Is there such a thing as an “illegitimate rape”?
Apparently Rep. Todd Akin thinks there is, and the hilarious Rob Delaney isn’t about to let him get away with saying so.
Evan McMorris-Santo of TalkingPointsMemo.com reported that the ultra-conservative Republican Senate Nominee said the following:
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.
Rob Delaney fired back at Akin on twitter:
And in the first 45 minutes after Delaney shared the article and Akin’s Twitter handle, Delaney’s Twitter following (which is over 550,000 people) have responded with dozens of tweets to Rep. Akin suggesting everything from taking a basic biology course to mobilizing voters to keep guys like Akin out of office.
What do you think of Rep. Akin’s statements?
How about Rob Delaney’s response?
Can you imagine if someone had asked this guy if it’s possible for a man to be raped? Guessing he’s not too progressive on that issue, either…
Let Rep. Akin know what you think!
Watch Akin’s interview to hear him explain the difference between “legitimate rape” and whatever else he’s implying:
UPDATE Sunday 6:15pm EST:
Yes, #LegitimateRape is now trending:
And Rep. Todd Akin has issued a clarification:
“As a member of Congress, I believe that working to protect the most vulnerable in our society is one of my most important responsibilities, and that includes protecting both the unborn and victims of sexual assault. In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year. Those who perpetrate these crimes are the lowest of the low in our society and their victims will have no stronger advocate in the Senate to help ensure they have the justice they deserve.
Well first, sir, it’s not just thousands of women, it’s hundreds of thousands. The DOJ estimates the number to be around 300,000 women raped per year in the US alone.
Beyond that, just so you know, the percentage of rapes that actually result in jail time for the perpetrator is around 0.35%. So while you believe the perp should be the one punished, not the fetus, I (and others) would like to know exactly what YOU are going to do about putting these perpetrators in jail as well as making solid strides toward preventing rapes in all populations of people.
We hear your retraction, now let’s see some action.
About Joanna Schroeder
No doubt tomorrow we can expect a clarification, that he just meant “legitimate rape” is when you’re raped by someone whose parents were married at the time they were conceived.
When I read this, it seemed that he was making a distinction between women who were raped and women who falsely claimed rape. If I remember correctly, one of the concerns (excuses) I’ve heard for denying an exception for rape and incest by the anti-abortion movement is that it would encourage women to falsely report rape. His pseudo science seems to support the idea. Hey, if a woman was actually raped, she wouldn’t get pregnant so no exception needed.
His pseudo science is full of shit and as a programmer I can tell you that garbage in = garbage out.
The headline seem to be out of whack since one meaning of illegitimate is “Not authorized by the law; not in accordance with accepted standards or rules”. So, yes, there is such a thing as “illegitimate rape”. All rape is illegitimate by law – at least in the US.
Shouldn’t the headline rather read “Is there such a thing as “legitimate rape”?
This of course makes the term “legitimate rape” even more repulsive, although if I am charitable I think the nimrod tried to make a distinction (for what purpose I don’t know) between rape and false accusations (where the woman claims a rape has occurred, but a rape didn’t occur).
This source (http://www.pandys.org/articles/rapeandpregnancy.html ) says pregnancy rates resulting from rape can be between <1% and 4.7%, but there are likely some underreporting.
I have a strong suspicion that mr. Akin have gotten his "facts" from this site: http://realweb.ifastnet.com/stats.html or sites like it which states that hormone production is easily influenced by emotions and a rape is traumatic and emotional and that have an effect on the sophisticated mixture of hormones a woman produces during a pregnancy. All unsourced except one mentioning of "Every women is aware…" . When it comes to how big an effect this has they use the oxymoronic "No-one really knows, but this factor certainly cuts..” (my emphasis).
I’ve seen figures as high as 30,000 pregnancies by rape per year.
That number is probably from this study which estimates 32.000 pregnancies resulting from rape. I don’t know exactly what the premises for that estimate is (as the paper itself is behind pay-wall), but here’s the pertinent part from the abstract:
The 5% is not an estimation, it’s the result from surveying 4008 adult women.
I can’t help but wonder how many of the 1.1 million men who were forced to penetrate someone or were the victim of an attempt to do so ended up fathering a child? They are currently totally at the mercy of their rapist when it comes to obligations towards the resulting child. They don’t have the possibility of abortion or adoption and there has been examples of these victims being forced to pay child support to their rapist by courts.
Forgot the link to the study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8765248
He probably wasn’t thinking very clearly when he said that. I would speculate that a “illegimate rape” is something where the woman wants it but says no anyway, or maybe rape within a legitimate marriage. But we can’t really know.
However the thing that is more clear is this factually WRONG notion that a woman’s body will “shut it down” if she doesn’t want to conceive. The only way that works is if there is some sort of artificial contraception involved. Your reproductive system will gladly perpetuate the species regardless of what your conscious mind wants. I would guess this is just a rationalization for opposing abortion in cases of rape, one that was allowed to stew in his uninformed mind for too long.
Someone on Reddit pointed out that one of the implications of mr. Akin’s statement is that since the bodies of raped women “shuts down” any pregnancies then it logically follows that a pregnancy is proof/strong indication of consent (non-rape) and can be used as a defense for an accused rapist.
Now, that’s disturbing.
That is horrifying. See what happens when you spout stupid shit, Akin? Idiots believe you.
Based on your reply I feel I have to clarify. The person on Reddit who pointed this out did not believe in mr. Akin’s premise and just pointed out the absurd logical consequence of his statements. Some then put on their conspiracy hats and argued that this is part of the plan of Akin and his ilks.
