Sarah Kliff writes at the Washington Post that Todd Akin is hardly the first Republican politician to advance the idea that women don’t get pregnant when they’re raped. This myth actually goes back a long way and comes up fairly regularly among the religious right.
But while Akin is wrong in his assertion about rape and pregnancy, he certainly isn’t alone. His remarks tapped into a strain of thinking that dates back to at least the 1980s, with anti-abortion politicians from Pennsylvania to Arkansas making the case that the trauma of rape can often prevent pregnancy. The argument does not come up frequently, but when it does, it nearly always leads to political controversy.
Pennsylvania state Rep. Stephen Freind (R) was an ardent abortion opponent. He authored legislation that included one of the the nation’s first abortion waiting periods, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court.
He also looks to be the first legislator to make the argument that rape prevents pregnancy, arguing in the late 1980s that the odds of a pregnancy resulting from rape were “one in millions and millions and millions.”
His explanation? The trauma of rape causes women to “secrete a certain secretion which has the tendency to kill sperm.” Reproductive health experts immediately denounced those remarks. One told the Philadelphia Inquirer, ”Boy, if I could find out what that [secretion] was, I’d use it as a contraceptive.”
The argument was dormant for about a decade, until the late 1990s. That’s when a North Carolina legislator, whom Garance Franke-Ruta points to, extended the argument to question whether there should actually be a rape exception from abortion restrictions,given that ”The facts show that people who are raped – truly raped – the juices don’t flow.”
Arkansas politician Fay Boozman followed up during during his 1998 Senate campaign by arguing that “fear-induced hormonal changes could block a rape victim’s ability to conceive.” Those remarks lead to a backlash when then-Gov. Mike Huckabee tappedBoozman to run the state’s health department.
The argument was most recently – and perhaps most fully – articulated by National Right to Life president John Wilke in a 1999 essay titled “Rape Pregnancies Are Rare.” Wilke made a pretty similar case to Akin: That the “physical trauma” of rape has a way of preventing pregnancy.
“To get and stay pregnant a woman’s body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones,” Wilke wrote. “There’s no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy.”
There are several things going on here. First, there is the kind of virulent ignorance that I spoke about on C-SPAN in 2007; it isn’t just that these people don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s that they have swallowed whole a bunch of false claims that make them think they are educated on the subject. Second, we have classic motivated reasoning — they are emotionally committed to their anti-abortion position, so any factual claim that helps them advance that position is accepted as true upon mere assertion.
Third, we have the routine advance of false memes that become part of this organic body of knowledge, things that everyone just “knows” even when they don’t really know them. There are lots of other examples, of course. The one that comes to mind immediately, and that I have heard repeated so often that I just shake my head when some ignorant dolt says it, is the old canard that we only use 10% of our brains.
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slc1
August 23, 2012 at 10:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A prime example of this type of thinking was exhibited by whackjob Gary Bauer at the end of the Reagan Administration. Bauer claimed that abortion increased the chances of a woman getting breast cancer and demanded that then Surgeon General C. Everette Koop investigate the claim. Koop, who was a noted opponent of abortion, came back some months later and informed Bauer that he could find no evidence in the peer reviewed literature claiming any such thing. That, of course, influenced Bauer not in the slightest and he then attacked Koop for not being on the team, much like Ann Coulter attacked Judge Jones for not being on the team relative to his Dover decision.
Mr Ed
August 23, 2012 at 10:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
is the old canard that we only use 10% of our brains
You’re baiting us, a post about conservatives ending with a statement about brain usage.
Irreverend Bastard
August 23, 2012 at 10:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Repeat a lie enough times, and people will believe it.
raven
August 23, 2012 at 10:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sure.
They are ignorant. They are lying. They don’t care that they are ignorant and lying.
raven
August 23, 2012 at 10:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A lot of commenters have pointed out that the Akin/GOP myth actually dates back to the Middle Ages.
They really do want a new Dark Age.
Phillip IV
August 23, 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And in this case the claim is particularly seductive because it also deals with the thorny theological issues raised by the rape/pregnancy question – How can a benevolent God allow people to become pregnant from rape? Well, he simply doesn’t! And as a further boon, it also gets you out of having to feel any sympathy for the victims – if they get pregnant, they’ve obviously just lied about being raped. While there is not even the shadow of the faint hint of a shred of evidence supporting the idea, it’s just so goddamn convenient – we can be pretty sure that this claim will never, ever die.
eric
August 23, 2012 at 11:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Note that here again, we have a conservative explaining that some forms of rape are less bad than others.
I suppose there’s a philosophical sense in which chopping off my arm while you rape me is worse than just raping me. But that is not really what they mean. Wilk and folks like him mean to imply that women are secretly okay with any form of nonviolent rape.
tomh
August 23, 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And, of course, Romney is tied to Dr. John Willke also. Wilke endorsed Romney in 2007 when Romney was running for the GOP nomination, and Romney welcomed the endorsement. “I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement in our country… I look forward to working with Dr. Willke and welcome him to Romney for President.”
Randomfactor
August 23, 2012 at 11:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How can a benevolent God allow people to become pregnant from rape? Well, he simply doesn’t!
The actual rape ITSELF, he has no problem with…of course.
Phillip IV
August 23, 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Randomfactor @ #9:
Of course not, after all he can’t interfere with the free will of the rapist! But don’t worry, he’ll punish him later with an eternity in a lake of fire…unless the rapist happens to accept Jesus Christ as his savior a few seconds before his death.
coragyps
August 23, 2012 at 11:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“– truly raped –”
There it is again, huh?
