the face of the Republican Party – and here’s why:
Rape.
Say it out loud. It’s a hard, definitive word, isn’t it? One syllable, a word you spit out because to hold it too long inside feels like a travesty, a violation, something so repulsive that you don’t want to be contaminated.
The legal definition of rape may differ from your personal definition, but in most places it’s defined as forcible sexual relations with a person against that person’s will. However, before the 1970s, many courts in the U.S. viewed the element of force from the standpoint of the victim. A man would not be convicted of rape of a competent woman unless she had demonstrated some physical resistance. In the absence of physical resistance, courts usually held that the sexual act was consensual.
The italicized part of this paragraph illustrates how, before 1970, the victim – usually a woman – was viewed as guilty right from the start. Before 1970, any woman who brought rape charges against a man was sometimes advised by the police to not press charges because if it went to trial, her sexual history would be ripped open to public view.
Here we are in 2012, nearly 40 years after Roe v Wade made abortion legal, and we’re still having this conversation? Todd Akin, a six-term Republican Congressman from Missouri, now a candidate for the senate, actually said: “ If it’s a legitimate rape the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”
Huh? A legitimate rape versus – what, exactly? An alleged rape? A pretend rape? An illegitimate rape? And the female body has ways to shut the whole thing down? Never mind that his biological facts are wrong. From the NY Times: “There are no words for this — it is just nuts,” said Dr. Michael Greene, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School.
There are now calls for Akin to step down, to give up this race, to get out while the getting is good. That’s a distraction. The bottom line is that Akin and Paul Ryan, Romney’s VP running mate, co-sponsored a bill that would confer personhood on a fertilized egg, which means that even an egg fertilized during a rape is a person and to abort that egg is tantamount to murder. A woman who conceives a child during rape or incest must carry that child to term.
Wow. It’s not enough that a rape victim is traumatized beyond belief. In the Republican scheme of things, if you’re impregnated as a result of this incomprehensible violation, you must carry that child to term and spend the rest of your life being reminded of that violation every time your child nurses, every time you look into that child’s eyes.
Paul Ryan and Todd Akin are cut from the same cloth. They’re no different than Saudi men who can do anything to their wives because their women are chattel, owned and operated by husbands, brothers, fathers, men. When Romney chose Ryan as his running mate, it was a clear message that he doesn’t know that women now have the right to vote. And yes, Repubs, good luck winning an election without the female vote.
Today, August 21, in Tampa, Florida, the Republicans made this travesty part of their party’s official platform – no abortion, not even in the event of rape or incest.
Please, tell me why ANY woman – why ANY man – would vote for candidates who hold such extreme and spiritually corrupt views about life.
Is there a synchro in all this? There are actually two. Both are dark tricksters:
Todd Akin is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Science, got that? You would think he would know that the female body doesn’t distinguish between friendly and hostile sperm.
And: the current track for Tropical Storm Isaac, which is predicted to become a Cat 1 hurricane by the time it hits Florida on Monday, is headed very close to Tampa. That’s the location of the 2012 Republican convention – beginning on Monday – where Romney will be officially nominated as his party’s presidential candidate.
In 2008 when Sarah Palin was being vetted in the media after her selection as McCain’s VP, one of the biggest shocks was that as governor, she made women who were raped pay for the rape test kits, which ran several hundred dollars. That’s outrageous! Why would she think that was a good idea? A financial punishment on the woman after being violated in one of the worst ways to be violated? Rape test kits should be paid for by the government, funded by the criminal justice system…never the victim (unless the victim was lying or faking it, which they could be billed for).
I don’t want Akin to drop out, though. The GOP should be forced to carry their crazies to election day and face the voter’s decision. If anyone is dumb enough to vote for Akin after his remark, then our country truly is in worse condition that I thought. It just baffles me that the rightwing seem to embrace ignorance…almost out of spite. They hate education because its “elitist”…but choosing to remain ignorant only hurts the person who makes that decision. As one who values learning on my own, I just love expanding my base of knowledge and learning something new every single day. It really is one of the joys in life!
