'Legitimately Raped':
An Idea Only the Iranian Regime Could Love (News, Switzerland)
"The fact
that the hideous face of the party, with prudery, fear of God, women and foreigners
at the top of its agenda, resembles more than anything that of the Iranian
regime - their sworn and deadly enemy (after Obama) - is to say the least ironic."
Michigan Congressman Todd Akin: Is it possible for a lawmaker in one of the world's leading nations to believe that women have a manual pregnancy turn-off switch?
Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin has an absolutely
fascinating new theory about the issue of pregnancy through rape. According to
him, a female victim of a “legitimate rape” - in other words of a
"real" rape - would not in fact become pregnant. The shocking fact:
this view doesn't make Akin an extremist, but rather the perfect 2012
Republican.
At the Republican Convention, which will begin on Monday in
Tampa, Florida, the official choice of Romney as nominee won't be the only item
on the agenda. At the same time, the party platform for the November
presidential race will be unveiled, which includes assertions that put the comments
that apparently derailed Akin's campaign smack in the
mainstream of Republican thought.
So, for instance, there’s an attempt to forbid any type of
abortion. Rape? Abortion forbidden. Incest? Abortion forbidden. A mother's life
endangered? Abortion forbidden. Mother and child would die during labor? Ditto.
So should one be surprised about this, coming from a party, the representatives
of which put women on the same level as cows and sheep?
Of course, these positions were found in previous party manifestos.
But this is the first time in decades that so many candidates and elected
officials - and not just members of the party base - have expressed such views
so forthrightly.
This is in addition to the party's efforts to constitutionally-forbid
gay marriage, crack down even harder on illegal immigrants, tighten registration
rules to exclude, to the degree possible, poorer citizens from voting, and by undermining previously-lax gun laws, threatening
the safety of those already born. In terms
of its treatment of the poor, the weak and minorities, it is a program that would
have been considered too conservative even under Eisenhower.
If Akin blathers on about intelligent wombs that know
whether a woman has been “legitimately” raped or not - thus implying that the
victims of rape actually want their lives ruined by violent criminals - it is
also an obvious and accepted part of the Republican Party platform. If we take
this idea to its logical conclusion, all rapists whose victims became pregnant should
be acquitted or released from prison, since their deeds cannot be considered
“legitimate rape."
Fear of a world in the midst of social and demographic change,
and based on scientific evidence, is what the “GOP” - the party that once
abolished slavery - is dominated by today. Prudery, fear of God, racism, misogyny
and xenophobia increasingly define its program and members, while the world gradually
passes by the pensioners' party, the members of which take a hand in disenfranchising
themselves.
The fact that the hideous face of the party, with prudery, fear
of God, women and foreigners at the top of its agenda, resembles more than
anything that of the Iranian regime - their sworn and deadly enemy (after
Obama) - is to say the least ironic. It would be interesting to hear what Republicans
have to say about the Iranian regime's efforts to reduce the marriageable age
for girls to nine years old (yes - you read that right). Presumably nothing, as
long as they are legally married - before God. Because then it couldn't
possibly be rape … whether a pregnancy results or not.
