fat ratio, her diet, the amount and quality of the sleep she's getting, and her emotional equlibrium. By which I mean --- oversimplfying, here --- at least no severe adrenaline surges.
Bottom line, if a sexually active woman woman turns up pregnant after a rape, it's quite likely she's not pregnant from the rapist, but from a different act of intercourse hours or days before the rape.
This actually happened to a woman I knew. She was forcibly raped. She got a pregnancy test later and found she was pregnant. She and her husband agonized over this but decided not to abort the baby because, as it happens, they were pacifists(!!)
Nine months later she gives birth to to the baby, and behold, it wasn't the rapist's offspring. They knew this because of the baby's race (the assailant was of a different race.)
If she had aborted the baby she would have aborted her husband's child.
It's wrong to abort anyway, because the baby is an innocent party in any scenario, --- plus a good case can be made that abortion is un-helpful and retraumatizes the women. (I know this seems counter-intuitive but I have evidence this is true, but it would make this post way too long. Later for that.)
Bottom line, most people dramatically overestimate the number of pregnancies that result from rape.
Add into that that most sexual assaults do not involve a completed act of normal intercourse. Expand on that with all necessary details in your own mind.
Your poll demonstrates what an easy pick-up this would be if we had a candidate who wasn't a moron. Unfortunately, it doesn't demonstrate that he will be a viable candidate after being on the receiving end of $12 million of advertising telling folks that Akin thinks if you got pregnant from rape, it wasn't a "legitimate rape."
The sad thing is the poll I saw earlier this week that shows the majority of the folks who will hold their noses and vote for this jackass would LIKE HIM TO STEP ASIDE. A decent candidate (i.e., one without his foot sticking out his rear end) would beat McCaskill by 20%.
If the moron pulls it out on his own, good for the moron. Hopefully, with some assistance, he'll have sufficient intelligence to vote for the Republican for Senate Majority Leader. But that might be an iffy proposition, given his sub-room temperature IQ.
No party resources should be given to this creep.
sitetest
Romney’s “RNC Power Grab”: What Really Happened:
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/dean-clancy/romneys-rnc-power-grab-what-happened?source=facebook
Time will tell.
Thanks. I needed a good laugh.
Are you suggesting that his remarks were, in fact, biologically accurate? What, then, would explain the many pregnancies that do result from rape?
But lets assume your high intelligence allows you to understand the true nuances of his arguments, nuances that flew over the head of many medical professionals who subsequently weighed in that his statement was ridiculous. The fact remains that he is damaged goods, his unfavorable ratings are off the charts and he is down 10 pts to a candidate that before the primary was considered in jeopardy.
So live in denial if you like. Blame the liberal media and weak minded fools like myself who just don't understand what an incredibly brilliant man Akin is. And when he loses in November you can feel consoled that it was everyone by Akin's fault.
Studies that have shown high cortisol (stress hormone) levels have higher risk of miscarriage ARE NOT REMOTELY PROOF RAPE DOESN’T GET YOU PREGNANT! Cortisol is a stress hormone, and guess what, PREGNANCY in an of itself raises cortisol levels, pregnancy itself causes stress. The fact that women who have higher cortisol levels during pregnancy appeared in an incredibly small study to have higher miscarriages does not allow you to remotely supposition that the trauma of rape means less likelyhood of pregnancy that consentual sex.
Here we go again.
First off, Herbster was not citing studies, but articles in the mainstream press.
No one ever said that rape NEVER results in pregnancy, only that pregnancy is extremely rare following rape.
Studies have also shown stress can be a contributing factor to conception problems, however those studies were conducted on women who desired to conceive were having regular and frequent consentual sex, and having problems.
The stress hormones are the same. Women undergoing chronic stress have higher than normal, but not drastically high levels of those hormones. Women who have suffered rape have acute stress, meaning that there is a surge of stress hormones immediately following the rape. They probably remain in a condition of chronic stress for a period of time after the rape, until they regain their emotional equilibrium. To think that chronic stress could decrease the chance of becoming pregnant, but acute stress would have no effect does not take biology into account.