Another thing…what an incredible waste of time and attention too keep fighting the abortion battles 40 years after the Supreme Court legalized it. We’re on a planet that is overpopulated and heating up. What do Republicans propose to do with many more millions of mouths to feed, whose consumption patterns would speed up the timetable on the inevitable environmental collapse. And as we can see, they don’t seem to care much for the children in poverty, considering how they want to cut out the school lunch program and after school programs, just so the millionaires and billionaires can get more back in taxes. So, why care about a fetus to the point of absurdity?
Akin will help Obama. He’s the mouthpiece, the paul revere who is telling the truth about the repug agenda. Like we’ve said before, to the repugs, you’re only important until you’re born. After that, you’re on your own.
I’m going to send you a link thru email to a site that really nails it.
Not so sad, Mike. That experience helped mold me into the strong woman that in many ways I have become. I remain very sensitive, but as age has claimed me, in retrospect I’ve learned that our experiences, both positive and negative, are the clay that sculps our personalities, for better or worse. From time to time in meditative states I regress through the years behind me, and understand that we either fall and fold in the wake of extreme pain, or we pull ourselves up and keep going. Without this experience, I would not be the activist for women’s rights that I am, and that is a GOOD thing.
I see that: our lives are moulded by our experiences. I was more thinking from a male perspective – to me it’s sad, that a man would do such a thing. Maybe ‘sad’ is the wrong word.
well, i came by early this morning before any comments had been made and because i was in a hurry, did not have the time to respond as i’d intended , knowing i would come back later after my visiting little ones had gone home – in any event – after these comments, let it suffice to say that all who know me know my perspective on this whole thing so…thanks so much for still another great post!
You know what’s ludicrous about this entire issue? MEN can have vasectomies without any kind of repercussions. No one (except Catholics) tell MEN what they can and cannot do with THEIR bodies. Who do these people think they are, that they have the God-given right to decide what a woman can do with her body? Aren’t men just as much to blame for pregnancies as are women? It’s a man’s world. Always has been. Always will be. No. I’m not a man-hater by any means. I love my husband and our three sons beyond expression, and my closest friends have always been males…probably because I was so soul-connected to my dad. But don’t tell me what to do with my body. Ain’t happening. Enough said from my soapbox. My vote will speak for me.
How sad that such an issue even needs to debated. A woman’s body is surely her own and any final decision about such things as abortion must therefore be hers and hers alone.
Sad also to read Math’s story.
Trish and Rob, I had to leave the computer for a while. To answer your question, “Was he prosecuted?” It was a strange set of circumstances. I was then in nursing school but lived at home with my recently widowed mother, who at age 42 had just lost her husband (my Dad), her mother, and her only brother, within a few months’ time. She was holding onto sanity by a bare thread, and I knew if she were told what the boy had done to me, it would have driven her over the edge. I managed to get into the house and out of my bloody clothes, etc, after she was asleep. I told no one. Three days after the rape I had a raging fever and my abdomen was excruciating. She took me to her surgeon.
Since I was then “of age”, I refused to allow the DR. to tell her about the rape, even though he had to admit me to Emory for the first surgery. He was aware of my Mom’s fragile condition, and gave her a diagnosis that covered the incident without revealing the rape. Five weeks later, I was re-admitted for the second surgery to repair the huge tear in the interior wall. My Mom never knew. I didn’t file charges against him for her sake. However, the boy WAS held accountable. My best buddy for several years was another fellow who had also been a quarterback. I DID confide in him. He happened to have been a good friend of the rapist. Much later, I learned thru the grapevine from mutual friends that my buddy had quite literally plowed the ground with my attacker. He broke his arms, broke his nose on his pretty-boy face, broke his ribs, and did considerable damage to his “male unit”. Obviously, my rapist couldn’t bring charges against him because to do so would incriminate himself. My buddy and I spoke a few years ago, and he told me that the boy had raped several other females and was serving time. So yes. Although I didn’t report it to prevent my mother from losing her mind, he nevertheless paid an enormous price for what he had done to me. I hope the damage to his male unit was permanent. It’s my opinion that serial rapists should be castrated. I’ll hold the scalpel.
