So Todd Akin said something pretty stupid, and I agree that he should just drop out as he’s pretty much an embarrassment to us, but before the Democrats act all righteous, I have a reminder for them: Bill Clinton.
Yes, at the Democrats National Convention, they’re going to have a speaker who can probably talk about rape and pregnancy from a much more directly informed opinion. So Democrats are acting all offended by some dumb talk about rape, but remember how they acted when there was an actual charge of rape against a politician? No one actually disputed Juanita Broaddrick or found any indication she was lying, so they just ignored the whole thing and hoped it would go away. And it basically did. So that’s what Democrats do with actual rape: Ignore it. Because rape — just like murder (Ted Kennedy) — is a purely partisan issue to them when it threatens their politics. The only thing that causes legitimate outrage in the left is losing elections. And thus we should be aiming to always cause them outrage.
Remember, when a woman is raped by a democrat and dares to speak about it, she automatically becomes a “bimbo” that must be dealt with…at one time, by their beloved Hillary.
Democrats are a bunch of preverts.
So, is Akin’s “legitimate rape” the same as Whoppi Goldberg’s “rape-rape?”
“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Perhaps the sperm are tagged with little “legitimate rape” signs or something and the female body goes into super sleuth mode.
Wow, that guy knows things I never knew.
Speaking of the free pass, when Clinton was campaigning in 1992, his internal motto for the campaign was, “It’s the economy, Stupid.” On Bush Senior’s watch, unemployment peaked at 7.9% in June 1992. It was down to 7.3% by election day. That was all the reason they needed to say the current leader has to go. Now I’m looking at Google’s unemployment chart and trying to find a month where Obama was president and unemployement was below 8%. I can’t see it if it’s there.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=unemployment_rate&fdim_y=seasonality:S&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:US&ifdim=country&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false&q=unemployment+chart
The point is being missed entirely. Rape is not the issue for Liberals. The point is for any Flukeing Slut to be allowed to abort at will.
“The only thing that causes legitimate outrage in the left is losing elections. And thus we should be aiming to always cause them outrage.”
This reminds me of my favorite campaign slogan: Make Michelle ashamed of America again; unelect her husband.
Akin’s statement regarding rape was correct in that pregnancy is unlikely to result from a rape. Cortisol is one of the main stress hormones released by the adrenal gland. In high levels, it can cause temporary infertility and has been linked to a 90% miscarriage rate in the first 3 weeks of pregnancy. Even at normal levels, cortisol is believed to cause about 30% of miscarriages in the first few weeks of pregnancy.
^ JAGernaut, even if that’s true, it’s still nothing like 100% of the time. Even at 40 or 50% of the normal rate, this would still be a real issue that needed to be dealt with. It was a stupid, offensive statement. (And not just the kind that offends liberals who will get offended if you breathe wrong in their general direction.)
@JAGernaut: I replied to your post in the previous thread to which you previously posted it. My troll detector isn’t all that sharp, so I’ll leave it to others.
Akin totally Bidened himself.
The thing to remember is that…in this day and age, one man’s rapist is another man’s Lion of the Senate.
Before we castigate JAGernaut, can you all read the study published 6/2003, Journal of Endocrinology by Tufts University and the Greek Gov’t that speaks SPECIFICALLY to his point in re cortisol and stressors in general inducing spontaneous abortion; aka miscarriage?
And ask the Duke Lacrosse team about the diff between ‘legitamate’ and “ILLegitamate” rape……or you can aks Crystal Mangum…..
@Burmashave: Here are a couple references for you –
Cortisol, Additional Effects: “Shuts down the reproductive system, resulting in an increased chance of miscarriage and (in some cases) temporary infertility. Fertility returns after cortisol levels return to normal.”
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol – Nelson RF (2011). An Introduction to Behavioral Endocrinology, Fourth Edition. Sunderland, Mass: Sinauer Associates Inc. ISBN 0-87893-620-3]
“Pregnancies exposed to increased cortisol were 2.7 times (95% confidence interval = 1.2–6.2) more likely to be unsuccessful (lost) than those exposed to normal cortisol levels (Rao–Thomas adjusted F1,16 = 3.42, P = 0.03). Whereas 90% of the increased cortisol pregnancies resulted in spontaneous abortions, only 33% of the normal cortisol pregnancies were lost.”
