I'm still no sure what I said to dreadnaught that was so beyond the pale, beyond pointing out that he was full of shit - which is par for the course around here.
I'm still no sure what I said to dreadnaught that was so beyond the pale, beyond pointing out that he was full of shit - which is par for the course around here.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
You weren't just pointing out "irony" but calling Obamacare hypocrisy. News Flash: politicians/legislators (aka "The Government") will always be involved, to some degree, in healthcare by the very nature of making laws. But there's a big difference between laws that expand access, options, and choices....and those that restrict or limit them.
Parts of the ACA, *which the insurance industry supported*, was requiring coverage of birth control and women's reproductive services, without denials/rescissions, or premium discrimination. That's an expansion of services.
The platform of the GOP is to defund Planned Parenthood, get rid of Title X Family Planning, slash Medicaid, limit hormonal prescriptions, mandate unnecessary ultrasounds + burdensome wait-times + 'counseling' prior to a <legal> abortion, ban abortifacient meds, and ultimately ban all abortions.
But wait, there's more! On top of that, they'd repeal the ACA, let insurance companies return to discriminatory practices, un-insure millions of people who only recently got coverage, defund other programs for children's health and nutrition, and link funding with Abstinence Only education. That's definitely limiting and restricting services.
You seem to view this the same as Voter ID. Big bad gov't should get out of the way, regulatory laws are restrictive....but your version of regulatory gov't is acceptable, so long as it limits/restricts certain Voters, or women's access to certain healthcare?
Legitimate rape as compared to false accusations of rape? Some examples:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1548823.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...iend-back.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...raping-11.html
No matter how many false rape reports are filed, the female human body does not have some kind of sperm screener like the security in an airport. Slut-shaming and discouraging female sexuality are big points in the GOP platform, but the outrage here is as much about the ridiculous, blatantly lying statements as said slut-shaming and discouragement of female sexuality.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
I've seen way too many people focusing on the word legitimate and not the asinine idea women have the ability to magically reject rape sperm. I don't care what fucking word he used, he said something completely devoid of facts, and people actually defend that so they can use such pseudoscience as a case against abortion. Worse, people call these babies conceived of rape as "blessings". God-sanctioned rape, people.
What Akins meant with legitimate rape was basically non-statutory Lewk. Intercourse that was non-consensual by all meanings of the word and not by the determination that some people aren't mentally competent to properly consent. Not false or insufficiently provable allegations. People harping on the "legitimate rape" phrase from his comments are barking up the wrong tree yes, but what was really problematic with what he said was the biology-defying claim that rape doesn't result in conception.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
All the outrage I've seen has been about the use of the word legitimate as somehow saying some women did something to earn their rape. My counter to that was there ware false accusations.
What you are suggesting is that because he got a biological "fact" issue wrong that's what the problem is? Man people get facts wrong all the time - that wouldn't justify the outrage. The outrage is clearly about the use of the term "legitimate rape."
It is outrageous if he uses that misinformation to make laws. And also the fact that he's on a Science Committee. I'm not saying you need to be a rocket scientist to be on such a committee, but you ought to at least know middle-school biology!
There are no limits to the creativity and the determination of certain types of conservatives when it comes to explaining why things they don't understand or care about or disagree with are in fact irrelevant: women don't get pregnant from “real” or “forcible” rape; economical problems leave no room or energy for social problems; a Bible is better than an education, etc etc. It is just so LAME
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Its.
There's a more subtle context that's also very upsetting to people. If one is to accept Akin's false biology, it implies that any woman seeking an abortion from a rape pregnancy wasn't really raped. Now THAT is incredibly offensive to rape victims who get pregnant. I think you can see why.
Thank you lewk for being a perfect example for the point of this thread.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
No, I think he actually thinks that either such women don't exist or that if they do exist they secretly enjoyed it. That's the only way he can reconcile in his head his belief that abortion should never be legal for rape and his subconscious belief that abortion isn't really murder. Either that or he's making the argument for those people who don't think abortion is murder - either way it's terrible argumentation, fallacious, incredibly stupid, and offensive to boot. He deserves the opprobrium.
Boggle... where is this "they secretly enjoyed it" crap coming from. That's absurd. If abortion is murder then its still murder even if it was rape. The position that you shouldn't abort babies except in the case of rape is less consistent then you shouldn't abort babies even in cases of rape.
The point is that Akin could easily have made the argument you make - I in fact made precisely this point on the first page. If abortion is murder, it shouldn't matter whether it's rape or not.
Yet clearly Akin doesn't believe abortion is murder (or he's making an argument to those who don't believe it's murder) in that he has to explain why he's not carving out an exemption for rape. His solution is to say that rape pregnancies don't happen, so it's not an issue. That means that someone who is raped who got pregnant wasn't really raped, which implies that whatever magical phenomenon keeps a rape pregnancy from happening didn't happen in this case. I assume it would be because the woman enjoyed it (even if it wasn't consensual), so her body wouldn't 'know' to avoid the pregnancy. I admit that's a bit of hyperbole there, but whatever he's basing his logic on, it's definitely flawed and awfully offensive.
I can think of two or three reasons why it might be a bit less likely for conception which could/would last to full-term from resulting from rape (and another evolutionary reason for why those reasons wouldn't change things) but Akin said it was "really rare." That's rather more than a bit less likely, he thinks women "reject" unwanted pregnancies the way bodies will reject organ donation without a drug regime.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
I am near 100% certain that Akin will still support abortion bans in the case of rape. I really don't see why people are jumping to the worst case idea of what Akin really believes. I know why the MSM feels that way... they want to do anything to secure Obama the win so they will be making hay over this for months.
He *thought* that - he's apologized already for the poor choice of words and his misconception of the likely hood of conception. This is basically a witch hunt and Republicans are too scared to be tarred with the same brush to defend him (not the statement). Its just like the bull shit with Jack Ryan, conservatives need to stop being scared of fighting.
This is the same guy who tried to pass a bill last year trying to differentiate between "legitimate" rape and presumably "illegitimate" rape. This was not a poor choice of words; he actually believes this crap. As for people who are trying to understand the science behind his remarks, you give him too much credit. It's pretty clear he was referring to a woman who's not aroused supposedly not allowing anything to enter her. Kindergarten biology to go with a kindergarten intellect.
Hope is the denial of reality
And again I'd love for congress to take a course on financial literacy. There are many folks in congress who believe things that are false - why the uproar over this one? Regardless of his knowledge of science it wouldn't change his position -he admitted that he was wrong on that fact and apologized for it. This will not change his position on not supporting rape exceptions to abortion.
He sits on the Science committee. On what basis did he cast his votes before this?
About a fifth of reported rapes in the US occur while the victim is under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, while, in a good portion of the remainder, the victim does not struggle very much throughout most of the rape due to being in shock or due to fear of death or further abuse. This is important not not so much from a biological perspective as from a social aspect. Rape victims who don't "fight enough" have a harder time getting justice, but, fortunately, they can at least get abortions (despite Akin's and Ryan's best efforts).I love how Ryan can endorse that ridiculous bill one moment and parrot "rape is rape" in the next.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."