Today, in a surprise press conference, President Obama spoke out about Missouri Rep. Todd Akin’s clusterf**k of a statement in which he said that “legitimate rape” causes a woman’s body to utilize natural defenses to keep pregnancy from occurring.
President Obama not only addressed the ridiculousness of Akin’s biologically un-founded claim, but also the danger in parsing out what constitutes rape, be it “forcible rape” or “legitimate rape” when talking about definitions or access to abortions.
Obama also went so far as to extrapolate that what Akins said is representative of a bigger problem within the Republican party, in trying to control women’s access to health care and reproductive options.
In the video, Obama concedes that the majority of Republicans are not in agreement with Akin’s statement, which Obama calls “way out there”, but says that there is something reflective about the Republicans in general:
“Although these particular comments have led Governor Romney and other Republicans to distance themselves, I think the underlying notion that we should be making decisions on behalf of women for their health care decisions, or qualifying forcible rape versus non-forcible rape, I think those are broader issues,” Obama said. “And that is a significant difference in approach between me and the other party.”
What do you think of Obama’s statement?
Both statements are idiotic and Obama is being dishonest. IPAB will explicitly make health decisions for women. But many women seem prepared to play along as identity politics have convinced them to be loyal pawns, so politically it was a shrewd press conference. He went out, only discussed the daily SQUIRREL!, and then vanished back into the mancave with Clooney.
How would one govern the legitimacy of a man’s rape if pregnancy were the deciding factor? Is ours illegitimate if its at the hands of a woman, and she gets pregnant?
In my view the phrase “legitimate rape” is not the worst aspect of what Akin said. The truly abominable thing was the outright lie about biology. It wasn’t a biologically unfounded claim, it was a lie.
What can one say – On balance Obama comes out looking better than Akin – it’s called Politics. Everyone is recommending, asking and even telling Akin to go home and spend time with his family, and he says he won’t budge …. millions in funding gets pulled from him – he’s thinking of himself and the bigger political players are looking at the bigger picture and control issues. Akin’s a light weight political has been. He’s caused a Seismic shift in the political landscape, but cos he don’t grasp geophysics he aint able to detect the ground trembling. But then… Read more »
The presidents comments are extremely problematic because they exemplify the straw-manning of arguments that is preventing America from ever having real dialogue. The president is purposefully trotting out an extremist and making pretend that he is representative of the entire Republican party; i.e. the president is employing a strawman argument. There are two camps within the Republic party which can be understood by looking at these two very different statements: 1) Women should not have access to contraception. 2) No one should be forced, through taxes or other means, to pay for someone else’s contraception. There is no question that… Read more »
I agree with President Obama’s argument that we should not qualify different types of rape, however, as a culture, a nation, and a government, we already do that. All fifty states qualify different types of sexual assault, and in many cases acts that are technically rape are not charged as such due to the specificity of the rape/sexual assault statute in a given state. Likewise, most people only count certain acts as rape. I am certain that most of the left-wingers and feminists railing against Akin do not count what Sandusky did as “legitimate rape” because of the victims’ sex.… Read more »
First, I don’t think people consider what Debra LaFave did as rape, but they call it Statutory Rape. That’s why there’s a distinction. I’d say the same thing about a Statutory rape of the exact same nature if the teacher had been male, the victim female. As far as saying “Forcible rape” implies violence as opposed to drugging, I think you’re wrong about that. If a woman were drugged and someone had sex with her while unconscious, that’s still forcible rape. That’s the reason the language was stricken from the initial bill in the first place. And I would also… Read more »
In other words, you do not think what LaFave did counts as “legitimate” rape. It is some other type. That is my point. We constantly pick apart what counts, so the outrage over Akin’s turn of phrase is a tad bit hypocritical. The reason language of the FBI’s definition was changed was because certain types of rape against women that are recognized by all fifty states were not counted. Removing the term “forcible” allows for those other types to be counted. I did not say people would say what Sandusky did was “not rape.” I said that they would not… Read more »
No, I don’t think of it as First-degree rape, Jacob, don’t twist my words. “Legitimate” is a stupid word that doesn’t work in these conversations because it’s not specific. You’re abusing the word right now to twist other people into things they aren’t saying. I think all rape is legitimate in the form it’s in. If you’re orally raped, you’ve been legitimately orally raped. If you’ve been a victim in a statutory rape, you’re a victim of a legitimate statutory rape. Sandusky legitimately raped boys because the definition of rape includes anal penetration and that is what Sandusky did. If… Read more »
Jacobtk:
“I agree with President Obama’s argument that we should not qualify different types of rape,…”
What do we do, when considering the sex between a 16 and a 21 year old? As the age of consent varies among states in the US (also among countries in Europe), it is sometimes considered rape by law and sometimes not. Arethere any compelling arguments for what the age of consent should be?