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1533790/]
@Zaklog the Great: I’d like to know when or who claimed that it was 100% impossible for a woman to become pregnant as a result of being raped? As best I can tell, Akin said that pregnancy from rape is “very rare.” He is correct. Apparently it’s about a 5% possibility for rape to cause pregnancy. Therefore, it was not a stupid statement, but a factual one.
Much truth is offensive to many people – does that mean it shouldn’t be said?
@JAGernaut: Do we have any documentation as to cortisol levels during rape, or are we only assuming that the stress of rape causes high levels of cortisol? That would be a large assumption. There are many types of stress, and the extreme stress of rape would cause a variety of hormones with their own interactions. How about some statistics that correlate pregnancy rates for rape victims v. non-victims. I coud go on about this, but I have already dropped into a pointless argument.
Even if there is a lower conception rate for cases of rape, the ethical issues remain the same.
The merits of Akins’ arguments aside, he could have been at most dead right He would have been right. But dead.
That is, no matter how well he could make his argument, he could only alienate those who are on the fence or who disagree with him — even if he were absolutely correct on the facts.
To be right, instead of dead right, Akins could have said what I believe is on his heart. Namely, that his religious convictions keep him from seeing any baby as any less important than any another, and that the baby is innocent of the crime and tragedy of rape, etc.
George Allen was defeated in ’06 because he was unfairly hung by his alleged slur. He might have been the 60th senator against Obamacare. We desperately need that 60th this year, and Akin needs to step aside for the country.
Frank J: is absolutely right to make us laugh about the hypocrisy, but that unfairness is a fact of life.
Jimmy, “legitimate rape” as opposed to “I was sooo drunk last night, and I can’t believe I slept with that loser! Pregnant? Abortion!
A legitimate rape could produce an illegitimate child. But the child of the legitimate illegitimate would then be “the legitimate [son|daughter] of a legitimate illegitimate.” Unless they were raped legitimately.
Jimmy, there is a chance of…yes…a Bar Sinister!
I agree with Burmashave. This is kind of like getting into certain arguments with your wife. Even if you win . . . you lose.
@Zaklog. True. I think of dead right when a guy is chatting with a woman he’s just met. She may say something that really makes no sense at all. You can correct her. You will be dead right when she walks away from you.
@Burmashave: Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but this will be my final response I think-
As best I can tell, cortisol is one of the main hormones released by the adrenal glands in response to emotional and physical stress. Some of it’s main functions include increasing blood sugar, immune system suppression (especially suppression of inflammation), and increasing metabolism. These all sound like “fight / flight” benefits to me, so yes, logically I would assume that rape would cause an increase in cortisol levels. If you have some evidence you would like to present to the contrary, I’d definitely be interested in seeing it.
I don’t have rape vs. normal pregnancy statistics, but I continue to find references to a 5% pregnancy rate resulting from rape. That, combined with the 90% miscarriage rate associated with high cortisol levels during the first three weeks of pregnancy, leads me to believe that actual childbirth resulting from rape is exceedingly rare. Apparently, there is a 15-25% chance of becoming pregnant during each ovulatory cycle for couples who are trying to become pregnant, but that implies multiple instances of sex during that time. One night stands would be the best comparison for consensual sex pregnancies versus rape, but I have no idea where to find reliable information on those numbers.
In any case, you are correct about this being an example of a “dead right” argument. My point is that as Akin is most likely correct, the last thing he needs is people on his own side continuing the foolish derision. We should be spreading the truth, correcting wrongs and leaving the falsehoods to the perpetually-outraged lefties, rather than supporting them in bringing down a good candidate.
@JAGernaut: You do know what happens when you assume?
@JAGernaut:
“I don’t have rape vs. normal pregnancy statistics, but I continue to find references to a 5% pregnancy rate resulting from rape”
Well this European study found a 5% chance of pregnancy from one-time unprotected sex among young couples. Seems to be inline with your number of 5% chance of pregnancy from rape…
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120313-sex-in-the-city-or-elsewhere
The study you cite studies the 3 weeks following pregnancy in 16 women from a small rural Mayan community in Guatemala. The 16 women got pregnant 22 times. 10 pregnancies were classified as “increased cortisol” levels and 12 were classified as “normal cortisol” levels. What if anything does this tell us about the chance of getting pregnant through rape? I don’t see anyone arguing about the chance of a successful birth following a pregnancy from rape…