In Defense of Todd Akin

There have appeared a number of articles defending Todd Akin and his remark about “legitimate rape” in the last several days.

Basically, they boil down to these points:

First, he wasn’t that far off the mark with his comment that “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” regarding the probability of a woman becoming pregnant as a result of rape.

Second, some women have falsely claimed to have been raped. What do you call that kind of “rape”, then, versus …er…uh…legitimate rape?

So why has Akin been castigated?

Bottom line: as one blogger puts it:

Akin has to be slimed even though the facts are virtually self-evident, even if the facts ALL favor Akin.

Especially since the facts all favor Akin.

Everyone else has said it better than I can, so here are links to several articles, with some excerpts from each (I recommend you read them in their entirety):

Akin Not Far Off Base in Rape Comment

Is the risk of pregnancy lower with forcible rape, and if so, why? Off the cuff, Todd Akin gave a layman’s restatement of the point made by some pro-life physicians that the female body has some defense mechanisms against pregnancy in cases of rape.

The process of fertilization, implantation and maintenance of pregnancy is an intricate one, highly dependent on hormonal signals. Stress is conceded to make miscarriage more likely by disrupting the hormonal milieu. What could be more stressful than a forcible rape?

The Fifth Column: The GOP Cassandra

What does Akin mean by "a legitimate rape"? Well, according to this news story, FBI and US DOJ studies over the course of years have demonstrated that about one in four rape allegations are fabricated. False. Made up. Created out of whole cloth.

And we already know [follow that link for some informative research done by Mr. Skellmeyer] that rapists impregnate women at a lower rate than is normally expected. That is, we already know that Mr. Akin is correct.

Fact: An unfertilized human egg lasts 24 hours in the reproductive tract.
Fact: A woman can't get pregnant unless she ovulates.
Fact: Stress delays ovulation.
Fact: Rape is stressful.
Conclusion: Therefore, rape is likely to cause delayed ovulation and result in no pregnancy than a normal act of consensual intercourse.

These facts are individually uncontested
It's only when you put the facts together and draw the conclusion that the liberals begin frothing at the mouth.

Why?

Well, they are heavily invested in abortion.

And then there’s a very eye-opening article by Rebecca Kiessling, which she ran on her blogand which was picked up by LifeSiteNews, entitled “Women Who Cried Wolf: The Illegitimate Rape Claim Behind Roe v. Wade”. Ms. Kiessling is both a product and a victim of rape, not to mention domestic violence; it is definitely worth your while to read her entire post. Here’s a snippet:

The largest illegitimate rape claim ever perpetrated in the history of our nation was the foundation for the filing of Roe v Wade, which led to abortion on demand in our country! So the next time you hear anyone complaining about Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” remark, I want you to remember that abortion rights activists are the women who cried wolf. They are the ones who are squarely responsible for the skepticism we see today regarding women who claim to be pregnant by rape, and they’ve set an example for other women to lie about it too. For those on the left who criticize Akin, I can assuredly call you out as hypocrites.

And for those who make the rape exception, some blame rests on you as well. After all, once you make a rape exception, you now have to set a standard in order to determine whether a claim of rape is legitimate so that the government will not be defrauded when a woman wants to receive Medicaid funding to abort her child – as in the Hyde Amendment exceptions. Rape exceptions put the government in this position – whether they require a police report, social service agency report, or a doctor’s certification that he’s satisfied that the woman’s claim of rape is legitimate.

Finally, I just noticed today, via LifeSiteNews, that

A poll of likely Missouri general election voters released this morning shows that, far from being out of the race, embattled Senate candidate Todd Akin has regained his lead over Senator Claire McCaskill by a 45% to 42% margin, with 13% undecided.

I think that maybe most people realize that Akin wasn’t making a demeaning comment about “legitimate rape”, but was just looking at things realistically.

And in the final analysis of course, the whole thing is really about whether a baby conceived in rape can be legally killed in the womb. After all, as the photo below indicates, the child conceived in rape is just as much a child as the one conceived in a loving marital embrace.