It’s kind of sad that American politics has come to the point where Obama needs to state the obvious about rape:
President Obama has weighed in on Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) comments that women don’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape” because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” During an impromptue press conference on Monday, Obama said, “The views expressed were offensive. Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we’re talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people.” “So what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians — a majority whom are men — making health care decisions on behalf of women,” he added.
Exactly. Though I wish Obama took one more sentence to point out that what Akin claimed has no scientific merit. Especially since Akin is on House Science Committee. A terrifying idea, indeed.
If you want to know the science behind rape, stress, and pregnancy, Kate Clancy has written a great post for Scientific American following this political kerfuffle. The short answer:
Yes, psychosocial stress is associated with fetal loss in some samples. That is not the same thing as saying that stress causes fetal loss. Some women are more reactive to stress than others, and this seems to be based on genes and early childhood experiences. As I pointed out in my post, it certainly isn’t something women have conscious control over. And so it is irrational to link the stress of rape, while awful and severe, to fetal loss, when we understand the mechanism of the stress response and its relationship to pregnancy so poorly, and when we know next to nothing regarding how variation in stress reactivity is produced.
Or instead of understanding the science, you can be like Rep. Steve King (R) and remark how you never heard of someone getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest. Because if you’ve never personally heard of something happening, that means it must be true. It only took a minute of Googling for me to find a scientific paper showing 0.5% of women getting abortions had their pregnancy result from incest, and that obviously doesn’t address the women who didn’t get abortions. But it’s still greater than King’s claim of zero.
126 comments
Doug McClean says:
Aug 23, 2012
This statement is an EPIC failure.
The pregnancies we are most directly discussing here on this thread (although the principle of bodily autonomy obviously applies in all circumstances) is RAPE, jackass.
Someone who is being raped pretty clearly does not have bodily autonomy, I think you would have to agree, since that is pretty much the fucking definition.
Incredible own goal, incredible callousness. Nicely done.
FORMER Fetus says:
Aug 23, 2012
ANY CATHOLIC who agrees with abortion is no longer a Catholic. So your statement makes no sense. Come back when you actually understand Catholicism, I mean beyond a Baltimore Catechism level.
FORMER Fetus says:
Aug 23, 2012
uh……… medicine has come a long way since grannie was delivering babies back by the horse barn~
FORMER Fetus says:
Aug 23, 2012
The wrongdoing of a man doesn’t justify the death of an innocent child. You need more balance in your outlook.
Dee Emarr says:
Aug 23, 2012
Seriously?
Relating a rape survivor’s story who got pregnant is not “anecdotal evidence”. If he were trying to prove that, for example, all rapes lead to pregnancy, then you’d have a point. But the statement “X cannot lead to Y” can be legitimately disproven by a single story where “X once led to Y”.
Furthermore, this wasn’t even used as “evidence” that rape can cause pregnancy. That fact is freaking obvious. This was a story used to put a face on a rape/abortion situation, and to give a voice to one of the people that we are all arguing about. It’s time we actually listened to someone who has been in that situation.
Dee Emarr says:
Aug 23, 2012
You’re taking him so preposterously out of context that it’s ridiculous. The sentence you’re quoting him is in a paragraph in which he says the exact opposite of what you’re implying that he’s saying.
Full quote:
“As a biological phenomenon, religion is the product of cognitive processes that have deep roots in our evolutionary past. Some researchers have speculated that religion itself may have played an important role in getting large groups of prehistoric humans to socially cohere. If this is true, we can say that religion has served an important purpose.
This does not suggest, however, that it serves an important purpose now. There is, after all, nothing more natural than rape. But no one would argue that rape is good, or compatible with a civil society, because it may have had evolutionary advantages for our ancestors. That religion may have served some necessary function for us in the past does not preclude the possibility that it is now the greatest impediment to our building a global civilization.”
He’s saying that just because something arises naturally, that doesn’t mean that it’s good. And he uses rape as an example precisely BECAUSE rape is so obviously horrifically wrong.
Doug McClean says:
Aug 23, 2012
Clarissa,
Here’s some empirical epidemiological evidence for you to back up the anecdotes, since evidently you are too lazy to look for yourself. (I believe Ed linked a similar study or this same one a few days ago, but it might have been a commenter.)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8765248
FORMER Fetus says:
Aug 23, 2012
Nachash, Orthodox Jews are not like all Jews.
Liberal Jews have no proximity to God, who cares what moral fabrications they come up with?
I know I don’t. You shall not murder is Amish plain to me!
You rejected Jesus Christ, and God destroyed your Temple, ended your priesthood, and returned you to the nations.
Covenanted Israel is not found in the present state of Israel. You haven’t even have an authentic liturgy for almost 2,000 years.
Israel continued in the Catholic Church.
Nóthros one, It’s only all pervasive morality declarations from the Catholic Church—to humanity, that matter today.
Oenotrian says:
Aug 23, 2012
If I recall correctly, the 9-year-old was carrying twins, making the odds on her surviving the pregnancy even slimmer.
SallyStrange: Elite Femi-Fascist Genius says:
Aug 23, 2012
I’m not. I’m a future corpse.
anat says:
Aug 24, 2012
See Anatomy of an unsafe abortion.
When abortion is legal and easily accessible to all this is highly unlikely to happen.
anat says:
Aug 24, 2012
Sorry, html fail.
Anatomy of an unsafe abortion
anat says:
Aug 24, 2012
And also see When safe abortion isn’t a choice
People trying to reduce access to abortion are the murderers.
But if you really care about reducing the number of abortions, here are some good ways to go about it:
– Support comprehensive sex-ed in all schools, object to abstinence only programs.
