Thanks to Todd Akin‘s asinine comments about pregnancy and rape, along with continued ignorance towards rape survivors, we’re back to discussing basic biology, ladies. You may have aced health, but it would appear that we’re in the political company of those who have not. How else can you explainThe New York Times uncovering that Mr. Akin is not the first to espouse the whole “real” rape can’t get women with child? Dating all the way back to 1988, we have lawmakers talking about “a certain secretion” that kills sperm, “juices” not flowing in instances of sexual assault, and “a biochemical reaction in the victim that makes conception unlikely.” Take note, these biologically baseless comments aren’t coming from perhaps the town joker, but people in our legislation who have and are looking to found policy decisions on these severely flawed understandings of female anatomy.
So while Todd Akin and The Case Of The Sperm Secretion campaign all the way to new heights of victim-blaming, let’s look at some actual numbers on pregnancy and rape. Despite whatever fairytales are currently being swapped on our TV screens, there is a little about rape-induced pregnancy that we do know.
Once upon a time I was a smoker. I was young and free and didn’t give a shit about…
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