Todd Akin Won’t Shut Up About Rape

Todd Akin continues to give Republicans headaches.

Todd Akin

As I noted the other day, Todd Akin is out with a new book in which he retracts his apology for his August 2012 comments that women who are victims of “legitimate rape” are not likely to get pregnant. As part of that book tour, he showed up this morning on The Daily Rundown on MSNBC and well, you had to see it to believe it:

Two years after he lost his 2012 Senate campaign, former Missouri Republican congressman Todd Akin still can’t stop talking about rape.

Appearing on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” on Thursday, Akin sought yet again to explain the infamous comments about rape that roiled his bid to oust Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). In a 2012 interview, Akin said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin said that while he “misspoke some words,” Democrats and establishment Republicans unfairly took him out of context ahead of the Democratic National Convention. He compared the attacks against him to those against Hillary Clinton, who was criticized recently for defending an accused rapist as an attorney in the 1970s.

“Well, here, let me just try to give you an explanation. Legitimate rape is a law enforcement term and it’s abbreviation for legitimate case of rape,” Akin said. He added, “If I had been choosing my words better, I should have said legitimate case of rape. And I have acknowledged that it is a poor choice of words.”

“I never said that a woman can’t get pregnant who is raped,” he said. “I was simply talking about the fact that stress affects the statistics of people becoming pregnant.”

After stating that he was “not presenting myself as a doctor,” Akin proceeded to cite six “recent studies” he claimed backed up his assertion as to why stress has an impact on pregnancy.

Asked twice whether he believed abortion should be legal for someone who has been raped, Akin demurred.

“Should the child conceived in rape have the same right to life as the child conceived in love?” he said, adding later, “I think what doctors should do is try and save life.”

Here’s the video for those who missed it:

Two years after he lost his 2012 Senate campaign, former Missouri Republican congressman Todd Akin still can’t stop talking about rape.

Appearing on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” on Thursday, Akin sought yet again to explain the infamous comments about rape that roiled his bid to oust Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). In a 2012 interview, Akin said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin said that while he “misspoke some words,” Democrats and establishment Republicans unfairly took him out of context ahead of the Democratic National Convention. He compared the attacks against him to those against Hillary Clinton, who was criticized recently for defending an accused rapist as an attorney in the 1970s.

“Well, here, let me just try to give you an explanation. Legitimate rape is a law enforcement term and it’s abbreviation for legitimate case of rape,” Akin said. He added, “If I had been choosing my words better, I should have said legitimate case of rape. And I have acknowledged that it is a poor choice of words.”

“I never said that a woman can’t get pregnant who is raped,” he said. “I was simply talking about the fact that stress affects the statistics of people becoming pregnant.”

After stating that he was “not presenting myself as a doctor,” Akin proceeded to cite six “recent studies” he claimed backed up his assertion as to why stress has an impact on pregnancy.

Asked twice whether he believed abortion should be legal for someone who has been raped, Akin demurred.

“Should the child conceived in rape have the same right to life as the child conceived in love?” he said, adding later, “I think what doctors should do is try and save life.”

Akin was noticeably coy when Chuck Todd asked him if he was planning on running for office again, but if he isn’t doing that than he must be auditioning for a spot on the hard core GOP’s hit parade.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Mikey says:

    One day he’s going to come out legitimately wondering why the GOP isn’t winning elections any more.

  2. CSK says:

    Well, at least he’s no longer on the Science and Technology Committee.

  3. humanoid.panda says:

    The amusing thing that his ‘explanation’ makes things worse. What he meant to say that there are ‘legitimate cases of rape,’ which happen to decent god-fearing women who will never get pregnant during the rape as we live in a benevolent universe and God loves the elect, and there are sluts who are lying about their rapes in order to cover up their sinfulness and to enjoy the joyride that is an abortion.

    In related news, forced birthers are a group of moral abominations that in a decent society would be respected just as much as polygamists or slavers, not get special accommodations to assuage their delicate corporate souls (hello, Hobby Lobby!).

  4. Rob in CT says:

    Asked twice whether he believed abortion should be legal for someone who has been raped, Akin demurred.

    “Should the child conceived in rape have the same right to life as the child conceived in love?” he said, adding later, “I think what doctors should do is try and save life.”

    It would be better if he would simply admit that the logical consequence of his belief system is that yes, abortion should be illegal even in the case of rape, because abortion is murder and a women’s right to control her body is trumped by the rights of the proto-human within her, from the git-go and under any and all circumstances. He came close to saying this but apparently didn’t want to spell it all the way out. Close enough that you can figure it out, though.

  5. stonetools says:

    Keep talking, Mr. Akin. Whenever people doubt that the modern conservative movement is batsh#t crazy about sexuality and female reproductive freedom and various conservative pundits tell us that conservatism is really much more concerned with “limited government”, you are there to remind us what the bulk of conservatives REALLY care about.In doing this, you perform an important public service.

  6. CSK says:

    I’m pleased to report that “Firing Back,” his new book, has fallen from #32,750 yesterday to #57,612 today on Amazon. His publicity tour appears to be driving people away.

  7. michael reynolds says:

    @CSK:

    As someone who pays way too much attention to Amazon, that’s not a good number. That’s flop country.

  8. michael reynolds says:

    I would just add that Hillary Clinton’s latest book, being widely dissed by conservatives as a complete failure, is at #66 on Amazon.

    The gap between #66 and #57,612 is about as wide as the Grand Canyon.

  9. CSK says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Particularly for a celebrity (of sorts) who gets a lot of exposure on television and in print.

