First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
"Thing"? What "thing" is he talking about? And how dare he! And what exactly is "legitimate" rape? Is there really such a thing as an illegitimate rape? Does he not know that, as President Obama responded, "rape is rape"? Someone forcibly entering another person, violating their body, attacking their dignity, destroying their life, ruining their sense of confidence, ripping them of their right and freedom to say NO? Naa, it's just a "thing" we're talking about here, and who'd know better than Akin himself how a rape victim can shut the whoooole thing down! Oh, wait a minute - he's never been raped. Heck, he doesn't even know what rape is! Because, obviously, some people do have a right to violate another person's body. I wonder who those people are and when they can have that right. Perhaps a husband forcing himself on a wife? Perhaps an individual abusing his position of authority to force himself on an individual with a lower position? I don't know--I can't imagine when rape can ever be okay. I can't imagine who wouldn't let go once they're told "NO"; I can't imagine who doesn't know that NO really actually does mean NO. You're not wanted inside someone, don't go in, you unwelcomed dirty piece of shit. And, surprise surprise--most rapists are people that the victim knows very well, like a boyfriend, husband, father, uncle, etc. Yes, you read that correct - a husband can rape his wife, and that happens whenever he forces himself on her, like when she's unwilling, uncomfortable, maybe not ready. And so on!!!!
You, Todd Akin, are destroying the life of the mother of the unborn child of rape in order to save the life of that unborn child of rape.
Okay, so the letter below is one of the best responses I've seen to Akin's comments about rape. He claims he "misspoke," but c'mon--what fool is gonna believe that. No one ever misspeaks something like "if it's legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," you moron.
It's written in a way that I couldn't respond to such an ignorant statement, even though it is written by a rape survivor who is now helping other rape victims regain what they have lost.
By Eve Ensler
Dear Todd Akin,
I am writing to you tonight about rape. It is 2 AM and I am unable to sleep here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am in Bukavu at the City of Joy to serve and support and work with hundreds, thousands of women who have been raped and violated and tortured from this ceaseless war for minerals fought on their bodies.
I am in Congo but I could be writing this from anywhere in the United States, South Africa, Britain, Egypt, India, Philippines, most college campuses in America. I could be writing from any city or town or village where over half a billion women on the planet are raped in their lifetime.
Mr. Akin, your words have kept me awake.
As a rape survivor, I am reeling from your recent statement where you said you misspoke when you said that women do not get pregnant from legitimate rape, and that you were speaking "off the cuff."
Clarification. You didn't make some glib throw away remark. You made a very specific ignorant statement clearly indicating you have no awareness of what it means to be raped. And not a casual statement, but one made with the intention of legislating the experience of women who have been raped. Perhaps more terrifying: it was a window into the psyche of the GOP.
You used the expression "legitimate" rape as if to imply there were such a thing as "illegitimate" rape. Let me try to explain to you what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.
When you, Paul Ryan and 225 of your fellow co-sponsors play with words around rape suggesting only "forcible" rape be treated seriously as if all rapes weren't forcible, it brings back a flood of memories of the way the rapists played with us in the act of being raped -- intimidating us, threatening us,muting us. Your playing with words like "forcible" and "legitimate" is playing with our souls which have been shattered by unwanted penises shoving into us, ripping our flesh, our vaginas, our consciousness, our confidence, our pride, our futures.
Now you want to say that you misspoke when you said that a legitimate rape couldn't get us pregnant. Did you honestly believe that rape sperm is different than love sperm, that some mysterious religious process occurs and rape sperm self-destructs due to its evilcontent? Or, were you implying that women and their bodies are somehow responsible for rejecting legitimate rape sperm, once again putting the onus on us? It would seem you were saying that getting pregnant after a rape would indicate it was not a "legitimate" rape.
Here's what I want you to do. I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are on your bed or up against a wall or locked in a small suffocating space. Imagine being tied up there and imagine some aggressive, indifferent, insane stranger friend or relative ripping off your clothes and entering your body -- the most personal, sacred, private part of your body -- and violently, hatefully forcing themself into you so that you are ripped apart. Then imagine that stranger's sperm shooting into you and filling you and you can't get it out. It is growing something in you. Imagine you have no idea what that life will even consist of, spiritually made in hate, not knowing the mental or health background of the rapist.
Then imagine a person comes along, a person who has never had that experience of rape, and that person tells you, you have no choice but to keep that product of rape growing in you against your will and when it is born it has the face of your rapist, the face of the person who has essentially destroyed your being and you will have to look at the face every day of your life and you will be judged harshly if you cannot love that face.
I don't know if you can imagine any of this (leadership actually requires this kind of compassion), but if you are willing to go to the depth of this darkness, you will quickly understand that there is NO ONE WHO CAN MAKE THAT CHOICE to have or not have the baby, but the person carrying that baby herself.
I have spent much time with mothers who have given birth to children who are the product of rape. I have watched how tortured they are wrestling with their hate and anger, trying not to project that onto their child.
I am asking you and the GOP to get out of my body, out of my vagina, my womb, to get out of all of our bodies. These are not your decisions to make. These are not your words to define.
Why don't you spend your time ending rape rather than redefining it? Spend your energy going after those perpetrators who so easily destroy women rather than parsing out manipulative language that minimizes their destruction.
And by the way you've just given millions of women a very good reason to make sure you never get elected again, and an insanely good reason to rise.
#ReasonToRise
Eve Ensler
Bukavu, Congo
SOURCE: Huffingtonpost
Such ignorant morons exist! wow! and he's like umm the future leader? even better. and he says he misspoke? woah! Tell me he's not real, tell me he's not alive. but he's not the only one of his kind. Breaks my heart.
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