For the Bible tells me so: Todd Akin and Legitimate Rape

By

Sean Ewart

Congressman Todd Akin, of Missouri's 2nd District, opened up to the media, Sunday, about his Bible-based opinions on rape.

Missouri Congressman Todd Akin is not ending his pursuit of a Senate seat this fall. This news comes after nearly two full days of his colleagues, Republican leaders from across the nation, declaring their outrage at comments the Congressman made Sunday. His only crime, in the eye's of most of his Republican cohorts, is speaking too freely with the press.

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” said Todd, speaking with all the certainty of a five year old who knows why the world spins.

Todd, indeed, was honest – painfully, but informatively so. Speaking on the Jaco Report Todd affirmed his position in opposition to abortion in all cases, rape included. The point he was attempting to make is one commonly heard by members of the anti-choice community. If, as they believe, a soul is created the moment a sperm and egg make contact, abortion is murder.

This is the justification behind the various state and federal personhood amendments (like the one cosponsored by Congressman and Vice Presidential hopeful Paul Ryan) that would criminalize abortion. It is also the line of thinking that motivates terrorists, the likes of Paul Hill and the Reverend Donald Spitz, to continue their murderous jihad against abortion doctors. (For more on that, please read The Gadfly Press' June interview with Rev. Spitz).

Even as former Governor and current Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and his partner in etch-a-sketch-ing, Paul Ryan, attempted, Monday, to distance themselves from the big-mouthed Akin, the reality is glaringly obvious: Akin just gave up the whole game.

Republicans agree entirely with what Todd said, just not how he said it.

The Romney campaign was quick to assure everyone that, “yes, rape is rape, and yes, we still believe abortion is always murder.” Sure, they threw in a caveat saying a Romney-Ryan regime would allow exceptions in the case of rape – but in the Ryan dictionary, at least, that means only “forcible rape.”

And that, as it turns out, is what Todd meant to say. Asked to clarify what, exactly, he meant by “legitimate rape,” the fearless Akin said he meant “forcible rape.” In other words, if a woman is forcibly raped, the Congressman believes, “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Conversely, if you get pregnant following rape, you were not “legitimately raped.” You were asking for it.

This article begs the question: does Akin believe the victims of systematic rape in Bosnia were asking for it?

Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, said on National Public Radio's On Point talk show that she believes Akin's policy, the one criminalizing abortion, is founded on “junk science.” That, in fact, has largely been the response from members of the “correct wing” - the Left. It's the classic, “science tells us that forcible rape can result in pregnancy” argument. Yup! Todd Akin is talking about really, really bad science.

But let's be clear. The “junk science” is simply not the basis of Todd's policy. It is not the basis of Ryan's policy either, nor that of the GOP, which recently agreed on draft policy that would, again, see support for a personhood amendment grafted onto their party platform.

Even O'Neill says she hasn't heard Ryan use junk science to defend his policy. Really, Todd was bending over backwards in an attempt to win people over for “science's sake.” After all, you certainly don't need a rape exception if you can't get pregnant from rape!

The truth is, for Akin, Ryan, and the GOP in general, the “science” follows the policy. Even though If the science doesn't support them, it doesn't matter, they still think abortion is always wrong. Why? Because the Bible tells them so.

The New York Times reported, “Throughout his political career, Representative Todd Akin’s agenda has been driven by a belief that his mission came from God.”

His mission did not come from science. The science, junk or not, is irrelevant to the issues Todd speaks about. Rather, his policy arrived several thousand years ago.

And, as it so happens, so did his concept of “legitimate rape.” The Bible, not known for taking a strong position in defense of women's rights, contains what could sympathetically be characterized as the precursor of Todd's politics (I say sympathetically because, actually, I think it's just exactly the same thing).

Here we go:

“If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.” – Deuteronomy 22:23-24.

The basic idea is, "you didn't scream loud enough, so you must have been asking for it." It's the stone age version of Akin's, "you got pregnant, so you must have been asking for it," policy. 

At least it's tough on the rapist too, right Todd? (Actually, the Bible says that if the man happened to rape a virgin not pledged to be married, he merely needed to pay her father 50 shekels and promise not to divorce her in order to get off the hook. This still is the penal code in some Muslim countries like Morocco).

You see, the idea that Todd or Ryan or Romney or the GOP in general needs “science” to support their claim that even forcible rape (as if that is somehow more “legitimate” than other rape) is a “woman's” problem, is absurd. Rape is a “woman's” problem the way the Holocaust was a “Jewish” problem.

The fact is rape is a male problem. Just look at the number of men the world round who commit acts of violent and “non-violent” (wtf?) rape. Line them all up in your head. Now check out the line of female rapists. Exactly.

It's just that the Bible blames women, and thus, so does Akin, Ryan, and the GOP.

Remember that when you walk to your polling place in November.