    As for Clinton’s book, anything in the 100 area is considered successful.

  10. G.A.Phillips says:

    I watched an interview with him the other day. He tried to justify stupid with more stupid.

  11. gVOR08 says:

    @Rob in CT: Right. Within his belief system, he’s correct. Every sperm is sacred and the mother should be happy to sacrifice for the fertilized egg. The “shut down the system” thing is an understandable rationalization to minimize the consequences of his beliefs. If all this makes him happy, fine. He gets to believe anything he wants. Where Akin errs is in his assumption that he gets to impose his beliefs on the rest of us. I thought the idea that the government should impose morality on the populace had died long ago, but I keep being reminded that I was wrong. Akin is apparently a Dominionist. Those people are dangerous and should be exposed for what they are.

  12. KM says:

    @Rob in CT :

    It would be better if he would simply admit that the logical consequence of his belief system is that yes, abortion should be illegal even in the case of rape, because abortion is murder and a women’s right to control her body is trumped by the rights of the proto-human within her, from the git-go and under any and all circumstances.

    He can’t because even if they believe it, they don’t want to hear it out loud. It makes them sound cold and uncaring. It’s easy to speak at a high level and say a blanket No is best but when the specifics come out, you end up sounding like a complete ass, even to yourself. Nothing in this life is absolute but to admit compromise once means the entirety is subject to debate. So they hem and haw and won’t vocalize the truth – they crave Heavenly absolutism but can’t make it work here on Earth.

  13. humanoid.panda says:

    @G.A.Phillips: Not stupid, evil.

  14. CSK says:

    @gVOR08:

    He certainly has been linked to the Dominionist movement; he received an award from a Dominionist organization, and the late James Kennedy, a proponent of Christian supremacy, called Akin “one of my favorite statesmen.”

  15. Janis Gore says:

    Is that really you, GA? You don’t look like Little Lord Fauntleroy at all.

  16. grumpy realist says:

    Considering that he claims he has people on his staff who “were born from rape” (Uh, really?) by his own logic their mothers weren’t REALLY raped, otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten pregnant….so he’s calling the mothers liars.

    I wonder if his staff people realize that?

  17. rudderpedals says:

    @CSK:

    “Firing Back”

    “Back Firing” is a better title for the dog’s breakfast, bless his heart.

  18. CSK says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Does he have staff? His campaign was run by his wife and his son. But beyond that…no, I don’t think it would occur to any of them to realize that he’s in fact calling those women sluts. Because no conception is possible with “legitimate rape.” Right? Right?

    Look, someone who takes the Bible as the definitive source for all knowledge is probably not much acquainted with logic and reason.

  19. CSK says:

    @rudderpedals:

    Please notify the publisher of this at your earliest convenience.

  20. Janis Gore says:

    Pray tell, what ya’ll Republicans gonna do with this idiot child?

  21. george says:

    I’m convinced he’s now on the Democratic Party payroll. There’s no way he’d be doing them that big a service for free.

  22. Another Mike says:

    @KM:

    He can’t because even if they believe it, they don’t want to hear it out loud. It makes them sound cold and uncaring. It’s easy to speak at a high level and say a blanket No is best but when the specifics come out, you end up sounding like a complete ass, even to yourself.

    He should just say what he believes. An innocent woman is brutally raped. She is the victim of a crime. As a consequence of the rape she becomes pregnant. She now has the innocent child killed in an abortion. Now we have another victim and another perpetrator. This is terrible. A bad situation was made even worse. Better to have the child and put it up for adoption than to have it killed. There are any number of people who will take the child and raise it in a loving family.

    I realize that it may not be emotionally possible for every rape victim to do that, so I make no judgment, but by aborting the child, we are left with two innocent people injured where we initially only had one. I do not know whether any woman who gave up her child for adoption under these circumstances ever regretted it.

  23. Janis Gore says:

    Not really a bad looking guy. Get rid of the combover.

  24. Janis Gore says:

    @Another Mike: Fine, you carry it.

  25. G.A.Phillips says:

    Is that really you, GA? You don’t look like Little Lord Fauntleroy at all.

    Yup, that’s me in my Zelda T-shirt 🙂

  26. Janis Gore says:

    Cool. You’re pretty handsome. (Warning: This is not a dating site.)

    Much better without your finger in your nose. 🙂

  27. G.A.Phillips says:

    Cool. You’re pretty handsome. (Warning: This is not a dating site.)

    Thanks 🙂 I am single too…

  28. Janis Gore says:

    Not a chance, sweet boy. Call me in five years.

  29. wr says:

    @Another Mike: So in your view, a man has the right to reproduce himself with any woman he finds attractive. Sure, if she complains and he gets caught he might have to do some time, but he assures the continuance of his genetic line with the woman of his choice whethe or not she chooses to participate.

    In your concern for the fetus you turn all women into nothing but vessels for men’s seed.

  30. G.A.Phillips says:

    Not a chance, sweet boy. Call me in five years.

    lol, I just turned 49 today.

  31. Janis Gore says:

    I don’t date younger men. I’m 57.

  32. G.A.Phillips says:

    I don’t date younger men. I’m 57.

    I am like a 1000 in party years 🙂

  33. Janis Gore says:

    @Janis Gore: It’s pretty shocking when you figure out you’ve been hanging around here for 12 years.

