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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Some rapes are 'legitimate', eh, Mr Akin?
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Well, fuck you. More words fail me... ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Yeah, Assange sure needs a friend like Gorgeous George, although maybe narcissists do attract each other...
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
"The female body has ways to try to shut that sort of thing down," says Akin. I feel like such a fool, all that money wasted on birth control when I could have just used the think system.
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Matariki
Shipmate
# 14380
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Posted
Well Todd Akin on the rabid right and George Galloway on the loony left seem to have a lot in common.
Pseudo scientic bollocks about women who are 'legitimately' raped being less likely to concieve; a sperm is a sperm is a sperm. As for Galloway; complete offensive nonsense. A man who has had a few dodgy shags in his time justifying rape as mere bad manners.I hope the women in his constituency remember this next polling day.
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"Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accompanied alone; therefore we are saved by love." Reinhold Niebuhr.
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
Funny thing about the lunatic fringes. They begin with exaggerated reality and then keep amplifying it again and again until what passes for reality within the group bears little or no relation to the real world.
This is what always happens when a group is insular and suspicious of "others."
So, I am sure Mr. Akin is quite shocked at the reaction to his words. Pity.
Will this be a wake up call for his ilk to take a walk in reality once in a while? Maybe not. After all, the real world not as comfortable as preconceived notions.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
Hasn't he quit yet? Or has he still enough brain-dead people to vote for him and get elected?
He's from Missouri? Missouri used to pride themselves on scepticism. It said so on their car plates.
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Even more so than I was before
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matariki:
Well Todd Akin on the rabid right and George Galloway on the loony left seem to have a lot in common.
Pseudo scientic bollocks about women who are 'legitimately' raped being less likely to concieve; a sperm is a sperm is a sperm.
Can you believe that the sperm that brought Todd Akin and George Galloway into being were really the fastest of some five to ten million?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
This article in Slate maintains that he represents a large group of anti-science know nothings on the right. Here.
He says today that he won't quit because, he's uh, "not a quitter." Seems his state hates the librul opposition so much that it doesn't matter what he says.
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Besides, it's well-known that when Republican Christian Conservative men rape women, there's an automatic shut-down mechanism in their plumbing that causes them to "shoot blanks." So it never counts as "legitimate rape."
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Can you believe that the sperm that brought Todd Akin and George Galloway into being were really the fastest of some five to ten million?
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Exactly, Porridge, and it lends scientific credence to the teenage girls who know they won't get pregnant because their boyfriends love them.
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
In addition to the utter nonsense of woman being able to shut down their bodies to prevent pregnancy from rape, I find Akin's underlying assumption to be . . . words fail me.
What the hell does he mean by "Legitimate?" Is it not rape if the guy doesn't restrain the woman? How about chemicals like ecstasy? Great date and the woman won't pay for her dinner with a little pussy and it's not rape? If she dressed slutty she was "just asking for it?"
What does he mean? How can any human being talk about non consensual sex as anything but rape?
He just gives me the creeps.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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passer
Indigo
# 13329
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
What the hell does he mean by "Legitimate?"
This has also been bothering me. I assumed his intention was to indicate that it had to be a "genuine" rape (stay with me, here) which presumably (in his eyes) means one that has been "proven" by some legal process. However, by the time that has taken place, it would be apparent whether or not the victim was pregnant, which by his reasoning would imply that it wasn't a "legitimate" rape in the first place but a consensual act (I'm starting to sink in this vortex of illogic now) in which case the only "legitimate" rapes would be those which didn't result in pregnancy, which in the absence of third-party witness evidence would be unprovable. I think.
Time for my nap now. I'm exhausted.
Posts: 1289 | From: Sheffield | Registered: Jan 2008
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I suspect this may derive from Galen: it was for many centuries medical orthodoxy that conception required female orgasm. Therefore, if there was a child, the woman had enjoyed the sexual encounter, therefore....
Presumably Mr Atkins doesn't believe in the circulation of the blood, and that our health is ruled by one of four humours (he certainly strikes me as equal parts bile and phlegm).
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
It is also true isn't it that if someone unlawfully shoots someone, the body of the person whose shot will reject the bullet and all will be well. And the nose of the person who is punched illegitimately will reject the punch and not bleed. The stupid clinchpoop.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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monkeylizard
Ship's scurvy
# 952
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Posted
Female mallards can "shut that whole thing down" as gang raping is a common activity in the species. The last time I checked, human <> mallard. Though if I look into the dark corners of the Interwebz, I could probably find some guy raping a mallard. Maybe it would be Akin.