What “juices” did this bozo even think he was referring to, I wonder?
Ben P
August 23, 2012 at 11:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And just to make the point that ideology tends to supersede common sense and education. Fay Boozman is the older brother of one of Arkansas’ current senators John Boozman. Fay Boozman was an MD and was a practicing Opthamologist. John Boozman practiced with him as an Optometrist.
Fay Boozman challenged Blanche Lincoln (a conservative democrat)in 1998 for one of Arkansas’s senate seats and was defeated 55-45. His remark about abortions and rape came in the context of that campaign.
John Boozman challenged Blanche Lincoln in 2010 and won the election by a 58-37 margin among a very hard fought democratic primary against a liberal challenger Bill Halter.
sivivolk
August 23, 2012 at 11:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Given I’ve heard a distinguished elderly neurosurgeon pass on the 10% of our brains thing, a man who must know this is false, I think some of these things become so embedded in our culture that it’s less ignorance and more just automatic talking, like people saying bad things come in threes or ‘blood will out’ and stuff like that.
Ibis3, member of the Oppressed Sisterhood fanclub
August 23, 2012 at 11:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fixed it for you.
D. C. Sessions
August 23, 2012 at 11:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The 13th-century hypothetical female analog to male semen, which presumably could not be released without orgasm. Real big on symmetry back then, except of course where it might have given women better treatment.
Reginald Selkirk
August 23, 2012 at 11:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Carefully worded. Monkeys could fly out of his ass. I’m not saying that it will happen, or that it happens regularly, but it could happen.
Bronze Dog
August 23, 2012 at 11:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is what happens when people don’t get sex education. It’s a lot like teenagers who come up with all sorts of crazy ideas about contraception and STD prevention. Same sort of thing with teens coming up with alleged ways to beat sobriety tests, like sticking a penny under your tongue for the breath analysis.
It’s a way to manufacture the illusion of security with ignorance. It lets them rationalize risky or illegal behaviors because they think they have a handy trick to avoid the consequences. These urban legends also tend to fixate on how not to get caught or otherwise avoid the consequences, ignoring the moral principle behind the prohibitions.
As Ed’s anonymous friend discussed, it goes to scary places if adults in power continue to believe their urban legends picked up as children. A rapist gets off scot free thanks in part to politicians being uncomfortable teaching children the truth about sex.
busterggi
August 23, 2012 at 12:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So conservative Christian whack-jobs believe women who are raped can’t get pregnant.
They also believe in;
talking snakes & donkeys,
invisible demons
fossils are either artificial objects created by the devil & planted to confuse believers OR are the remains of animals that died in a world-wide flood 4000 years ago that somehow didn’t affect several ancient civilizations
magic apples
zombies that will save the world
Honestly, its wrong but its far from the craziest thing they believe.
Bronze Dog
August 23, 2012 at 1:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
True, but these people are in a position to potentially make or change laws based on this particular idea. Also, rape culture has flourished in part because of ideas like this being passed around as urban lore. While the idea is not as crazy as the other stuff, it’s still having a horrible impact.
d cwilson
August 23, 2012 at 1:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
True, but Koop also believed that the way to reduce abortion was to reduce unwanted pregnancies through education and contraception, not criminalizing it. This was one of many issues that put him at odds with his bosses in the Reagan administration. He naively believed that public health policy should be guided by good scientific data, not what conservatives really, really wanted to be true.
busterggi
August 23, 2012 at 1:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bronze Dog – I agree with you completely, its just as long as deliberately ignorant people are elected to office we will have a deliberately ignorant government.
sebloom
August 23, 2012 at 3:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@11 coragyps
The implication is that, if you were raped and got pregnant, then you really weren’t “truly raped” and are just making it up because you “changed your mind afterwards.”
—
@ 21 busterggi
Absolutely! All the more reason to get out the vote against deliberately ignorant candidates.
Draken
August 23, 2012 at 3:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hm, let’s see what i just read:
Sounds just about right.
Nomad
August 23, 2012 at 5:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ve been particularly interested in this whole topic because I kind of crossed paths with it a while back, and want to report that it’s perhaps a bit more varied than is so far being reported.
An ex-girlfriend of mine who came from a fairly religious family once told me that some process involved in medical rape investigations would either prevent pregnancy or destroy it. The idea gave me the mental image of a rape investigation kit that includes an upright vacuum cleaner with a vagina attachment, and I immediately scoffed at it. She angrily retorted “well how do YOU know?”
I believe she specified that she was taught this in church.
I doubt she believes this any more, during the time I knew her she was seemingly first coming into contact with feminism and was starting to question various things. But I report this anecdote for addition to the collection of tales that have been told. It has at least a whiff of the “legitimate rape” air about it, in that it might be suggested that if you don’t report the rape to the police and get checked out then you must not have been really raped.
I can only assume that there are further variations on this theme out there. As with other forms of science denialism the specifics don’t particularly matter when you’re not starting with reality in the first place. The true believers won’t stop to realize that they’re being told mutually exclusive stories because they’re so relieved at having been given a way out of the problem of evil contradiction of forcing women to carry the children of their rapists. If along the way they have to slut shame a woman who was impregnated by their rapist to maintain the solution then so be it.
rowanvt
August 24, 2012 at 2:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah. I love that statement. My response to it is thus:
“You know what we call it when a person is using 100% of their brain? A seizure.”
That usually stops ‘em in their tracks.