– Support easy and cheap access to all methods of birth control to all.
– Promote programs to reduce poverty, especially among families with young children.
– Promote availability of affordable daycare services for low-income mothers.
Actions like these will reduce demand for abortion. Those who do not support them yet rage about abortion aren’t about the fetuses, they are about punishing slutty-sluts who dared to have sex.
anat says:
Aug 24, 2012
To Clarissa:
I should be allowed to evict unwanted organisms from my body just like I can evict them from my house.
anat says:
Aug 24, 2012
It is not a child until it is born.
Types of Rape says:
Aug 26, 2012
First, Akin is an idiot.
Second, so is Obama. Our legal system defines several different types of rape, so Obama is way off the mark.
There is Forcible Rape (what is probably the type of rape most people think of as “rape is rape”).
There is Diminished Capacity Rape (passed out drunk, or having sex with someone who is mentally incapable of consent).
There is Felony Statutory (much older man, girl under the age of consent).
There is Misdemeanor Statutory (usually a young adult male and slightly younger female).
There is Marital Rape (still legal is some places).
There is Rape by Fraud. (Pretending to be someone else).
Certainly, none of these result in a female “natural defense” mechanism like Akin claims, so he’s an idiot. But to say “rape is rape” is just plain stupid (especially for someone who went to law school like Obama). Obama is merely pandering to the emotions that the majority of us have when we think about what our legal system defines as Forcible Rape. However, rape is clearly not just rape as he claims.
portia says:
Aug 26, 2012
Fuck off with your racist, appropriative, condescending, BULLSHIT.
portia says:
Aug 26, 2012
*applause*
portia says:
Aug 26, 2012
Well, they are human. They’re just not persons, nor should they be treated as such. /pedant.
portia says:
Aug 26, 2012
I think your legal pedantry misses the point completely. The fact that there are legal distinctions between the circumstances of different rapes doesn’t make any one of them more “legitimate” than another. That was the point of the President’s remarks, I do believe. And your protests of pandering are beside that point entirely.
Types of Rape says:
Aug 26, 2012
What you are saying is that an 18 year old high school student having what s/he thinks is consensual sex with a 16 year old high school student is the same thing as a woman being drugged or violently raped… Really? Seeing as how the vast majority of Americans likely fit into this scenario during their final year in high school, I’d say that you have projected the horrific nature of all other rapes onto statutory rape to justify our President’s statement (and more importantly justify your support of his statement).
There are legal distinctions because rape is defined in our laws not just our morals. The term “legitimate rape” is just asinine, and nowhere did I mention one rape being legitimate while others are not.
There are legal distinctions for different types of murder, theft, and all other crimes. It doesn’t make any of those crimes “legitimate” or not. It’s simply a matter of law. Keep that in mind next time you are caught speeding, running a red light, or parked illegally. You’ll be very happy that there are legal distinctions between different levels of crimes.
To make another distinction more clear from my comment: Obama is a lawyer. He knows that there are legal distinctions of rape. He very easily could have said something along the lines of “Rape is a heinous crime that we don’t distinguish as legitimate or not. It is never legitimate.” That statement would have been both powerful and factual because our courts don’t distinguish between legitimate rape and illegitimate rape, but our courts do not see all “rape as rape”.
Obama is an educated lawyer who knows better. It’s not like he didn’t have time to prepare a statement. That is what my comment was about: an educated lawyer who is now President making a statement that goes against the very laws he was educated on. Not unlike Akin making foolish statements about something he should be educated on given his position on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. It was one foolish statement followed by another.
portia says:
Aug 26, 2012
Forgive me if this is presumptuous, but are you perchance in your first year of law school? You seem to have what I like to call One El Syndrome. (I was afflicted at one point, don’t feel bad). We are all very impressed by your vast knowledge of criminal law, and it remains absolutely unrelated to the point that “Rape is rape.” To your point, murder is murder, in that at the end a person is still dead. Regardless of whether the person was driving drunk or putting poison in someone’s wine. To compare the President’s remarks to those of Akin is patently ridiculous. Declaring that ALL rape is wrong is nowhere close to spreading a horrifically damaging lie about female anatomy.
Types of Rape says:
Aug 26, 2012
Here I was under the impression that we were talking about Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment and not his complete lack of understanding of female anatomy. After all, that is the content that our President was referring to.
It’s astonishing that you can view the world in such black and white terms though. Murder is murder? Really? I hope you are never on a jury. You’d convict a woman of murder for a late term abortion I take it. Or a woman who shot and killed a man who was attacking her and trying to rape her.
And yes, comparing Obama’s statement to Akin’s statement about female anatomy would be ridiculous. However, I was making the statement about the idiotic term “legitimate rape” and Obama’s foolish “rape is rape” (particularly since he is a lawyer). Since there are forms of rape that are completely defined by law (high school students having sex with each other) then not all “rape is rape”. Except in your black and white world.
Dianne says:
Aug 27, 2012
The majority of abortions are performed at less than 8 weeks, when there is literally no brain to “suck out.” The vast majority are performed at less than 12 weeks and unless you’re a strict vegetarian, you eat things with more brains than that on a regular basis. You are delusional if you think that a typical elective abortion occurs on a fetus with significant brain mass, much less activity.
Dianne says:
Aug 27, 2012
If you include the possibility of cloning and count every nucleated cell as a person then you have to consider…the holocaust in your toilet!
Dianne says:
Aug 27, 2012
Formerhaploidcell, didn’t you read the comment above? A teenage girl recently died because she couldn’t get chemotherapy because she was pregnant with her uncle’s child. All the medical advances in the world won’t help if you can’t access them.