3.6
August 20, 2012

President Obama responds to GOP Congressman’s Rape comments.

Update: “Akin’s rape opinion isn’t new. Earlier this year, every House Republican and 16 Blue Dog Democrats voted for a bill that would have redefined rape in federal statutes to be ‘forcible rape.'”

And the adult in the room responds:

“Rape is rape.

The idea that we should be parsing types of rape doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn’t make sense to me.

What these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women.”

~ President Obama

For more: Studies actually suggest that rape is more (about twice as likely) to result in pregnancy than consensual sex.

Another.

For more on the context, which is what’s actually important here, as the end of Obama’s quote alludes to.

Background, via Reddit:

Here’s a link to the story. Akins is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Here’s his quote: “First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” So, from something he heard from doctors, Akins is creatively extrapolating , in a science-ish kind of way. Apparently Akin believes the female body can recognize a rape and “shut down” the pregnancy(?) So if a woman is pregnant, it’s really rare that a pregnancy arises from rape, and she must have wanted it? His statement is so confused in its logic it’s difficult to figure out what was going on in his head, but it is clearly wrong, and he shouldn’t be the head of anything that has “science” in its name.

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