Was he being factually accurate in his claim that the female body has ways of counteracting sperm from legitimate rape?
If not, where did his unfounded assertion come from? Surely there had to have been some urban legend based on a modicum of scientific truth … :dubious:
It comes from other right-wing doctors seeking to make a case against all abortions.
Dr. Willkie maintains his view to this day.
It is extremely hard, nigh unto impossible, to find mainstream doctors who will say this or anything similar.
Don’t have time to summarize but this article form the NYT has a great summary. Its about as dumb as the abortion breast caner thing.
You give the issue too much credence. As far as I can tell, it’s only one doctor who holds such views (the aforementioned Dr. Willke).
Edited title to indicate subject.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
It was accepted medical wisdom at one point. That would be the point at which they still thought bleeding was a good cure for disease, and that maggots were spontaneously generated in wounds.
Wish this were true, but it’s a standard trope inside some anti-abortion circles.
Maybe you should read I_Know_Nothing’s link to start.
SMH. Wow.
Also, there is no such thing as “legitimate” rape any more than there is “legitimate” murder or “legitimate” theft. Rape is, by definition, illegal and non-consensual. It requires no adjective to make it so.
This brings a question to mind for me. These doctors, who have been trained for years to be experts in the field of medicine, honestly believe this crap? That strains credulity. How could they? I, as a layman, laugh derisively at such claims, yet these medical experts put their expertise behind them. How can they even make a seemingly legitimate medical case for these claims?
Easy: It’s seemingly legitimate by virtue of the fact that they and other medical doctors say it.
So they are simply and blatantly using their positions as doctors dishonestly to further their political goals?
I understand his term “legitimate” to mean that small percentage of the sex acts termed rape, in which the man was actually to blame. In his view.
I heard one explanation that “legitimate” was meant to differentiate from “statutory.”
-D/a
Never underestimate the ability of anyone to ignore (nay, actively deny) facts that don’t fit their world view.
Perhaps the tiny nugget of quasi-truth (truthiness?) is that most rapes (“legitimate”, forcible, statutory, or ???) do not result in pregnancy. Of course Akin conveniently seems to forget that most sexual intercourse does not result in pregnancy anyway.
In a deluded way of looking at this Akin may be ascribing causation where it does not belong.
“Legitimate rape” means someone other than a relative, like your sister or cousins. Isn’t that the way it goes back in the hills of Todd Akin’s Missouri?
When he weant on Mike Huckabee’s radio show, he said that he was differentiating between rape that actually happens and rape that women make up.
This is what it comes down to; they believe most pregnancies coming from rape are just unscrupulous women who are lying simply to gain access to abortion services (or for some other reason).