  34. Janis Gore says:

    Cut the nonsense, kiddo. We’re talking a lot of good women here,

  35. al-Ameda says:

    @Another Mike:

    He should just say what he believes. An innocent woman is brutally raped. She is the victim of a crime. As a consequence of the rape she becomes pregnant. She now has the innocent child killed in an abortion. Now we have another victim and another perpetrator. This is terrible. A bad situation was made even worse. Better to have the child and put it up for adoption than to have it killed. There are any number of people who will take the child and raise it in a loving family.

    I will not bother getting into the subject of whether or not a 1 2 or 3 week old agglomeration of cells (that is potentially a child) actually is a child.

    Do you sincerely believe that a rape-victim should be required to be a surrogate womb for the rapist’s baby? That she must unhappily carry on for 9 months, unable, and understandably unwilling, to disclose to anyone what this pregnancy is all about, who the father is, and what her plans with respect to the child are?

    It seems to me that only men would posit that that is what is best for rape victims who become pregnant.

  36. G.A.Phillips says:

    It seems to me that only men would posit that that is what is best for rape victims who become pregnant.

    I have friends that are female, that are born of rape and they are happy to be alive and are in the pro life movement.

  37. G.A.Phillips says:

    I will not bother getting into the subject of whether or not a 1 2 or 3 week old agglomeration of cells (that is potentially a child) actually is a child.

    It is so sad how you people try to make excuses for abortion. Pure nonsense.

  38. Janis Gore says:

    @G.A.Phillips: Violent rape, GA?

  39. anjin-san says:

    @ Another Mike

    I have a swell idea – worry about running your own life, don’t try and tell women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.

    If anyone wants to tell me what I can or cannot do with my own body, they had best be prepared to use force. I’m thinking that every single man in America feels this way.

  40. MarkedMan says:

    For those of you familiar with my comments here it might surprise you that I actually have some sympathy for Akin. He’s obviously not the sharpest crayon in the box and I guess he has found himself surrounded by people who assure him he is absolutely right. Being a congressman and a media magnet has that effect. And he’s not bright enough to find the few that will set him straight and listen to them. Instead he listens to the lobbyists and the people who attach themselves to the famous or the near famous, never realizing that they are laughing at him the minute he leaves the room.

  41. MarkedMan says:

    FWIW, I don’t often get into the abortion argument. Sometime in the last 20-30 years people who were against women’s lib and birth control latched onto the belief that life begins at conception, and that meaningless fact (actually both the sperm and the ova were ‘alive’ before that) has morphed into ‘at conception this clump of cells has a soul and consciousness. If I believed that I would be against abortion too.

    But as recently as my childhood, Catholics were taught babies didn’t have a soul until they were baptized, and if the died they went to ‘limbo’. Which, I’m pretty sure, had nothing to do with the dance. Although ancient Sister Imelda seemed a bit unclear about that.

  42. G.A.Phillips says:

    I have a swell idea – worry about running your own life, don’t try and tell women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.

    When a woman becomes pregnant, it goes from one body to two bodies…sigh…

  43. denni9s says:

    @Another Mike:

    http://guardianlv.com/2014/07/pregnancy-and-the-common-miscarriage/

    So, how do you account for these abnormalities in these “fearfully and wonderfully made” by God bodies?

    Science, dude. Do the deed.

  44. Janis Gore says:

    @G.A.Phillips: GA, you sound like you’re longing for a child. Did you lose one to abortion?

    Not me, Sugar, I’m a post-menopausal nutcase.

  45. Janis Gore says:

    Hell, my past stepson will be 47 this year.

  46. Grewgills says:

    @humanoid.panda:

    as much as polygamists or slavers

    do you really find those two things even remotely equivalent?

  47. Janis Gore says:

    Probably still can’t balance a checkbook, either.

  48. MarkedMan says:

    @G.A.Phillips: I just saw this comment about people ‘born of rape’ being ‘happy to be alive’. What the heck does that even mean? The fact that people who are born are happy about it implies exactly what about… I don’t even know what to call them – people-that-were-never-born? If my wife and I had never met, and never had our kids, do you think our kids would be… What? Sad? Condemned to Limbo for eternity? You feel you have the right to force women to have babies they don’t want because of this tripe?

  49. KansasMom says:

    @G.A.Phillips: But only one of them has rights under the law. The other is there if, and only if, the woman consents. I’ve never been one to say that men don’t get to have a say on abortion, but I strictly limit it to the man directly involved in creating the pregnancy. Not your body, not your baby, none of your goddamn business.

  50. anjin-san says:

    When you see the amount of rage conservative men direct at women, you have to wonder how pathetic their sex lives are/have been.

  51. Rob in CT says:

    It’s one thing to say, hey, pregnancy is a process and at some point the developing fetus attains more and more rights and at some point its right to live trumps the woman’s right to abort. That’s an argument that can be had.

    Trouble is, by the time that’s actually arguable, basically nobody aborts (I say “basically” because Gosnells exist, unfortunately).

    A zygote does not trump the right of a woman citizen of these United States to control her body. A 10-week old fetus doesn’t either.

    The 20-week cutoff many like has its own issues. I’ve posted about this before. Around 18 weeks, they do a big screening test for all sorts of abnormalities. Some such abnormalities mean certain death in short order for the baby once born. A 20-week cutoff is thus unduly restrictive. At the same time, I think most of us agree that the hypothetical scenario of aborting a perfectly healthy fetus at, say, 24+ weeks (which is roughly the line of viability in a NICU) is pretty messed up. Thankfully, this is about as rare as in-person voter fraud (another conservative boogie man story).

  52. An Interested Party says:

    If anyone wants to tell me what I can or cannot do with my own body, they had best be prepared to use force. I’m thinking that every single man in America feels this way.

