I'd like to know how those of you who are leaning to the right on these issues feel about the redfining of rape, and the comments made by Akin? I mean, do you really think Men should be making legislative decisions regarding biological process they will never ever experience (such as pregnancy, menstruation) but honestly, how do you feel about those comments? Do they scare you or make you feel like Akin and some republicans who have agreed with him (Incuding Rick Santorum) are domestic terrorists or a threat to women?
- First of all 99% of Republicans have asked Akin to step down. The reaction was instant. There was near universal disgust and annoyance. If you step back for a second beyond the current politics and look at the situation, you'll have to admit that treating Growing Pain star Kirk Cameron and his friends as representative of Republican voters or power-brokers is a pretty disingenuous.
- Second, the craziness of Akin's position is that it is based on "science" that no one else has ever heard of. I have never once heard a pro-life advocate suggest that a woman's body can prevent pregnancies under extreme durress/terror. I know that fertility doctors say that stress can make conception less likely, but Akin seems to take that to a truly scary extreme.
- I think Akin was trying to say that pregnancy's from non-date rape are extremely rare. Based on his reasoning, whatever he thinks a woman's body does when it is attacked, it may not do during a date rape since date is necessarily forced. Date rape is rape because the women is in no capacity to choose- she might be drunk or drugged, for example. Obviosuly lots of people outside the pro-life movement (including legal thinkers) distinguish between date rape and other rapes, since we all know what each term means. But I have never heard anyone else, including anyone in the pro-life moevement make this distinction as between "legitimate" and "illigitimate". Rape is rape, period. Nonethless, I think that is what he was getting at. Once again, I would say nearly 100% of Republicans would disagree with him on this point and the public reaction proves this.
- As far as his Akin's larger point, I think he was trying to say that pregnancy's from non-date rape are exceedingly rare and that if 99% of abortions have nothing to do with rape at all, then the rape exception should not be at the center of the pubic-policy debate. I have never heard anyone else make a distinction between legitimate and illigitimate rape in this context, but I think that is what he was getting at.
- I am not a Santorum fan, but I have heard nothing that suggests he agrees with Akin's crazy medical claim. No doubt he would agree that all abortion is murder since he believes that babies are human beings and that does not change just because one's dad is a horrible criminal. I would estimate that 85% of Republican think abortion should be allowed in cases of rape, but that is not why Akin is getting flack.
- I really don't understand what having an "experience" of a biological process has to do with either (1) the nature of that process, or (2) moral action. If it's an innocent human being, its an innocent human being. If it is a matter of science, emotions are irrelevant. It its a matter of metaphysics and morality, emotions are irrelevant (as far as the act goes). Emotions are really only relevant in the political realm insofar as they tend to make supporting one argument or another easier.
- The domestic terrorism idea is truly amazing. The idea that you would be a terrorist because you think that rape is (a) an absolute, unexcused evil that is the fault of neither the woman
nor the child but the rapist alone has absolutely nothing to do with (b) attempting to achieve political ends through indiscriminate violence against innocent people. There has been near universal consensus in every Christian society for centuries that abortion is unequivocally wrong in all cases. Were all our grandfathers and mothers essentially terrorists?
It is a brand new idea (last 50 years) that women have a "right" to abortion rather than a right to abstain from unwanted sexual advances. The idea that women would have to carry the child of a rapist is, without a doubt, a truly sickening tragedy. For that reason, the men that created past legal regimes protected women from rape with the death penalty (which the Supreme Court overturned in the last few decades as overly harsh). There is little more that you can do than that. They also recognized that men and women needed to generally avoid situations where "he-said-she-said" controversies might arrise, so they were much less tolerant of unmarried men and women being alone together. In our naivite we assume they were just prudes. In reality, they were being protective of women. Moreever, there was also mandatory child support for fathers (which is fading because the man supposedly has nothing to do with the situation before) and socially stigmatization of sex outside of marriage where things could not be proved in court (which is still a huge problem for modern women, see Kobe Bryant). There were also orphanages where the child would almost inevitably end up.
Contemporary western men and women, in line with some other non-Christian cultures, now seem to broadly agree that it is so unfair to burden a woman with carrying that child that she is justified in killing it. That is certainly an emotionally understandable postiion, but I don't think those who think the child is a human being that can't be killed can so easily be branded as uncompassionate, much less terrorists! What a horrible prospect that such phrases are being thrown around in these debates-or so-called debates!