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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. ~ Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903)
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
It appears the "legitimate rape" is code for no abortion under any circumstance in Akin's case. If a woman gets pregnant, she must kinda wanted to have sex.
People like this engender such anger in me.
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I suspect this may derive from Galen: it was for many centuries medical orthodoxy that conception required female orgasm. Therefore, if there was a child, the woman had enjoyed the sexual encounter, therefore....
Were this true, there would be considerable fewer people on the planet.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
I think - although it is extremely difficult to discern through the offensive cack-handedness of the statement - that he was drawing some kind of distinction between rape and statutory rape. Although quite how one can prevent pregnancy is beyond me.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It appears the "legitimate rape" is code for no abortion under any circumstance in Akin's case. If a woman gets pregnant, she must kinda wanted to have sex.
Of course. And we can't let the sluts get by without accepting the consequences of their sluttiness.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
What the hell does he mean by "Legitimate?" Is it not rape if the guy doesn't restrain the woman?
From the quites it looks like he meant something like "rape according to the legal definition of rape" .
Either way, he seems to be a living, breathign example of why schools should have sex eduication lessons. Because if we don;t we are abandoning innocent children to the ignorance ity of people like him. And, presumably, his parents.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It appears the "legitimate rape" is code for no abortion under any circumstance in Akin's case.
Yep, that's about the sum of it. It's just sub-pseudoscientific bullshit designed to deflect the "are abortions OK if the woman was raped" question by asserting that a woman can't get pregnant after being raped.
The really scary thing is that there are probably people out there who actually believe it. For values of "believe it" that equate to "latch on to it with religious fervour because it supports their pre-judged opinions", that is.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
This article/blog says it quite well.
quote:
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 evil content?
As for Galen and the Mallards, please tell me you aren't really trying to understand the reasons for this neanderthal's obscenity.
[edit, link fix]
[ 21. August 2012, 15:01: Message edited by: no prophet ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Heh. I thought that by using the term "legitimate," Akin-head was distinguishing between "rapes-that-really-happened" and all those numerous false accusations by all those multitudinous women who had consensual sex and then changed their little minds afterward.
We all know how common these cases are; women are notoriously unreliable and have no compunction at all about dragging upstanding Republican conservative men through the muck, even when it embroils the women themselves in endless inconvenient criminal-justice proceedings because, after all, what else have these poor misguided creatures to do with their time and energy?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It appears the "legitimate rape" is code for no abortion under any circumstance in Akin's case.
Yep, that's about the sum of it. It's just sub-pseudoscientific bullshit designed to deflect the "are abortions OK if the woman was raped" question by asserting that a woman can't get pregnant after being raped.
The really scary thing is that there are probably people out there who actually believe it. For values of "believe it" that equate to "latch on to it with religious fervour because it supports their pre-judged opinions", that is.
There is almost a Handmaids Tale element to this accurate point by MtM. Maybe in their mad thinking :- "If she gets pregnant it proves it was not rape."
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Either way, he seems to be a living, breathign example of why schools should have sex eduication lessons. Because if we don;t we are abandoning innocent children to the ignorance ity of people like him. And, presumably, his parents.
I take it all back. It seems that he didn't go to some odd sectarian religous school, he wasn't home-schooled and he certainly didn;t go to the ordinary state schools, he went to one of the best-known and poshest private schools in his state. A place with a liberal tradition (and the old school of people like Martha Gellhorn and believe it or not William S Burroughs - both a little before Mr Akin's time) And he must have paid attention to his science classes because after that he studied engineering at a decent university.
So he's not ignorant or stupid.
He really is just a jerk.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Scotus
Shipmate
# 8163
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It appears the "legitimate rape" is code for no abortion under any circumstance in Akin's case. If a woman gets pregnant, she must kinda wanted to have sex.
I'm not sure that your latter sentence necessarily follows from what he said.
Unfortunately his poorly chosen words have overshadowed the consistent logic that if human life exists from the moment of conception, then it is still a human life, however conceived.
'No abortion under any circumstance' has been set up as the most extreme position possible, but it is entirely consistent. Of course, rape is horrific and creates a situation of unimaginable awfulness. Anyone who has been there needs prayer and support, rather than condemnation. Indeed, I hope that is exactly what someone going through this horror would find in the Catholic Church. However it strikes me as odd that making an exception to allow termination in the case of rape has become the yardstick by which someone is judged to be a 'reasonable' rather than 'extreme' pro-lifer - and this seems to be the position adopted by the interviewer.
