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.
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?
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 womans 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.
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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.
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