    If men could get pregnant, birth control would be given away on every block in America and abortions would be permitted right up until the moment that the baby popped out of the womb…

  53. ernieyeball says:

    @anjin-san: you have to wonder how pathetic their sex lives are/have been.

    You can wonder about that if you want to. I’m just not gonna’ do it.

  54. PAUL HOOSON says:

    He reminded me of a religious nut neighbor I once had that owned a religious book store that had a world view of everything more bizarre than any hippie kid high on drugs. Other than two good looking daughters, there was nothing good about this guy….

  55. humanoid.panda says:

    @Another Mike:

    I realize that it may not be emotionally possible for every rape victim to do that, so I make no judgment, but by aborting the child, we are left with two innocent people injured where we initially only had one. I do not know whether any woman who gave up her child for adoption under these circumstances ever regretted it.

    Tell me, how it feels like being a moral monster? Does it bother your conscience even a little that you consider slightly more than half of the human race less human than yourself, or is it all in the game?

  56. humanoid.panda says:

    @Grewgills: Yes, morally, in the sense that both view some segment of the human race a tool for their purposes, rather than fully autonomous persons.
    I realize that in the real world, things are more complex and there really is a case for restrictions on abortions in the last 2 or so months of pregnancy, but the “life begins in conception” people are no better than slavers in my book.

  57. superdestroyer says:

    Akin is a good example of how the U.S will maintain a one party state system in the future. The dominant political party will be on a constant search for an idiot in the opposition. The dominant party will then use every utterance of such idiots to tar and feather anyone who espouses any political views in common. The result will be everyone who wants a career in politics or public life will quickly learn to stay within the very limited world view of the dominant political party.

    Also, talking about such irrelevant idiots gives a great excuse for the dominant political party to ignore real issues.

  58. Rafer Janders says:

    @Another Mike:

    Better to have the child and put it up for adoption than to have it killed. There are any number of people who will take the child and raise it in a loving family.

    Not to get into all the other arguments everyone’s raised, but what if the woman is married? According to you she’s supposed to:

    (a) carry the child to term while telling everyone around her that it’s not her husband’s baby, but her rapist’s, and then give the child up for adoption, or

    (b) keep the baby and have her husband and herself raise her rapist’s child, and either tell everyone that that’s what they’re doing, so that the child grows up with that stigma of everyone knowing he’s not the husband’s child, or

    (c ) keep the baby and lie to everyone, including her family, and claim it as the husband’s baby, and live the rest of their life (and their child’s life) with that lie.

    Which of those do you prefer?

  59. Rafer Janders says:

    @G.A.Phillips:

    I have friends that are female, that are born of rape and they are happy to be alive and are in the pro life movement.

    You know what? I’ve never heard anyone who was never born complain about it.

    My girlfriend and I decided not to have sex yesterday because we were both tired. We therefore didn’t conceive a child. That child we never conceived will never grow up, never know life.

    How is that any worse than a fetus that was aborted? In both cases there’s only a potential for life, not life itself. But we don’t consider “potential for life” to be so important that we ethically require everyone to have sex at every waking moment and have as many children as possible.

  60. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @superdestroyer:

    Also, talking about such irrelevant idiots gives a great excuse for the dominant political party to ignore real issues.

    #1, they aren’t irrelevant if a majority of one party is listening to them, and #2,these are real issues, not that you would have noticed because to you neither a woman or her concerns are real.

  61. Rafer Janders says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    Or, just thought of another option:

    (d) not tell anyone she was raped, carry the child to term, and then give it up for adoption, so that everyone assumes that she and her husband are moral monsters.

    Just a lot of great choices for her to make, aren’t there?

  62. Another Mike says:

    @humanoid.panda:

    Tell me, how it feels like being a moral monster?

    Not too bad really. I have been called a moral cripple by a extreme conservative, and now I have been called a moral monster by an extreme liberal all on the same day, so I am definitely doing all right for myself.

  63. KM says:

    All of this ties back to the fearful de facto doctrine of “life at all costs” that seems to have permeated the scene in recent decades. To these terrified people, it is eminently preferable to be alive, period. To paraphrase Dory, just keep breathing, breathing, breathing! Doesn’t matter how horrid the current or future circumstances, how much pain or suffering you’re in, the quality of life or even the possibility of a functional life. See, they confuse “potential” with “possible” or “probable” – for example, all sperm have the potential to start life but not not possible, let alone probable for them to do. Like if you can just make it to birth, everything’s all roses for you since you’re alive!!!! Potential overrides actual for them as there is no worse thing then not being alive. Sadly, in this tragic world, they are horribly horribly mistaken.

  64. Mikey says:

    @superdestroyer:

    The dominant political party will be on a constant search for an idiot in the opposition.

    Dude, the Democrats didn’t have to go on a search for Akin, or any of the other Tea Party darlings. Those particular idiots were entirely happy to volunteer their idiocy without any prompting at all.

  65. humanoid.panda says:

    @Another Mike: You are a righteous victim no doubt. In the meanwhile, the impoverished women in Texas that are on the black market for ‘abortion pills’ after most clinics were shut down due to recent forced birth legislation passed by the legislature there (same legislature that of course blocked Medicaid expansion and slashed family planning and prenatal care budget because moochers) are sluts that deserve whatever is going to happen to them, so no need to worry your beautiful mind about them.

  66. humanoid.panda says:

    @superdestroyer: You do know that said idiot was leading in the polls before he opened his mouth, right? Is there no limit to extent to which people like you keep on complaining as they go on trampling others’ human rights?