This is why all this political and religious crap about women’s rights infuriates me. This I will add: Not long after recovery, I knew I had two choices. I could hold onto the savage event and use it as an excuse to be a bitter, hate-filled person, or I could accept it as a part of my history, put it behind me, and move forward. I chose the second path. But for a long time, as an adult, I worked as a rape counselor, and I’ve seen children as young as ten years old being forced to carry a child and deliver it….
children of incest, etc. It’s the one area in which I choose to be a busy activist. I will NEVER accept a God who demands this kind of “law”. It is hell.
What a strange set of circumstances. But it sounds like he got what was coming to him.
Whoa, you’re right!
I hate to say it, but a lot of the Bible is a horror story. How about Lot for fatherhood – apparently protecting the children under his roof, if they were female, didn’t much matter:
Genesis 19:6 ” Lot went outside to them, shutting the door behind him. 19:7 He said,“No, my brothers! Don’t act so wickedly!11 19:8 Look, I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with12 a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them whatever you please.13 Only don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection14 of my roof.”
In fact, the rape of virgins (the fate of women who weren’t virgins we really don’t want to think about) was in fact part of what was paid to “God”, along with sheep and goats……so here rape is divinely justified:
Numbers 31:36: ” The half share of the soldiers was 337,500 sheep and goats, of which 675 were the tax for the LORD; 36,000 cattle for the soldiers, of which 72 were the tax for the LORD; 30,500 donkeys for the soldiers, of which 61 were the tax for the LORD; and 16,000 virgins for the soldiers, of which 32 were the tax for the LORD.”
Apparently “God’s love” never extended to anyone without a hyman – and life wasn’t very promising if you had one either:
Judges 21: 10- 24 : “So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin.” Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.”
And so on……..and this is the horror little kids have to read in Sunday School?
I think this is why I’ve never read the bible!
Sometimes you look right at a synchro and miss it. Case in point, Todd Akin. What’s going on? The GOP is trying to distance the party and the presidential ticket from his extreme views…many shared by Paul Ryan and others, and the party, in general. So look at that last name. What does it tell you? Akin…a kin. Closely related. Yes, there it is.
Bravo to you, and to Math for the courage to speak out.
Actually, they’re going along with principles that have been in the “Holy Book” for quite a long time. The Old Testament is full of stories in which “God” tells “his men” to put the boys to the sword, and carry off all the virgins of various places the “chosen” invaded, like Canaan, for rape and captivity. And a raped Israelite girl didn’t fare much better:
Deuteronomy chapter 22 :20 “But if the charge (that a girl is not a virgin) is true and there is no proof that she was a virgin, 21 then they are to take her out to the entrance of her father’s house, where the men of her city are to stone her to death. She has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was still living in her father’s house. In this way you will get rid of this evil. ”
The essence of all of this is woman as property, not a human being with human rights. the patriarchal mind that is embodied by fundamentalist thinking and 2,500 year old biblical rules for women is also the mind that negates nature…….and the rape of Mother Earth just might be connected with things like hurricanes.
It is my hope that the mind that can justify rape is on the way out. but we all need to speak out. Thank you for doing so.
Incredible that such a passage is in the bible. And you’re absolutely right about the negation of nature, Lauren. Take a look at what Isaac means – under a comment that rob left.
More on the Isaac synchro with the help of Wikipaedia.
“Modern Yitsẖak Tiberian Yiṣḥāq, ISO 259-3 Yiçḥaq, “he will laugh”; Yiddish: יצחק, Yitskhok; Ancient Greek: Ἰσαάκ, Isaak; Latin: Isaac; Arabic: إسحاق or Arabic: إسحٰق[note A]ʼIsḥāq) as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sara.”