The most sensible thing Mr Akin said was that in cases of rape it's the offendor who should be punished not any child who may have been conceived.
As for the question about rarity - I do not have the statistics, but is it not the case, as he said, that as a percentage of the overall number of terminations carried out, those where rape is involved are relatively small. I don't think actually said that it wasn't possible to get pregnant through rape, merely (and perhaps incorrectly) that the stressful circumstances of rape make a less conducive context for conception to occur. I don't know if its phyisoloigcally possible or based on any sort of evidence, but is that such an offensive suggestion per se (apart from the way it was expressed)?
[ 21. August 2012, 15:22: Message edited by: Scotus ]
Posts: 422 | From: Diocese of Brentwood | Registered: Aug 2004
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Sighthound
Shipmate
# 15185
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Posted
I find this guy's opinions utterly repulsive. But what is even scarier is that he is a politician from a mainstream party. And what starts in the USA often floats over here.
I wonder a lot lately whether humanity is actually going backwards.
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Supporter of Tia Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue.http://tiagreyhounds.org/
Posts: 168 | From: England | Registered: Sep 2009
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It appears the "legitimate rape" is code for no abortion under any circumstance in Akin's case. If a woman gets pregnant, she must kinda wanted to have sex.
I'm not sure that your latter sentence necessarily follows from what he said.
Unfortunately his poorly chosen words have overshadowed the consistent logic that if human life exists from the moment of conception, then it is still a human life, however conceived.
'No abortion under any circumstance' has been set up as the most extreme position possible, but it is entirely consistent. Of course, rape is horrific and creates a situation of unimaginable awfulness. Anyone who has been there needs prayer and support, rather than condemnation. Indeed, I hope that is exactly what someone going through this horror would find in the Catholic Church. However it strikes me as odd that making an exception to allow termination in the case of rape has become the yardstick by which someone is judged to be a 'reasonable' rather than 'extreme' pro-lifer - and this seems to be the position adopted by the interviewer.
The most sensible thing Mr Akin said was that in cases of rape it's the offendor who should be punished not any child who may have been conceived.
As for the question about rarity - I do not have the statistics, but is it not the case, as he said, that as a percentage of the overall number of terminations carried out, those where rape is involved are relatively small.
Even accepting all that, the notion that whether it's rape or not has ANY relevance to the probability of getting pregnant is just completely stupid.
In fact, such a suggestion only ADDS to the trauma of a woman who gets raped and becomes pregnant as a result.
[ 21. August 2012, 15:23: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Scotus
Shipmate
# 8163
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Even accepting all that, the notion that whether it's rape or not has ANY relevance to the probability of getting pregnant is just completely stupid.
Apologies: I edited my post while you were replying to add this:
quote:
I don't think actually said that it wasn't possible to get pregnant through rape, merely (and perhaps incorrectly) that the stressful circumstances of rape make a less conducive context for conception to occur. I don't know if its phyisoloigcally possible or based on any sort of evidence, but is that such an offensive suggestion per se (apart from the way it was expressed)?
Perhaps stupid, I genuinely don't know enough physiology to rule such a notion completely out of court myself. But offensive? (Which is what people seem to be saying)
Posts: 422 | From: Diocese of Brentwood | Registered: Aug 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
'No abortion under any circumstance' has been set up as the most extreme position possible
I'm struggling to think of a more extreme one, to be honest. Unless you start going down the road of "women should be forced to have babies whether they want to or not", or something...
quote:
However it strikes me as odd that making an exception to allow termination in the case of rape has become the yardstick by which someone is judged to be a 'reasonable' rather than 'extreme' pro-lifer - and this seems to be the position adopted by the interviewer.
It's exactly that position that Akin was seeking to mollify with his sub-pseudoscientific bullshit. Which means that, be it consciously or not, even he recognises that it has merit. If he thought it didn't have merit then he'd have stuck to your position of "no abortions ever" rather than effectively saying "well yes, abortions in the case of rape would be OK - but it's a moot point because pregnancy is impossible in cases of rape".
In fact, he'd be considerably less of a dick if he'd stuck to the extremist argument.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by monkeylizard:
Female mallards can "shut that whole thing down" as gang raping is a common activity in the species.