  67. beth says:

    @humanoid.panda: I’ve given up on trying to reason with people who would force a 12 year old rape victim to suffer through a pregnancy, sitting in seventh grade being teased by classmates who couldn’t possibly understand what she’s going through (since she probably doesn’t even understand it herself). Or telling me, a woman that’s had a child and been nearly died because of it, to risk my life and make my daughter motherless over a handful of cells. It’s not a hard choice to them because they’ll never have to make that choice. it’s easy to have lofty morals when you never have to suffer the consequences of them.

  68. humanoid.panda says:

    Seriously, how can one call people who spend their time obsessing about fetuses and then go about refusing to expand Medicaid funding as anything else but monsters?
    http://www.vox.com/2014/7/18/5913379/study-medicaids-benefits-start-in-the-womb

  69. stonetools says:

    If men could get pregnant free conception would be a constitutional right and there would be clinics that performed abortion on demand at every post office…

  70. george says:

    @An Interested Party:

    If men could get pregnant, birth control would be given away on every block in America and abortions would be permitted right up until the moment that the baby popped out of the womb…

    Actually the stats I’ve seen suggest that as many women as men are anti-abortion (the numbers vary slightly from poll to poll, but its always within 5% one way or another). To be cynical, younger men in particular find abortion to be very convenient.

    I think its clearly a decision to be made by each woman for herself, but I’m not sure its particularly men who are responsible for its lack of availability.

  71. wr says:

    @superdestroyer: “Akin is a good example of how the U.S will maintain a one party state system in the future”

    Is there actually anything in the universe that to you isn’t good example of this?

  72. Janis Gore says:

    I wonder how many men could genuinely stand that sort of unexpected pregnancy and birth in their wives or girlfriends or daughters. I know there are those who genuinely love stepchildren and grandchildren, but wouldn’t it be a sort of bizarre thing to deal with from his point of view? Lots of mixed emotions?

  73. pylon says:

    @Another Mike: There are no two “victims” when a fertilized egg is aborted after a rape in any normal scenario, which occurs usuallythe day after (via the morning after pill) or upon discovery of a pregnancy (4-6 weeks after). At that stage there is a woman and a few cell inside the woman. Not a woman and a child.

  74. Another Mike says:

    @humanoid.panda: You are a righteous victim no doubt.

    Most definitely not a victim of anything.

  75. Janis Gore says:

    @Janis Gore: Rape without children can kill a relationship.

  76. Rafer Janders says:

    @Another Mike:

    Another Mike, you’re ducking my question about which of the (a) to (d) choice you think a married woman who was raped should make. Please answer the question — or if not, your silence will answer for you.

  77. ernieyeball says:

    @superdestroyer: The dominant political party will be on a constant search for an idiot in the opposition.

    If the opposition wasn’t so full of idiots maybe the other party wouldn’t be so dominant.

  78. ernieyeball says:

    @Another Mike:.. She now has the innocent child killed in an abortion. Now we have another victim and another perpetrator.

    Women kill innocent children every month when they menstruate. Those unfertilized eggs are human eggs and they are alive.
    “Another perpetrator.” Well in the good old days before safe and legal abortion many women self aborted using wire coat hangers. Some of them died. Should the ones who lived have been prosecuted?
    Do you support the prosecution of women who have abortions? Or their physicians.. or both?

  79. humanoid.panda says:

    @ernieyeball: Be careful, you are insulting his careful sensitivities. Unlike honest sociopaths, forced birthers don’t have the courage to ponder the monstrosity of the views.

  80. ernieyeball says:

    @humanoid.panda: Be careful, you are insulting his careful sensitivities.

    Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn…

  81. Another Mike says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    Another Mike, you’re ducking my question about which of the (a) to (d) choice you think a married woman who was raped should make. Please answer the question — or if not, your silence will answer for you.

    What do you recommend?

  82. grumpy realist says:

    @Another Mike: Hey, it’s YOUR morality system!

    I’m against any form of forced organ donation. Or forced organ borrowing. As said, if it’s so important to you, we’ll implant it in your belly and YOU can carry it to term.

  83. superdestroyer says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    If that party have zero influence on policy or governance, then every politician in that party is irrelevant by definition. However, someone who is no longer in office, will never hold office again, and who influence only a small fraction of the irrelevant party could not possibly be more irrelevant. The media should no everyone a favor and never mention Todd Akin again.

  84. Rafer Janders says:

    @Another Mike:

    What do you recommend?

    Coward.

  85. Mikey says:

    @superdestroyer: This isn’t the media’s fault–it was Akin himself who sought media attention. He’s pushing a book, you know. And it has been his own stupid remarks that have made him newsworthy.

  86. Another Mike says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    Coward.

    So now you have stooped to name calling because I do not wish to play your game? Ok, I get it.

  87. al-Ameda says:

    @Another Mike:

    @Rafer Janders:
    Coward.
    So now you have stooped to name calling because I do not wish to play your game? Ok, I get it.

    Well, Rafer asks a good question Mike, do you have an answer to it?

    Life is replete with difficulties, unforeseen circumstances that present us with choices that are unpleasant, that do not fit into our pristine ideological and philosophical preferences.

    I personally believe that a woman should have control over her reproductive health choices. In the case of Rafer’s question, it seems obvious to me that no woman should be forced to carry a rapist’s baby to term.

  88. Another Mike says:

    @al-Ameda:

    I personally believe that a woman should have control over her reproductive health choices. In the case of Rafer’s question, it seems obvious to me that no woman should be forced to carry a rapist’s baby to term.

