Dear Todd Akin

Discussion of rape and rape culture to follow.

“...I said one word and one sentence on one day, and everything changed,” Akin told Huckabee, an early supporter. “I haven’t done anything morally or ethically wrong. It does seem like a little bit of an overreaction.”
-Todd Akin

Dear Todd Akin,

You don't seem to understand what's actually going on.  I've been focusing on other angles of this issue because I assumed that everyone else was covering it aptly, but apparently you haven't been paying attention.

Let's take it back to what you actually said.

"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.

"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something," Akin said. "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

According to you, the "one word" you "misspoke" was "legitimate." I'm glad that you understand how wrong it was to say that.  It was an incredibly hateful, policing thing to say, the sort of verbiage I'd expect from a promoter of rape culture, and it's good that you realize it was wrong.

Although, if you understand that "legitimate" was wrong, and you understand why it was wrong, it seems contradictory for you to defend yourself with, "I haven’t done anything morally or ethically wrong."  Separating out rape into "legitimate rape" and "forcible rape" and "rape-rape" and so on seems morally wrong to me.  It's disgusting and morally repugnant to act as if "violent stranger rape" is real rape, and the other kinds are less-than-rape, kinda-sorta rape, not really rape.  Calling certain kinds of rape "legitimate" as if the rest are not is doing something morally wrong.

But you say that you didn't mean to say "legitimate."  Let's take you at your word.  Here's what you apparently meant to say:

"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. "If it's rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.

"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something," Akin said. "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

Well, that's terrible.

I don't know who those doctors were, but they're poorly educated and spreading dangerous misinformation.  Pregnancy from rape is not "really rare."  According to the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an estimated “32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.”  Consider that: 32,101.  Each year.  In one country.  More significant than "really rare," I'd say.

Then we get to: "If it's rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

If it's rape?  If?  If it's really rape.  Because, you know, it might not be.  It could be one of those "she cried rape" situations.  One of those cases of morning-after regrets.  She was asking for it, you know.

Women do not have unique powers of mind control.  Women do not have "ways" to circumvent their bodies natural processes.  A lot of physical functions are autonomic.  Women can't make their hearts stop pumping or make their stomachs stop digesting, so why would you think that they'd be able to stop their reproductive organs from working?

This, of course, is where the patriarchy steps in to remind us that women's reproductive systems are very mysterious and sort of magical and can't ever really be understood by men.  Women are, of course, basically incomprehensible.  The answer to my last question was "misogyny."

It is true that in certain situations, some women's bodies may respond to great stress by miscarrying.  That is true of some women in some situations.  Just as "salad and jogging" doesn't equate to "lose 5 pounds a week" like some magical formula, "rape and stress" doesn't equate to "miscarriage" or "infertility."  Everyone's body is different.  Everyone's body reacts differently.  All women are not the same.  A lot of women have hearty bodies and smoothly functioning organs which will go on merrily about their business no matter how much distress the woman has been through.  You can be in a car accident and continue to digest.  You can be shot and still continue to breathe.  You can be raped and still become pregnant.

In that one sentence, you basically said, "I'm incredibly ill-informed, I'm either lying or I have no ability to discern reputable sources from uneducated fools, I don't understand women, I know little to nothing about women's experiences, I support and promote rape culture, I think that women lie, and I need to educate myself immediately on human biology."  In other words, "I'm a mendacious, incompetent asshole and I hate women."

If that's not what you meant, you have some work to do.

But you didn't stop there!  The fun just kept flowing:

...abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.

"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something," Akin said. "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

As I said, you don't seem to understand human biology very well.  To clarify, there is no child.  "Attacking a child" brings to mind images of someone assaulting a five-year-old.  When someone aborts a pregnancy, that's something that happens (pay attention here) while she's pregnant.

abort a pregnancy =/= attack a child

With the basics of the life cycle out of the way, let's look at the rest of this nonsense.

When someone is pregnant, "there should be some punishment."  That's what you said.  The magical rape-infertility process failed, the way magical processes sometimes do, and now the rape victim is pregnant.  "There should be some punishment," is your response.

Are you advocating for jail time for rape, and extra jail time for rape plus impregnation?  Is this a new bill you're working on?  Maybe jail time plus expenses for mental health and abortion costs and, oh, no, that can't be it.  You think that abortion should be illegal.  Period.  Across the board.  For everyone, at all times.

Now it's time for you to hop on over and read what I wrote to your pal Mike Huckabee about this.  I'll wait.

Back?  Okay!

Overall, in a few sentences, you said that sometimes rape isn't really rape.  You lied about human biology in a way that turns at least 32,101 Americans a year into liars who weren't really raped.  You declared that a legal and safe medical procedure should be made illegal because, uh, why?  You turned a pregnancy into a living, independent, human child to make abortion look bad (and to make people who have abortions look bad).  You want to force rape victims to endure nine months of pregnancy plus labor to bear a rapist's child at a time when they most need to be in control of their own bodies.

You have a lot of learning to do.  Starting with what "morally or ethically wrong" means.

With love,
Frank Lee