Citing of this study as proof that Akin’s ignornat coments are backed by sciense is just like the claims idiots use that higher levels of carbon dioxide are a cause of global warming, when in fact they are an EFFECT of warmer temperatures, not a cause.
There is no proof, ZERO, that being raped has a lower incident of pregnancy than consentual sex, and its beyond ignorant to try to argue there is.
Akin's comments ARE backed by science; it is a symptom of the general level of scientific illiteracy in this country that so many people are so willing to jump all over him for saying what he did.
I was taught in high school back in the 1970s that pregnancy from rape is *extremely* rare. I've read the same thing various times since. That fact wasn't even controversial until Akin said it, at which point liberals started bending over backwards to show off their scientific stupidity. The action conservatives *should* have taken at that point would have been to laugh at the liberals; instead they jumped right in to show that they're just as scientifically stupid.
Pregnancy occurs as a multistep process. First, there must be ovulation--a process that is affected by stress. Chronic stress can inhibit ovulation; acute stress can precipitate it. In the latter case, the ovum can be fertilized, but pregnancy will not result because the uterus is not in a receptive state.
Second, there must be fertilization. This is probably unaffected or only slightly affected by stress, meaning that it probably happens at about the same frequency whether it's from rape or consensual intercourse.
Third, and this is a big factor, implantation must occur. At the best of times, this is a very inefficient process. Between outright implantation failures, and implantation loss within the first couple of weeks, about 75% to 80% of fertilized ova do not result in pregnancies. Rape doesn't just cause stress, which can affect implantation, it also causes significant gynecological physical injury. A physically injured uterus is not in a condition to receive or retain a fertilized ovum.
That’s not why Akin is a dead man walking, he’s a dead man walking because he honestly believed something that was embarrassingly idiotic, factually wrong and was arguing a policy position from it.
No, he's not a "dead man walking" because he honestly believed something that is factually correct, but doesn't go along with the liberal agenda; he's a "dead man walking" because conservatives didn't take the time to fact-check before joining the stupid liberals in throwing stones at him.
>> WSJ chose to distort
Just like the other intolerant reactionaries, WSJ is demonstrating a vain attempt at impersonating chivalry.
His remarks were biologically accurate. Pregnancy from rape is extremely unlikely, not impossible.
But lets assume your high intelligence allows you to understand the true nuances of his arguments, nuances that flew over the head of many medical professionals who subsequently weighed in that his statement was ridiculous. The fact remains that he is damaged goods, his unfavorable ratings are off the charts and he is down 10 pts to a candidate that before the primary was considered in jeopardy.
I've yet to see any medical professional actually refute his statement by explaining mechanistically how Akin was wrong. OTOH, I and several other people have explained mechanistically how he was correct.
The validity of the theory he mentioned is irrelevant to the point he made which is: abortion is unacceptable in the case where rape is not a factor.
Keep telling yourself that this is really about the GOPe hating on the Tea Party folks. Keep telling yourself that Akin really is a brilliant politician. Keep telling yourself that there is actual medical science behind his statement. And all the while watch as he loses the one seat that was an easy Conservative pick up.
No my friend AKin’s comments are NOT backed by science.. the odds of pregnancy, from a 1 time sex act whether consentual or forced is in the LOW SINGLE DIGITS!
PREGNANCY FROM A SINGLE SEX ACT IS ALWAYS AN INCREDIBLY LOW PROBABILITY! Period whether it be forced or consentual, arguing that rape is a lower rate is NONSENSE and not backed by ANY science my friend. Those 70s studies you want to cling to were debunked DECADES ago.
I thought his point was that abortion is not the answer in the case of a rape pregnancy, and you seem to be saying something different.
In any case, I acknowledge that whether or not mentioning the low probability of getting pregnant from rape was wise is debatable. But that is a separate issue, and one which I really have not addressed. My interest in this is mostly trying to educate people on the science.
I just saw this post today and wanted to thank you for the excellent analysis and summarization.
Posters like you, that are so intelligent and independent, are one of the reasons I love Jim’s freerepublic so much!
Thank you very much.
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