Our next clown can be found by starting with a reminder. Remember former GOPper Senate candidate Todd Akin, who insisted it was almost impossible for a raped woman to be pregnant because if it's "legitimate rape" the woman's body has a way of "shutting that whole thing down?"GOPper Rep. Phil Gingrey does, and he's on Akin's side. Gingrey, a former OB/GYN and co-chair of the House GOP Doctors Caucus, defended Akin at a recent Chamber of Commerce breakfast.
"I've delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things," he insisted. Which is kind of like someone claiming to know all about how gasoline is refined because they've pumped lots of gas.
As if to prove that he does indeed have a lot of gas, he related how he would tell couples that are having trouble conceiving to "Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don't be so tense and uptight."
Now, it is true that physical or emotional stress can interfere with a woman ovulating - but it's also true that this has absolutely nothing to do with what Akin said, which was about a woman's supposed magical ability to prevent a pregnancy, to "shut that whole thing down," in the wake of a rape. And it is also true that repeated studies have shown that a pregnancy is as likely to arise from a rape as from any other single act of intercourse.
Just to confirm his clown status, at that same breakfast, Gingrey also defended former GOPper Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who said in October that he opposes legal abortion without an exception for rape victims because if a woman conceives from rape, "it is something God intended to happen."
Remember what I said earlier about this goes beyond the question of abortion to a woman's right to choose, period? Clowns like Phil Gingrey help make that point for me.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/phil-gingrey-todd-akin_n_2456435.html
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/context-and-variation/2012/08/20/here-is-some-legitimate-science-on-pregnancy-and-rape/
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