So it is that in the new Republican plank they are still opposed to all abortion with no exceptions including rape, incest, and yes even the life of the mother.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2012/08/republicans-knock-akin-but-they-also.html
They also refuse to recognize civil unions. So despite all the takedowns of Akin you're hearing everywhere-the RSCC won't support him, neither will Karl Rove's CrossRoads-the truth is that they still agree with him though think he could have made his point more "elegantly." I'm not sure about how you elegantly say that rape victims are barred from having abortions, that you will force her to bear such a terrible psychic reminder of what was done to her every minute of every day for nine months. Then what happens when the (rape) baby is born? There may be women who would decide of their own free will that they can love a child born in such horrific circumstances. But obviously there is nothing more unethical than forcing her to against her will.
I notice that many Republicans have said things like "there's no such thing as legitimate rape." On the face of it that sounds right or even a truism. However, that's a much more loaded term than it at first appears.
What a lot of Republicans really believe is that he was dead wrong to ever have used the phrase "legitimate rape" but if he had said "forcible rape" that would have been "accurate."
"It didn’t take long for the Republican establishment to back away from Todd Akin, the Missouri congressman and Senate candidate who declared in an interview on Sunday that the female body can somehow prevent pregnancy after a “legitimate rape.”
"Akin himself eventually walked back the comment, saying that he had misspoken in “off-the-cuff remarks,” and that, “to be clear, all of us understand that rape can result in pregnancy.”
"But the initial statement -- “if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” -- echoes a belief system that exists in the most aggressive corners of the antiabortion movement."
"The assertion can be traced back to Dr. Jack C. Willke, the former president of the U.S. National Right to Life Committee. Willke and his wife, Barbara, are leading antiabortion advocates and authors of the book “Why Can't We Love Them Both: Questions and Answers About Abortion."
"They contend in the book, first published in 1971, that “assault rape” rarely results in pregnancy because the assault traumatizes the woman and makes her body less habitable."
It’s ”just downright unusual” for a woman to get pregnant from a rape, Willke said in an interview Monday. He said studies have shown this to be true, but produced little evidence beyond a few footnotes that cite a handful of decades-old papers."
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-todd-akin-rape-theory-origins-20120820,0,7783860.story
Here we are 40 years later-his claims have of course been found to be wholly unjustified. Yet, Willke remains unbowed. He just thinks that the word "legitimate rape" is bad. However, "assault rape" or "forcible rape" are appropriate. If only Akin had used one of those terms it would have been acceptable:
"But Willke is not deterred. He said Akin erred not in suggesting that the female body can shut down an unwanted pregnancy, but in using the term “legitimate rape.”
“There is no such thing as a legitimate rape,” Willke said, adding that Akin should have said “assault rape." The term “assault rape” or “forcible rape” makes it clear that the woman suffered some sort of trauma -- the type of thing that supposedly shuts the reproductive system down, Willke said.
Now the term, forcible rape, was in the Personhood Bill that Paul Ryan and Akin both sponsored last year-yes, the same Ryan who is now asking Akin to leave the race and claiming to support abortions in the case of rape.
The real important point is that nobody in the GOP and that includes very much Ryan and Romney really disapprove what Akin said. They think the substance was fine but that he put it inelegantly. Again, my guess is there's really no way to put it elegantly but that's something else.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Akin’s remarks are not the first, nor are they likely to be the last, in a long-running effort to downplay the horror of rape as a way to restrict access to abortion. Garance Franke-Ruta of the Atlantic catalogued how anti-abortion politicians, since at least 1988, have used the canard of “legitimate rape” or “assault rape” in efforts to restrict and outlaw abortions. What they’re really saying is that not all rape victims are victims, and so we shouldn’t worry if they have to deal with unwanted pregnancy."
"One example of this effort to minimize rape came earlier this year when Congress considered whether to rewrite the rape exception in federal abortion funding bans by inserting the phrase “forcible rape,” words eerily similar to Mr. Akin’s note of “legitimate rape.” Among the bill’s 227 co-sponsors was Rep. Paul Ryan, now Mitt Romney’s running mate. The language was stripped from the bill before it won final House approval, but even then, it contained such onerous provisions that it never made it to the Senate floor. Let’s hope the same will be said for Mr. Akin and his unacceptable views."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-repugnant-code-behind-todd-akins-words/2012/08/20/7e91ed12-eb08-11e1-a80b-9f898562d010_story.html
Honestly, I don't know how any woman becomes a Republican. It's one of those veritable 'mysteries of the human condition.'
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