    If you look at my initial comment, you will see that I did not imply that I would dictate what a woman should do in those circumstances. If they asked for guidance, I would tell them as I have said here.

  89. Rafer Janders says:

    @Another Mike:

    No, I called you a coward because you were too cowardly to answer a simple question.

    Look, as grumpy realist said above, it’s YOUR morality system. You claimed, quite clearly, that a woman who was raped should be forced to carry her rapist’s child to term. I then asked you a question about which of the four options that would result from a married woman’s being forced to carry her rapist’s child to term you would prefer.

    This seems to be a question you don’t want to answer….because you sense, quite rightly, that none of the four options are good, and that picking any one of them will expose you for what you are.

    If you don’t have the courage of your own convictions, don’t blame me for pointing it out. Blame yourself for being not just callous, but too gutless to own up to your own callousness.

  90. Rafer Janders says:

    @Another Mike:

    If you look at my initial comment, you will see that I did not imply that I would dictate what a woman should do in those circumstances.

    Oh, ok, so you’re pro-choice, then. You support legalized abortion.

  91. Rafer Janders says:

    @Another Mike:

    If they asked for guidance, I would tell them as I have said here.

    Assume I’m a woman who’s been raped asking for guidance. Here are my four choices.

    (a) carry the child to term while telling everyone around me — friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, strangers on the street who congratulate me on my pregnancy — that it’s not my husband’s baby, but my rapist’s, and then give the child up for adoption, or

    (b) not tell anyone I was raped, carry the child to term, and then give it up for adoption, so that everyone assumes that my husband and I re moral monsters, or

    (c) keep the baby and have my husband and myself raise my rapist’s child, and tell everyone that that’s what we’re doing, so that the child grows up with the stigma of everyone knowing he’s the result of a rape, or

    (d) keep the baby and lie to everyone, including my family, and claim it as my husband’s baby, and live the rest of our married life (and the entirety of my child’s life) with that lie.

    Please guide me, man. Which of the four should I choose?

  92. Another Mike says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    You claimed, quite clearly, that a woman who was raped should be forced to carry her rapist’s child to term.

    What were my exact words?

  93. Another Mike says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    Please guide me, man. Which of the four should I choose?

    I would say to choose life. Each of your choices offers life. The particulars of how they handle the situation can only be made by them. Can you even answer your own question?

  94. Another Mike says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    Oh, ok, so you’re pro-choice, then. You support legalized abortion.

    I do not support legalized abortion. Abortion is intrinsically evil. The state should not sanction evil. There is a point where the state should prohibit abortion. Until that point the rule is that what is not prohibited is legal. Always though the person has a moral choice.

  95. Grewgills says:

    @Another Mike:

    If you look at my initial comment, you will see that I did not imply that I would dictate what a woman should do in those circumstances.

    @Another Mike:

    I do not support legalized abortion. Abortion is intrinsically evil. The state should not sanction evil.

    Either you think the state should not sanction abortion (which you feel is an evil) or you think that the state should not dictate that choice to a woman. You can’t have it both ways. Which is it?
    If it is the latter then there is no real disagreement here other than people not liking the way you expressed yourself. If it is the former, several relevant questions have been put to you. Not answering them would seem to indicate that you are not entirely comfortable with the implications of your position.

  96. superdestroyer says:

    @Mikey:

    There are 50 people a week who are pushing a book. Why did the media decide to focus on a losing candidate who will never hold office again and who has zero influence on the direction that the country is going. The only possible reason is that it makes Republicans look bad and Democrats look good.

  97. Janis Gore says:

    Let’s create an example:

    Janine and Craig are 32. They met in college and married after they both graduated. The couple have one child, a little girl named Elizabeth, 3, and have decided they’re ready to have a second child. Janine is not using any method of birth control right now.

    Janine has a position of some responsibility at an insurance company, where she occasionally has to stay over an hour two after the others go home. On a late fall evening, leaves the office at 7, but it’s already been dark for a couple of hours.

    Janine is abducted from the parking garage, taken to a local park, raped and beaten a bit for good measure. The rapist wore a mask.

    Janine becomes pregnant. According to the law at this time, she cannot have and abortion. Her husband is overcome with guilt, because he couldn’t protect, and revulsion because she has been “dirtied.” Janine now takes two long showers a day because she feels dirty, too.

    They decide they’ll put the child up for adoption when it is born. Let’s posit that Janine is not so screwed up that she can’t work and that her office knows what’s happened and is supportive.

    Well, time goes on and the fetus grows and Janine falls in loves with the child in her womb, as women can do. When the child is born, she pleads to keep the child, but her husband and his family are completely appalled, and want nothing to do with it. Elizabeth doesn’t care. She just wants a little brother or sister.

    What then?

  98. Janis Gore says:

    Should Craig forced to support a child that he knows is not his, and despises because of the circumstances of its conception?

    Should Janine be forced to give up a child she loves because her husband says so?

  99. KansasMom says:

    @Another Mike: Personally, I recommend abortion.

  100. Janis Gore says:

    Honestly, isn’t it one of the premises of marriage that other people don’t fwck your spouse at will?

  101. Janis Gore says:

    @Janis Gore: I sure wish someone would write that thought better. I know y’all can.

  102. denni9s says:

    @Another Mike:

    Abortion is intrinsically evil.

    Please, share with us, on what moral code are you basing this declaration?

  103. denni9s says:

    @Janis Gore:

    No, everything you said was clear, concise, and on point. Bravo Zulu.

