Rep. Steve King: I’ve Never Heard Of A Girl Getting Pregnant From Statutory Rape Or Incest

[suffragette]

85. Very much the medieval view of this

Good article in the Guardian on some of the history of that:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-h-word/2012/aug/20/legitimate-rape-medieval-medical-concept

Another good piece on this here (which is where I found the link to the Guardian article):
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-akin-rape-20120820,0,5778696.story

One wonders which doctors Akin has been consulting; apparently, it's the kind who wear cowls on their heads and spend most of their time swirling urine samples around in a flask in search of black bile and other ill humors. Deep in the Middle Ages, it was thought that women could only conceive if they had an orgasm -- thus, it followed that if a woman enjoyed the intercourse, she couldn't possibly have been raped. Vanessa Heggie in The Guardian traced the legal theory generated by this philosphy back to 13th century England and a very early legal text called "Fleta," which states, "If, however, the woman should have conceived in the time alleged in the appeal, it abates, for without a woman's consent she could not conceive."

The pro-life set apparently has a more modern take on this idea, but its scientific illegitimacy -- and the stunning degree to which it denigrates women and rape victims -- remain pretty obvious. Nonetheless, Akin will probably survive the controversy. But that's still not what's scary about this story.

Akin has retracted his statement via Tweet, which won't stop his opponent, incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, from continuing to hammer him for it. Yet McCaskill is up against deep-seated voter anger at incumbents, and until recently Akin was leading her by several percentage points in the polls. His religious conservative backers won't be bothered in the least by his statements on rape, which for them only enhance his anti-abortion credentials. The Missouri race will remain one of the most closely watched Senate contests in the country, and it will likely be close in November.

So what's so scary about Todd Akin? It's that he currently sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which oversees federal spending on non-defense-related research. This is not the kind of post for someone who thinks pregnancy can be suppressed by women's bodies. He also sits on the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, which is not the ideal assignment for a guy who thinks that climate change, if it's happening at all, is probably a result of solar flares. This is, of course, the House the tea party built. Unless voters put a stop to this anti-science movement, the Senate could soon go the same way. Now that's a nightmare.




Scary indeed that someone with his views is in a position to create and/or block science and energy policy.