Alberich, age of consent laws are a mess because there is not clear definition of how they can be applied. The laws were intended to deal with huge age differences, but they are used when the “victim” and the “abuser” are sometimes just months apart in age. Worse, even in situations in which the victim is above the age of consent, statutory rape laws can still apply depending on the circumstances, rendering the age of consent pointless. I would either get rid of the laws (since most rape statutes already have age of consent definitions written into them) or modify… Read more »
Noah and I just had this conversation yesterday. I know this is off-topic but I will diverge for a short moment because it’s really not political or charged and because the conversation seems to have drifted naturally toward the idea of consent and “legitimacy”. A man posted on an old article about how a 15 year old girl seduced him. He’s been married 24 years so I assume he’s at least 40 years old, and has older children. His wife (whom he says he loves) has left him, his children won’t talk to him and he offered a long paragraph… Read more »
I know this is off-topic but I will diverge for a short moment because it’s really not political or charged. Hmmmmm …. Sorry But! …. Joanna, when I read your potted account of the man’s story, my first reaction was Hyper Sexualisation and acting out, one of the known hallmarks for childhood sexual abuse. “…“exposed herself” to a teen classmate..” and exposed to porn! Common traits too! Kids who become hyper sexualised post abuse will seek out porn in what may see as an attempt to make sense of their experiences, both past and present. Rape – Child Sexual Abuse… Read more »
Oh No, MediaHound I didn’t mean it wasn’t “charged” in general, I meant it didn’t feed into the other conversation I deleted already that was entirely off-topic. This one I thought was on-topic in that it talks about what is rape, how it is defined, and how statutory rape laws with “age of consent” boundaries are dicey. I agree, this girl may have been abused. Or maybe she was a normalize 15 year old girl. I mean, to have “exposed herself” to a teen boy, that could mean anything. It could mean that she took off her shirt when she… Read more »
When it comes to Politics and Sex, there will always be both scandle and dissent! Age of Consent is a legal construct based upon presumed mental capacity. It’s arbitary and man made. In the UK there are has been a long history of issues over standardisation of Age Of Consent due to Ulster having an age of 17 and the rest of the UK being 16 – gay sex being 21 then 18 and then 16. … then add the rest of Europe with Spain starting at 13 and Turkey and Malta ending at 18… well it is a mess!… Read more »
Joanna, I am sorry if I lead a branch of this thread stray, my point was that there are cases of sex, which are legally rape (in some jurisdiction), but in which the victim doesn’t feel raped at all and some reasonable people disagree that there is any crime. If the female body would indeed protect itself from getting pregnant by rape, as Todd Akin claims (not that I think he is right, I am just trying to make an argument), cases, which are legally rape, but are also consensual sex, would have to be excluded. In general I think… Read more »
Alberich, I think you’re right about the technical definition of pedophilia, and I agree that I should’ve said, “Weak, exploitive, pigs with no empathy and little to no morality.” As far as what you’re saying about the problems with consent given by minors, I agree. It’s dicey. Can a 12, 14, or 16 year old give consent? To whom? It varies by age and by the child and to whom he or she gives consent. There are no easy answers. There is, however, one easy answer: If a person feels they were raped, they were raped. If they said “no”… Read more »
To all posters –
Please stay on topic. Many posts have already been deleted for being in violation of our commenting policy.
This conversation is about Obama’s reaction to Akin. From this point on, anything off-topic will be deleted.
Oy vey, so typical. Joanna invites discussion. Discussion devolves. So it goes. For my part, I see Akin’s statements as characteristic of the GOP’s base and their billionaire backers. It’s all pretty much part of a greater push to screw everybody but the rich by making this country into a backwater reactionary state. But I digress… Obama has always supported people’s rights to control their bodies and their right to decide for themselves whether or not to be a parent. I won’t pretend Obama gets it right all the time but neither will I pretend he hasn’t been anything but… Read more »
“Getting us back to work by improving the economy” hey Zek, please let me know where you live, because I want to move there!Seriously, I know personally at least 20 or more people who have lost their home or are in danger of it. No, this President cannot run on any record of accomplishments so his only chance is to demonize his opponent and in fact anyone who’s even thinking of voting for him. Please give me an example of something Obama’s done to make the economy better( unemployment was actually LOWER when he took office), or what he’s done… Read more »
Bobbt,
http://obamaachievements.org/list
I live in the California Bay Area. My company has been hiring for months now. I don’t deny it’s bad for a lot of people, or that the country has completely recovered from the economic collapse created by the Bush era presidency, but I do know it’s gotten a lot better. Our personal anecdotes aside though…
Obama’s statements help heal the divide Akin’s comments created. And that is something Obama is infamously good at doing — bringing disparate groups of people together, especially over someone else’s BS.
And that’s exactly it Zek. Obama is attempting to clean up the economic mess created by an earlier presidency. It’s not the mess he created, but he’s attempting to clean it up, and in terms of economics, turning the ship around even with the creation of key policies and actions, takes time. The factors that caused the poor economic conditions did not develop and cause a crash instantaneously either, but can individually be measured to start anywhere from 2001 to 2004. I find it laughable that people attempt to pile so much blame onto the current President. I mean, if… Read more »
ThaNk you for pointing out male rape victims. It’s relevant because the logic behind this “legitimate rape” argument is a bizarre notion that a woman’s hormones can reject conception in case of forcible rape. In other words, if a woman gets pregnant that means she “enjoyed it.”
This relates to men because the argument is that an unwilling man can’t get an erection.
I wish I could go into cryo stasis for the next 4 years. It seems like my choices are between Satan and Lucifer.
Look I don’t condone the “Legitmate Rape” argument either. But Obama is no saint either.
True. It’s no secret that the Republicans are the anti-woman party… but it’s also not like Obama has done anything for reproductive rights either.
Go Green!