  104. DrDaveT says:

    @Another Mike:

    I would say to choose life.

    Whose life? Are three miserable people better than two happy ones? Especially when one of those three was never a person at all, but merely a might-be-some-day person?

    You can’t have it both ways. Either more people is always better, or it isn’t. If it is, then anyone who isn’t actively procreating RIGHT NOW is committing the moral equivalent of murder. If it isn’t, then abortion is sometimes the best solution.

    I begin to understand the sick joke that characterizes your views as “Life begins at conception — and ends at birth.”

  105. Janis Gore says:

    In some unicorn universe, Craig comes to his senses, and they become a happy black family (for instance) with one child with strangely Asian features.

    In reality, Craig probably took up with that attractive office manager on the fourth floor while Janine was pregnant.

  106. Janis Gore says:

    Especially if Craig were conservative, because we already know that conservative men think about sex all the time. 🙂

  107. Mikey says:

    @superdestroyer: Akin was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives for 12 years and was well ahead in his race for re-election until his “legitimate rape” remarks. He’s also a favorite of the Tea Party, which is still a political force. Whether he would be a viable candidate in the future is very far from the foregone conclusion you seem to think it is. In any case, he was and is newsworthy, and any news outlet approached by his media people would have him on. They aren’t seeking him out, remember–his people initiate the interviews.

    This is no grand media conspiracy. Akin was big news in 2012 and he’s still news today.

  108. superdestroyer says:

    @Mikey:

    He was not running for re-election when he made the rape statements. He was running for the U.S. senate against an incumbent Democrat who used her money advantage to make sure that Todd Akin was the nominee.

    If you look at the history of Akin’s political career, he always won the nomination for his House Senate and his Missouri State House seats with less than 50% of the vote because Missouri does not require a majority to be nominated. Akin was never really a Tea Party type because he never showed any interest in fiscal issues. Todd Akin is a hardcore social conservative who won his primary elections with the backing of the anti-abortion crowd, home schoolers, and religious right. Akin was content to a pork barreler when it came to fiscal issues.

    there is no way he is running for state wide office in Missouri again. His future is doing speaking engagements to irrelevant social conservatives who have zero influence on policy or governance in the U.S. His main function in national politics is to help the Democrats push the U.S. to being a one party state. His name will come up anytime the Democrats need a good two-minute hate to distract people from real issues of policy or governance.

    Of course, what is amazing is how many progressives want politics in the U.S. to be based on the daily/weekly two-minute hate of some perceived bad person.

  109. Another Mike says:

    @Grewgills:

    Not answering them would seem to indicate that you are not entirely comfortable with the implications of your position.

    When a woman becomes pregnant through rape the woman has a difficult choice to make. Likewise, when a woman learns she will have a seriously disabled child, she faces a similar situation. The choice is between killing innocent human life and taking on a lifetime of exceptional problems. My wife and I never faced the choice, but we know firsthand what raising a seriously disabled child entails. Sarah Palin and her husband faced the choice, and as she tells in a moving talk, it is an anguishing decision. She chose not to abort her son, and she and her husband have accepted that they will live with lifelong burdens because of their choice. Now Rafer comes and demands that I take his test to select which burden I would impose upon a pregnant rape victim, however, the burden cannot be imposed, but only accepted.
    Pregnancy and disabled children raise difficult problems. Killing innocent human life is wrong. Raising a disabled child is a lifelong exceptional physical and mental burden. Giving birth to and raising a child conceived through rape is an emotional burden. In both cases the choice was forced upon the person either by rape or the advance of science. The nature of abortion is what it is regardless of how hard the choice is. The way I look at it in these exceptional cases is simply to look away and allow the individuals concerned to make the choice.

  110. Mikey says:

    @superdestroyer:

    Akin was never really a Tea Party type because he never showed any interest in fiscal issues. Todd Akin is a hardcore social conservative who won his primary elections with the backing of the anti-abortion crowd, home schoolers, and religious right.

    It’s a myth that the Tea Party is about “fiscal issues” and not huge with “the anti-abortion crowd, home schoolers, and the religious right.” They are in fact indistinguishable.

    Akin served six terms in the U. S. House of Representatives, of course he’s going to get on the news when his media people request to set up interviews. Blaming the media or “progressives” for spreading his idiocy is just making excuses for idiocy.

  111. superdestroyer says:

    @Mikey:

    The media should ignore him as much as they currently ignore people like Jesse Jackson Jr. Akin’s only purpose in todya’s media is to make conservatives look like fools. And I do not think progressives get to determine what is and is not the Tea Party types.

    One of the reasons that the U.S. will soon be a one party state is that people who run for office as conservatives cannot get past their own, personal agenda. Akin did not care about fiscal restraint or cutting the government. He cared much more about homeschooling and getting his sons nominated to the Naval Academy.

  112. Mikey says:

    @superdestroyer: I’m pretty sure Jesse Jackson Jr. was all over the media recently. Of course he’s not going to go looking for interviews as Akin is.

    And I do not think progressives get to determine what is and is not the Tea Party types.

    Progressives aren’t. The Tea Party types are with their statements and stated positions.

  113. superdestroyer says:

    @Mikey:

    The Tea Party types are pushing to defund the Import-Export Bank and fighing the public funding of stadiums. The social conservatives could not care less about pork barrel spending or crony capitalism.

  114. wr says:

    @superdestroyer: The Ex-Im bank turns a profit for the US every year. How is that pork barrel spending?