Are you sure about this? I think there may be some evidence for this mechanism in insects, but in birds it is probably just postulation. This paper
seems to suggest otherwise at any rate.
quote:
Chapter Two experimentally examines the relevance of postcopulatory female control of male fertilization success in comparison to sperm competition. By artificially inseminating groups of four sisters with a sperm mixture containing equal sperm numbers of one brother and one unrelated male we did not observe any effect of parental relatedness on gain of paternity.
Posts: 2799 | From: Nether Regions | Registered: Aug 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
quote:
I don't think actually said that it wasn't possible to get pregnant through rape, merely (and perhaps incorrectly) that the stressful circumstances of rape make a less conducive context for conception to occur. I don't know if its phyisoloigcally possible or based on any sort of evidence, but is that such an offensive suggestion per se (apart from the way it was expressed)?
Perhaps stupid, I genuinely don't know enough physiology to rule such a notion completely out of court myself.
Allow me to assist. In physiological terms, it's complete and total bollocks. A woman's emotional state has no effect whatsoever on how well sperm cells can swim along her fallopian tubes.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
In physiological terms, it's complete and total bollocks. A woman's emotional state has no effect whatsoever on how well sperm cells can swim along her fallopian tubes.
That's not quite true, as it happens. Irrelevant to this argument of course. Women who have been raped can and often do get pregnant.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
But offensive? (Which is what people seem to be saying)
Project yourself into the place of a pregnant victim of rape. How would you feel about the sentiment expressed by Mr Akin in that case?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Well, fuck you. More words fail me...
As ken has pointed out, if you move beyond the headline ans read what the man actually said, it is quite obvious that this use of the word "legitimate" is intended as a reference to the rape claim. He worded it badly and he admitted as much.
After all, I think we all know that men and women alike are capable of making up rape claims, and that not everything that people call rape is so defined by law.
None of that excuses the nonsense that he said about women's bodies "shutting down" the conception process if they are raped but attacking him for a sentiment that was patently not his intention merely serves to weaken the position of those who disagree with him.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Here's what I cannot understand:
The thinking that seems to run as follows . . .
(A). . . women cannot be entrusted with decisions about having sex; it's simply forbidden outside of marriage. Otherwise, the randy little dickens are apt to put out for just about anybody. How else do we account for all these godless heathen and Democrats?
(B). . . women cannot be entrusted with decisions about pregnancy; See (A) above.
(C). . . women are required to risk pregnancy with every sexual act, because pregnancy and childbearing are What Women Exist For, and anyway, it's their God-given nature; that's how they're (intelligently) designed.
(D). . . women are required to bring every blastocyst to term; we can't leave decisions about this in such unreliable hands. See (B) above, and then refer to (C) above.
(E). . . yet women are then to be entrusted with the full-time tender care and nurture, cradle-to-college, of the all-but-inevitable result (with apologies for the feelings of anyone desperately trying to conceive without success).
Why on earth would you hand over the care and feeding of these precious human lives to people so bewildered by their own hormones they're incapable of rational decisions about anything else?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Scotus
Shipmate
# 8163
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
In physiological terms, it's complete and total bollocks. A woman's emotional state has no effect whatsoever on how well sperm cells can swim along her fallopian tubes.
That's not quite true, as it happens. Irrelevant to this argument of course. Women who have been raped can and often do get pregnant.
Whether its irrelevent to the argument depends on what we are arguing.
If we are arguing whether there should be an exception to abortion for rape, then its irrelevant.
If we are arguing whether its possible to get pregant by rape (or, vice-versa, whether pregnancy proves it wasn't really rape) then its irrelevant - but I don't think that is what Mr Akin said.
It may be relevant if we were arguing whether the circumstances surrounding rape can affect the liklihood of conception, but I don't think that is really what the argument is about (and as I've indicated, I don't have enough evidence to form a strong conclusion it does detract from the real issues).
Posts: 422 | From: Diocese of Brentwood | Registered: Aug 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I think using the phrase "legitimate rape" marks him out as deserving attack whatever he meant by it.
Had he been a bit drunk after a hard day's work and chatting in the bar, and chanced upon that unfortunate phrase when he clearly meant "an offence one could legitimately call rape" that would be one thing, but someone campaigning for high office talking to a news outlet should a) know he needs to express himself clearly and b) know that rape is a sensitive issue and it is particularly worth expressing himself clearly.
That he couldn't do any better either marks him out as incompetent, insensitive, careless, or all three.
These all make him unsuitable for office. Irrespective of the nonsensical science he was actually guilty of. And I think Marvin does a good job of unpicking the psychology. The man is clutching at straws to avoid dealing with the implications of what he believes.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
Whether its irrelevent to the argument depends on what we are arguing.
