Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Rape apologia; misogyny.]

"In Missouri, Todd Akin…was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, 'Look, in a legitimate rape situation'—and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that's pretty tough and might on some occasion say, 'Hey, I was raped.' That's what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don't find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman's body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that… I've delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, 'Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don't be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.' So he was partially right wasn't he?"—Phil Gingrey, a Republican Congressman from Georgia. [Via Chloe.]

Santorum. Akin. Walsh. Mourdock. Koster. And now Gingery. What a cool club full of cool dudes!

You know, I've heard a lot of people use the whole "a scared teenage girl gets pregnant and tells her parents it was rape" chestnut, and I just really want to call major bullshit on that. I have known scared pregnant teenage girls, friends and family members, and not a single one of them said they had been raped—because they wanted the fathers of their children to be in their and their children's lives.

I'm not saying it's never happened in the history of the world, because BIG PLANET, but the routine assertion that is a common scenario just doesn't pass the smell test. No girl or woman who wants the involvement of her child's father is going to say she was raped. And if she is saying she was raped, well, maybe that's because she was.