  115. al-Ameda says:

    @wr:
    the Right now defines all non defense spending as pork.

  116. humanoid.panda says:

    @wr: After the 2010 ‘Tea Party wave’, state legislatures passed around 200-250 different laws meant to restrict abortions. How many stadium deals were killed in that time period?

  117. Janis Gore says:

    @Another Mike: But plan B is not the killing of an innocent human life. It is intervention, often before the sperm and ovum meet, and certainly before the blastocyst implants in the uterus.

    Do you seriously call that abortion? Hobby Lobby does.

  118. Janis Gore says:

    And I was married to a defense lawyer in Vidalia, LA. He told me a story he was and was not proud of. (And don’t take offense Dennis, or Stonetools. We all have our dregs.)

    After graduation he spent some time as a public defender. One of his assignees ( I wouldn’t call him a client) was a rapist. He was big, black, ugly and smelled. My husband was sure he had venereal disease.

    He was accused of sodomy (oral). She was a notorious drunk, and claimed she had had been walking home when he stopped by with a van and asked if she’d like a ride. Apparently, after he’d gotten a blow job, he kicked her out of the van and went on his way.

    She showed up at one of my husband’s friend’s houses dressed in nothing but a blanket, virtually incoherent and saying she’d been raped. This is way back in the 70’s.

    In court, my husband questioned her about whether she’d been threatened with a weapon. No, she said, she hadn’t.

    “Then why didn’t you bite. You have teeth don’t you?”

    Yadda, yadda.

    My boy lost cred with the DA for that, but it was a good defense. The prosecutor approached him later and said they had a missing girl, and linked her to the rapist. And my boy shook his head, and became an alcoholic.

  119. Janis Gore says:

    So that rapist is the kind of man you want to see procreate?

  120. Janis Gore says:

    @Janis Gore: God will redeem that filth, through the power of a woman’s love? What goddamned century do you think you’re living in?

  121. Janis Gore says:

    These are animals, and they have impulses, and they don’t give a shit whether they procreate or not. They just like to subjugate and terrorise women.

  122. Janis Gore says:

    And I have a diametrically opposite story about a black Orkin man who was accused of serial rape under my husband’s defense in Baton Rouge , Dennis and Stonetools, that will curl your nappy hair. He hung the jury once.Then he lost.

    That’s when he took the real slide.

  123. Janis Gore says:

    So, I suggest, Congress, because you’re a bunch a half-assed lawyers that couldn’t confine the uptown girl you wanted, that you give it up. Because we’re coming, We’re 51 percent of the electorate.

    And even my mother-in-law, put in her place by her successful husband for 68 years, could call him a horse’s ass.

  124. Janis Gore says:

    Roll with that, dudes.

  125. Janis Gore says:

    SD, SFUT,

  126. Janis Gore says:

    We’re killing you stupid bastards off systematically so we can take over the world. Ha, ha ha ha!

  127. Janis Gore says:

    Twit.

  128. Janis Gore says:

    For your edification, Dennis and Stonetools, the evidence they had was fingerprints on a window frame.

    We’re talking an Orkin bug reducer. (They never get gone down here, no matter how they try.)

  129. Janis Gore says:

    You snotwads merely think you have a silent majority.

  130. Janis Gore says:

    I’m postmenopausal, and I am a nutcase, you unserious, silly, sumbitch.

  131. Janis Gore says:

    Can’t we just cane them to death on site?

  132. Janis Gore says:

    Where y’all think I come from, Mamou?

  133. Janis Gore says:

    For me, these are stories. I’ve never made an effort to confirm them. I loved him, and he loved me for 18 years. That’s enough.

  134. ernieyeball says:

    @Janis Gore: Too much Tequila Janis?

  135. Janis Gore says:

    No. Too much real death.

  136. Janis Gore says:

    That girl drinks too much! She tells you what she knows and she grieves. Y’all got a problem?

    Do you know how horrible this is?

    I had my brother in my own house for nine months, raising him from 145 to 170 pounds. I’ve, with my husband, dragged a fallen man down the hall on a blanket, because he’s 6′ 1″ and too hard to handle alone. That was five years ago.

    Now, he can’t breathe because of chemotherapy? I’m well beyond shame.

    We’re talking Hodgkins of the bone marrow here. Mayo had to diagnose it. No platelets.
    We call this this “Agent Orange.”

    Don’t tell me I’m fucked up. I’ll get by. He’ll die. The first of seven, and I’m the baby. That prospect looks good to you?

  137. Janis Gore says:

    What can I tell you? My husband was a wonderful man, and his children were overprivileged shits. So it goes. I grieve.

  138. Janis Gore says:

    I drive 200 miles to see him, round trip.

  139. Janis Gore says:

    Tequila might be in order. Hornitos, Then I might sleep.

  140. Janis Gore says:

    I’m in the “Who the hell do you think you are?” camp.

  141. Janis Gore says:

    Honestly, I’ve been roaming around on this site for 12 years (or something like that) and I can’t tell you how I feel? I know it’s not facebook, but I sent James and his wife a a cash wedding present when he tied the knot.

  142. Janis Gore says:

    He asked me for a link, back in the day.

  143. Janis Gore says:

    You all talk about things in an abstract way, but I bring you real life observations. That’s why I’m called a journalist, right now.

  144. Janis Gore says:

    And I have a degree from SMU to prove it.

  145. Janis Gore says:

    So what do you think, Ernie?

  146. Janis Gore says:

    I always kept telling my stepsons, “Don’t piss me off.” The consequences will leave you ragged.