I was astounded to find that a couple folks that I know to be intelligent, and who I formerly very much respected, actually belive that Akin's "science" is good. They offer as their sources:
1. An appeal to "common sense", as in "it's just common sense that if a woman is raped she is less likely to conceive." Really? I'd laugh, but they aren't kidding. The "no evidence is no evidence" standard kicks this one out, without bothering to get into the logical fallacy aspect.
2. A small early-70s statistical study of two urban hospitals with internal references citing Nazi fertilization experiments on Jewish victims. Words fail on that one. Even in the unlikely event that it might have some merit, do you REALLY want to go there?
3. A ChiCom mouse study. Obviously totally pertinent to the argument. Not. And again, ChiComs...mice...do you REALLY want to go there? This entire brouhaha is over perception. This sort of loose thinking reinforces the sterotype of conservatives that our enemies revel in, that we are irrational, medieval-minded zealots. It's d*mn discouraging.
Until this broke, no sane person had ever heard of this belief. If Akin had quickly just gone away we’d have looked upon him as simply weird. Unfortunately - and Rush mentioned it on Tuesday - we have now learnt that this is dogma for a hopefully small subset.
There are many middle of the road swing voters who Lean Pro life who will now now of this dogma and will be terrified that it is prevalent and vote Dem. The DNC nows this and is very good at scaring right leaning people especially woman who get terrified from these folks.
A woman’s greates fear is rape only followed by pregnancy from that. I can understand the raoe exception . Many lifers do, but to these fanatics , a pregnant rape victim is a lying whore.
Also , they say we should forgive Akin for his apology, but they then go on to say that he spoke the truth. You can’t have it both ways.