Yes, he will laugh. Isaac the trickster stomping his way toward Tampa.
I just watched the Nat’l Weather Channel latest on Isaac, and they did a segment on the RNC. According to the experts, Isaac poses a definite threat to FL. The convention center in Tampa, where some of the RNC will be held, is only 4 feet above sea level. They said Tampa has pre-determined protocols for even a CAT-1 hurricane due to its low elevation, and evacuations are ordered during a CAT-1 for that reason. The Repugs have contingency plans, so they say, which include computer and phone
conferences in the event that they can’t use Tampa facilities. Interesting synchros all around this situation, in my opinion. Lots of “number” stuff.
P.S. It’s not just the Republicans who are pro-life, etc. The Catholic Church is even worse, and there are tens of thousands of individual people who, for one reason or another, have the same mind-set. Re the Repugs, as a Florida resident I surely hope Isaac doesn’t make a mess here. Nevertheless, if the Repubs are in Tampa and Isaac hits, I hope they all have to stay in some cramped evacuation center surrounded by Dems and others who have opposing philosophies! I don’t wish damage to anyone, just the fright of their lives! (The Repugs!)
One of my closest, dearest male friends is a dedicated Catholic who has seven children. He’s a brilliant physician, a superb cardiologist. One of the most compassionate people I’ve ever known. BUT…..his name appears on a long list of national physicians who vehemently oppose abortion under any and all circumstances, including rape and incest. He and I have had many debates about this. MY view comes from personal experience. HIS view comes from religious brainwashing. I once asked him what he would do if his eleven-year-old daughter, who has already become a “young woman, having periods”, were snatched from her school bus-stop, kidnapped, savagely beaten and raped, conceived a child from the rape, and was soon rescued. Would he force his daughter to carry that child through nine months of agony on her tiny body, then spend the remainder of her entire life in trauma from the experience? His response? God and THE POPE are clear about this issue. There would be no abortion. I was and am appalled.
And yesterday when I heard Todd Akin say that a female’s body will “tighten up”, etc, during a forced “rape”, preventing it from being “forced”, I almost threw a brick into the TV screen. Sometimes during rape the victim is thrown into such a state of shock that her body simply turns “off” and becomes deathly still, like a cold stone. It’s as equally a viable and uncontrollable defense mechanism as “violently fighting” againt the rapist. I can’t even write coherently on this subject. Forgive me, Synchro friends, for my candor here: As a 19-year-old virgin, (a virgin by choice, not religion, etc.), I had been a cheerleader at my school and was brutally raped in his car at a drive-in movie by a guy who had been our high-school quarterback. He weighed 214#. I weighed 105# and was wearing a dress. He easily over-powered me. I screamed and fought like a tiger, to no avail, and that boy ripped my insides from the front to the back, subsequently requiring two major surgical procedures to repair the physical damage he did. How dare ANY MAN to tell me I was to blame or my body would have prevented the rape?
How dare ANY MAN suggest that it was my fault!! How dare ANY MAN to even pretend to know what rape IS to a female, or how it affects a woman!! How dare ANY MAN to try to tell me what I can or cannot do with my own body!! I’m lucky. I had spiritual values already in place and was able to exit that experience without permanent emotional and mental trauma and was able to put it behind me, not using it as an excuse to be bitter or to hate men and sex. But don’t let some MALE try to tell me my body isn’t MINE, or try to tell me what I can or cannot do with it!!!!!!! Maybe in future lifetimes all these people who are so stupid and ignorant on this matter will be victims themselves. Then let’s see how they feel! Sorry….for me, it’s obviously the most volatile subject on any agenda: political, religious, or otherwise.
This is a horrifying thing to live through, Math. Did you report it? Was the guy prosecuted?
Maybe Isaac will wash the party clean of its knuckle-draggers.