What Akin said was;
quote:
It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that is really rare. [re pregnancy after rape] If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
The implication of it is that a woman who is pregnant is unlikely to have genuinely been raped. I agree he didn't say it was impossible, but "really rare" is quite strong. If I was a pregnant rape victim I would take the implication that I was unlikely to have been genuinely raped badly.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Scotus
Shipmate
# 8163
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Here's what I cannot understand:
The thinking that seems to run as follows . . .
This all seems strangely reminiscent of a purgatory thread about Mary!
The starting point for the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion is the dignity of human life, which begins from conception. Nothing to do with women being forbidden/unable to make decisions for themselves! From this starting point it follows, quite logically, that once a woman is pregnant, any decisions she might make about that pregnancy are no longer simply about her body, but about the life that already exists in her womb.
Posts: 422 | From: Diocese of Brentwood | Registered: Aug 2004
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by passer:
Considering who he is, you'd think George was familiar with the CPS guidance on this sort of assumption.
Hmmm.
I think that categorising some of the ideas on that list as "myths", after defining the word as it is defined on that page is essentially saying that those things are not true, and is just as misleading and dangerous as assuming that those statements are always true.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
The starting point for the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion is the dignity of human life, which begins from conception.... From this starting point it follows, quite logically, that once a woman is pregnant, any decisions she might make about that pregnancy are no longer simply about her body, but about the life that already exists in her womb.
And while I disagree with that view I recognise it is possible to hold that view with intellectual honesty.
To maintain that intellectual honesty one needs to deal with the difficult cases honestly as well - pregnancy after rape, pregnancies with no possibility of survival after birth, pregnancies that will kill the mother if continued to term.
One can admit that those cases are difficult, but point out that one genuinely believes that ending the pregnancy is murder and therefore cannot be countenanced.
What one cannot do with any intellectual honesty is explain those dilemmas away - by suggesting that pregnancy after rape doesn't really happen, that one cannot really be sure that babies won't survive after birth and doctors are wrong all the time, that there are no real instances when mothers will definitely die and it is all about balancing risks etc.
And that is what has led Akin to talk such crap.
[ 21. August 2012, 16:02: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
'No abortion under any circumstance' has been set up as the most extreme position possible
I'm struggling to think of a more extreme one, to be honest. Unless you start going down the road of "women should be forced to have babies whether they want to or not", or something...
I agree that insisting that a woman should not have an abortion even if with-holding the procedure results in the inevitable deaths of both mother and child, as has recently happened in the Dominican Republic, is an extreme position.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Scotus
Shipmate
# 8163
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
That he couldn't do any better either marks him out as incompetent, insensitive, careless, or all three.
Quite possibly, but that's not the same thing as concluding that
quote:
The implication of it is that a woman who is pregnant is unlikely to have genuinely been raped.
If he did truly mean the latter, then he is certainly wrong.
Even if he didn't, your previous assessment as to his suitability for office may will still hold.
But as I said above, all this is losing sight of the fact that he was initially being challenged on the question of whether an exception should be made for rape, with the implication that if he opposed that exception then he was holding an extreme position (rather than a consistent one).
Posts: 422 | From: Diocese of Brentwood | Registered: Aug 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
...the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion...
...is pretty irrelevant, given that Akin isn't a Catholic.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
When he said pregnancy after rape was "really rare" I can't see how that does not immediately imply that any pregnant woman is unlikely to have been raped.
It seems obvious to me. If x is "really rare", then anyone claiming x in their particular case is unlikely to be telling the truth. (Not impossible, but unlikely).
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Scotus
Shipmate
# 8163
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
One can admit that those cases are difficult, but point out that one genuinely believes that ending the pregnancy is murder and therefore cannot be countenanced.
Ah. But 'murder' is an extremely loaded term. It implies the wilful and intentional killing of another human being. One can admit these cases are difficult, maintain that terminating such pregnancies is the same thing as ending a human life and therefore morally wrong, but also show compassion to those who make such decisions in hideous circumstances.
Posts: 422 | From: Diocese of Brentwood | Registered: Aug 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scotus:
he was initially being challenged on the question of whether an exception should be made for rape, with the implication that if he opposed that exception then he was holding an extreme position (rather than a consistent one).
Seems a perfectly reasonable challenge to me. He dealt with it badly. He could have explained why the implication was wrong without saying what he did.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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