Rep. Todd Akin’s ‘Legitimate rape’ comment and the reaction

Rep. Todd Akin: The Statement and the Reaction
By LORI MOORE  August 20, 2012

(note: This website disagrees with Rep. Akin’s statements about legitimate rape)

The sequence of events after Representative Todd Akin, Republican of Missouri, commented to a St. Louis television station on pregnancy as a result of rape.

Sunday

11:24 A.M. KTVI-TV posts to its Web site an interview with Mr. Akin in which he is asked whether he believes abortion is justified in cases of rape and replies that rape does not result in pregnancy. Twitter soon erupts with outrage and links to the interview.

“It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

4:28 P.M. Senator Claire McCaskill, the Democrat whose Senate seat Mr. Akin is seeking, releases a statement denouncing his comments.

“As a former prosecutor, Claire McCaskill has worked closely with hundreds of rape victims and intimately understands their trauma and pain. It is that experience that makes Akin’s statements so outrageous.”

4:59 P.M. Mr. Akin releases a statement saying that he misspoke in the interview.

“I believe deeply in the protection of all life, and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action. I also recognize that there are those who, like my opponent, support abortion, and I understand I may not have their support in this election.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/us/politics/rep-todd-akin-legitimate-rape-statement-and-reaction.html

AUGUST 19, 2012 – Akin Statement on “Jaco Report” Interview
“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.” http://www.akin.org/updates/akin-statement-jaco-report-interview

‘Legitimate rape’ comment was not a misstatement. It’s a worldview 
By LAURA HELMUTH Monday, 08.20.12

Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, the Republican candidate for the Missouri Senate race, told a St. Louis news station on Sunday that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

He later took it back….In case anybody missed this dig at the “no means no” crowd, “legitimate rape” is a coded phrase meant to distinguish between a stranger attacking you in a parking garage, or, say, your date or your youth pastor doing the same. If you’re tipsy or wearing a short skirt, it’s not rape-rape, etc.

The statement was actually intended to soften Akin’s absolute opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. Why bother to have loopholes for such conditions when they’re going to be so rare, goes his thinking? As Talking Points Memo notes, the congressman has long suspected that rape and abortion laws are less likely to protect women from abuse than to allow them to be abusive:

Akin’s past includes praising a militia group linked to anti-abortion extremism in the 1990s and voting against creating a sex-offender registry in 2005. Back in 1991, as a state legislator, Akin voted for an anti-marital-rape law, but only after questioning whether it might be misused “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband,” according to a May 1 article that year in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch….
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/20/2960507/legitimate-rape-comment-was-not.html

Church scandal’s next wave: Abused girls

Expect numbers of women victimized by priests as children to rise over next few years, say lawyers Apr 24 2010 By Mary Ormsby

….But London-based lawyer Robert Talach, who represented McLauchlin and other Sylvestre victims, expects that male-female ratio to change within five to 10 years to reflect a trend that began in the 1970s when the church welcomed female altar servers. Researchers say disclosure of abuse is typically delayed for about 30 years, which means women assaulted as children are just starting to come to terms with what happened. “In some of our Sylvestre cases, which are (from) the `70s, many of the women were victimized under the pretenses of `I’m training you to be one of these new, upcoming female altar servers,’” said Talach, who has represented more than 100 victims of clergy abuse, most of them male…..

Father Donald Holmes, a modern cleric who rode a motorcycle, sported a beard, played hockey and preferred street clothes to his Roman collar, also preyed on girls as they began taking bigger roles in the church. He was convicted in 2002 of sexually abusing 12 girls around the Sudbury area between 1972 and 1984. In general, girls in Canada are four times more likely than boys to be victims of sexual offences, according to police figures reported to Stats Canada. Females are more likely to be attractive to clergy because the majority of priests are heterosexual – but some are psychologically and sexually immature, says former priest-turned-lawyer Patrick Wall.

“If they’re going to explore sexually, they’re going to explore with a little girl,” said Wall, a California-based expert on Catholic clergy abuse who now works with victims. Wall’s perspective on the degree of female abuse is unique. He was a Benedictine monk for 12 years, working as a “fixer” dispatched to tidy up messy sexual problems of priests and laymen at troubled parishes and schools. He said when a girl required surgery after rape, the code was that she needed a “hernia” operation.

In a bizarre twinning, he counselled accused priests and heard confessions from traumatized victims. He also worked on cases where priests impregnated girls then procured abortions for them. “That is so prevalent, it happens all the time,” he said of the abortion runs, which in part accounts for his belief that teenaged girls are the silent majority of priest-related sexual abuse. By age 33, Wall deduced most, if not all, of the 195 parishes and hundreds of religious orders in the U.S. employed “fixers” like him to wipe down crime scenes that involved children. He quit religious life in disgust and scoffs at the Vatican’s pledge to better protect boys and girls from its surpliced predators. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/800312–church-scandal-s-next-wave-abused-girls

Post-Abortive Stress and the RA Survivor – Its Causes, Impact on RA Survivors

Post-Abortive Stress and the RA Survivor – Its Causes, Impact on RA Survivors
and the Healing Steps towards Freedom – Freedom Run Ministries – 2009 Ritual Abuse Conference Presentation
http://www.freedomrunministries.org/articles/PostAbortiveStressRA.pdf
describes crimes