Representative Todd Akin of Missouri is undoubtably an idiot, a blow hard, and a member of the American Taliban, but he did the American public a solid favor when he revealed the true attitudes of the current GOP leadership.  Let’s put aside for the moment the stone stupid idea that women’s “lady parts” are magic and can discriminate between a rapist’s sperm, and the sperm deposited by consensual sex.  I would expect nothing less from a party that glories in ignorance and the denigration of science.

Instead let’s talk about this new trend in Republican circles to parse the meaning of “rape”.  There is “legitimate” rape in the words of Rep. Akin which implies there is also illegitimate rape, what ever the hell that might be.  In the language used in a federal bill that was presented to the house, and co-sponsored by Paul Ryan, Romney’s V.P. pick, it is called “forcible” rape.  In the case of forcible rape an exception will be allowed to the ban on the use of federal funds to pay for abortions.  But who decides if a rape is forcible?  Does a woman have to beaten within an inch of her life before a rape is forcible?  Does she have to fight even if her attacker has a gun to her head or a knife to her throat?  Is the Republican argument that a decent woman will fight and die rather than surrender her virtue?

And let’s take apart this argument that a woman’s body can prevent a sperm from reaching an egg.  If a rape victim ends up pregnant, then ipso facto by Republican logic it must not have been a legitimate rape.  In a real rape the magic lady parts spring into action.  So now the victim has been victimized twice over.  First at the hands of her rapist, and now by a Republican administration that declares that she must of wanted it or enjoyed it or she wouldn’t have ended up pregnant.  Here’s the actual science — 5% of all sexual contacts both consensual and forced result in pregnancy.

The current plank in the GOP platform proposes a Constitutional Amendment to ban all abortions.  No exceptions for rape, incest or life of the mother.  So here comes the third victimization.  A woman will be forced to bear her attacker’s child, go through the rigors of pregnancy and childbirth without being allowed to make that choice.  I guess in this Republican theocracy she can always resort to the back alleys for an illegal abortion, and risk death or becoming infertile from a botched abortion.

In my relative small circle of friends I know three women who have been raped.  Sit with that for a minute.  Three.  Mercifully none of them ended up pregnant, but what if they had?The Republicans always rail against government intrusion, but here they would place the government square in a deeply personal and painful decision.  It’s amazing.  This is a party that wants to regulation of Wall Street and big banks, no EPA, etc., but they want to insert themselves in women’s vaginas.  That’s what I call government intrusion.

Just to lighten the mood check out this video from Funny or Die.  It puts all this madness in perspective.