An army of spinmeisters will not hold off the flaming ball of shit hurtling toward the execrable and now notorious Todd Akin, the bozo from Missouri who thinks all that rape talk is exaggerated. To call him a douchebag would be an insult to douchebags, which are far more useful to the human race than he is.
But the fantasy that if a woman is experiencing sufficient terror during the act she will somehow produce abortifacient hormones is not a new idea. In fact, I’m surprised Akin and his Bible-thumper friends haven’t already criminalized it. I mean, if removing the possibly fertilized egg is murder, shouldn’t a woman be prosecuted for permitting herself to be that scared? Doesn’t the Sacredness of Life dictate that she should smile broadly and welcome the precious seed into the world? How dare she murder an unborn child by succumbing to a silly fear of being strangled or cut to pieces?
The scramble to dump this loony-tunes candidate quicker than he can say, Jesus Loves You, is a sure sign that the anti-sex crowd wants this one to go away yesterday if not sooner. But it won’t be so easy to disentangle the underlying Republican/Christian Right posture on birth control and abortion from this embarrassingly revealing Akin-boner.
Turns out Righteous Mike Huckabee, the last Christian standing in 2008, has his own record of endorsing the prophylactic qualities of women’s fear. Ezra Klein notes that as governor Huckabee appointed an Akin clone to be the head of Arkansas’ health department who believed that ‘fear-induced hormonal changes could block a rape victim’s ability to conceive.’
Akin’s outrage isn’t really that much of a stretch if you believe god’s finger is on the fertilized egg the instant it begins to roam inside the female body, even before attaching to the uterine wall or achieving the most incipient viability. With that as your starting point, actual women are reduced to slightly inconvenient holding tanks for the propagation of the species, which is not a terribly popular notion outside of places like Saudi Arabia and Mississippi.
It’s going to be comparatively easy for the wackos to muddy the waters on the Medicare-Obamacare debate. But this one is a losing battle because people not living under purdah are alert to this issue and its subtexts. The GOP poobahs want Akin and his mega-gaffe to go away ASAP.
Todd Palin at least has a reality show to occupy his idle moments; the Missouri Todd might want to ask him if there’s a free slot. The guy is going to have time on his hands.
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