I’m tempted to quote the old saying; “Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to studpidity”, after all, as one senator said (in an interview with Maher): “You don’t need to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate”. However, I agree with QuantumInc that this is just a rationalization for opposing abortion for rape cases (as those have the ethical problem for pro-lifers that the woman can not be said to have become pregnant by their own will or negligence).
I think you’re probably right, that it’s most certainly stupidity.
However, it’s also the willingness to believe what you wish were true. This is a prevalent problem and one that almost all groups follow, and extremist groups follow it even more so – consuming only (or mostly) the content that you already agree with that will continue to support your dogma. The more extreme you are, the less likely you are to consume contrary opinions or facts.
The best explanation of how this takes root is in this video by former White Supremacist, the video is about the Sikh Temple shooting to start with, but is incredibly emotional to me in its explanation about how any dogma comes about.
http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/former-skinhead-from-life-after-hate-offers-insight-into-sikh-temple-shooting/
Strongly suggest all watch this.
There was a horrifying article in the New Yorker awhile back about the thousands of young women in Argentina who were “disappeared” in the 1970′s-1980′s and I think they said a fairly large number (10%? can’t recall ofhand) became pregnant while in prison. Many of these women got pregnant even though they were being starved and tortured as well as raped. The women were kept alive long enough to deliver (Argentina is a Catholic country!) and the babies were given away to political supporters. It is an ongoing scandal in Argentina as families of the dead women try to track down whatnhappened to the children.
Anyone who thinks pregnancy can’t result from rape is insane.
Joanna, where did you get your .35% number above. Are you using the old “Unreported rapes” in calculating that number, like HH did in the UK, when she said that convictions are approx 6%, she used the 1 in 10 number of rapes that are reported and simply took the actual conviction rate which is the UK is approx 60% and divided by 10 since only 1 in 10 is reported.
IOW, she used something that no one can really prove or disprove and went with that.
You can follow the link.
Curious: Does this mean if the rape – pregnancy rate is 5% that it is rare.
Well, maybe not. What’s the likelihood of getting pregnant if you only have intercourse one time, any random time of the month?
That would make for a comparable statistic.
I’ve seen 2.5% as a ballpark estimate for chance of pregnancy for 1 act of intercourse.
But I think any statistic in this area is going to be somewhat inaccurate since it depends on so many variables and you can’t do controlled studies, obviously.
It is easier to look at the chance of getting pregnant over time. Supposedly, for women in their 20′s having regular sex without birth control, 80% will be pregnant within 1 year.
Utter ignorance and false assumptions about biology and science in general don’t surprise me any more when it comes to our elected officials. Knowledge is a drawback in campaigning, after all.
But the fact that this joker’s on the Science & Technology Committee is just sad.
Joanna: Your link was quite informative about the stats on rape. Of course like most stats on rape they are highly inflated by the ‘estimate’ not actually rapes that are reported, the figure you quote of .35% is also very misleading because again, it uses a very broad definition of rape and it also includes rapes that are never reported, it compares it to a murder conviction rate of 20% but they don’t use any estimated murders in their number only the murders that they know are commited, so comparing those two are like comparing apples to firetrucks, yup they both are red, but that is all they have in common.
As Janet mentioned above, it is very similar in nature to what Harriot Harmen did in the UK some years ago about the 6% number, she included rapes that are never reported in the conviction rate which seriously biases the number, afterall how can a system prosecute a rape that is never reported. I wonder sometimes if the people who do this understand that by seriously deflating the number they are hurting the very people they are trying to help.
Statistics are a very dicey game. No statistic is truly solid until peer reviewed multiple times with results that are replicable. That’s why I always provide a link back to wherever I get stats so people can decide for themselves what amount of faith they want to put in the number.
But how do you see this harming someone?
I think John’s point is that by artificially deflating the conviction rate of reported rapes, you end up discouraging people from reporting that they have been raped. If someone thinks that only 6 percent of accused rapists are convicted, they’re more likely to think “Why should I bother? They’ll just get off anyway.” But if they think they have a real shot at justice, they’re much more likely to make the attempt.
Feel free to correct me if I’m misinterpreting or misrepresenting your point, John.
That actually makes perfect sense. I just have too much in my brain right now to sort through it all.
There really should be two statistics combined with an explanation. One for how many rapes we assume are going unreported, along with the conviction rate for the rapes that are reported, and than an extrapolation that is duly explained.
Two ways (assuming that we have a deflated number for successful prosecution of rape) – the first probably not a large factor, but still needs consideration and the second I suspect have a larger impact:
1) A deflated risk can cause more people to do acts they wouldn’t do if the risk were higer than they percieve it to be.
2) A deflated risk of a successful prosecution will make victims more disinclined to report their rape to the police hence increasing unreported rapes and ultimately decreasing the likelyhood of a succesful prosecution.
So, a deflation of conviction rates, even if it’s well intented or by ignorance will contribute to the problem. Some will then argue that this will be offset by the attention and actions which will be spurred by the low reported number. Which is just a fancy way of saying that truth doesn’t matter.
This comment is not an argument for or against the .35% being deflated or not, just an hypothetical argument for what harm could occur if .35% were a deflated number.
Dammit I’ve tried to submit this multiple times and its not coming through (in moderation or otherwise).
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
I’m of the mind that by “legitimate” he meant “If it was actually rape….”. And frankly he would have been better off if he had chosen those words instead.
Mind you it was still a horribly uninformed thing to say. It’s not as if the female body on it’s own if a pregnancy was consensual, rape, accidental, or otherwise on its own and treat the pregnancy accordingly. This would require the thoughts and determinations of the female mind.