I’m so sick of bully politicians pretending that they know more about my body and what my health care needs are than I do.
Out of touch men should not try to address how a woman’s body reacts to rape unless they are a doctor… and I’m pretty sure that Ron Paul is the only high profile elected official that is also a gynecologist. He’s also the only one who seems to have been able to keep his mouth shut regarding Todd Akin. For this I am grateful, because I’d be highly uncomfortable with Uncle Ron discussing girly bits.
To clarify: I don’t believe that men should be silent on all things regarding women and their health. They have wives, sisters, mothers and daughters – they should be invested in their rights and their well being. Issues like abortion and birth control clearly impact the male population in a significant way.
Sometimes, however, it is prudent to not speak about something you cannot fully understand. Rape is generally one of those times. It’s pretty simple messaging: You are against rape, you support women who have been raped, and you do not differentiate between different kinds. This is abortion politics 101. Rape bad. The end. Speaking as a woman who has also been a rape victim, I do not want to hear a man who clearly has no idea what he’s talking about discussing how my body reacts in that situation. It’s not helpful. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite.
There have been many comparisons to rape gaffes from Joe Biden, etc. Fine. Joe Biden is an idiot. That’s a pretty low bar to set for a candidate, and anyone who claims to be a conservative should be better than that. This is also not an opportunity for pro-lifers to take a stand and flex their muscle. Todd Akin was not voicing a pro-life view. He was spewing nonsense and had no facts to back himself up. It was offensive. It was vile.
He should be better than this, and being utterly uneducated on such a basic issue is unacceptable at best. He needs to go.
The flip side of this is that it’s just as disgusting for Democrats to fear monger and raise money off it, to try to beat their women back into submission. Predictably, an email from Debbie Wasserman Schultz went out almost immediately following Akin’s comments, attempting to link the nonsense to Romney and Ryan.
Now, Akin’s choice of words isn’t the real issue here. The real issue is a Republican party — led by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan — whose policies on women and their health are dangerously wrong.
Obviously, this is total BS. But she has been doubling down ever since. Another email dispatched this evening said:
Romney, Ryan and the Republican Party are showing their true colors — and just how dangerous they will be for women if they’re victorious on Election Day. We can’t let them continue to say one thing to the public while privately pushing to make it harder for women to control their own bodies.
I suppose they feel that this is a less offensive message coming from a woman. The problem with this is that it’s blatant manipulation and a completely transparent pander to women. Even more offensive than a man ignorant of the effects of rape on my body is a woman who believes that my vote can be bought with shrieking rhetoric about how Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney want to be all up in my uterus.
Do Democrats truly not believe that women care about other issues? Women have been, far and away, more impacted by this recession than any other demographic. Unemployment, the national debt, education, health care… these are all issues that directly and significantly impact women and their families. There are many women who do not vote with their uterus. It’s insulting to assume that we’re just dumb enough to be terrified into voting against our own interests. It’s how they continue to enslave the black community. And the Hispanic community. And the gay community. No group is only impacted by one issue.
Bringing Romney and Ryan into this was a cheap political ploy with absolutely no relevance. The big picture issue is that government funded birth control and abortion access do not equate women’s health care. Wal Mart sells birth control for $4, and many of us would never have an abortion. If we did, there are plenty of places that would provide that procedure. There are no plans to shut that down. Unfortunately.
Instead of trying to bully women into voting for Obama, how about taking real steps to make health care affordable? How about giving women the power to choose their health care providers, and freeing up employers to provide the best health care available for women and their families? Can we start there?
I’m tired of demeaning politicians who think they know what I need better than I do. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, you do not know my health care needs, and your shrieking doesn’t scare me. Todd Akin, you do not know how my body reacts to rape.
Shut up. Stop making my uterus a political tool. Leave me alone.
Maybe because men think with their genitalia they assume women do, too.
Is a woman ever influenced by her uterus’, e.g. when thinking about having a family? If so, how is it different from thinking with a penis? The article is quite well written though, and supports Republicans without supporting the nonsense that comes out of the fringes.
Well said. I too, am thoroughly put out by all the screeching, manipulative diatribes of the left. It’s irritating and insulting. And Akin there are no words for. What he said was idiotic, and the ONLY thing left to do after that was to go. And like a pompous idiot he refuses, for that he is a Jack ass.
Maybe your uterus is not a political ‘tool’, Tabitha, but you are. You must be gratified that the pinheaded, evolution-denying, Bible-thumping Clod Akin is still in the race to lead the hilljacks of Missouri. I know I am. What a gift! Tom, please forward this to her. Oh, and what does Joe Biden have to do with this again. She’s kinda nuts, dontcha think?
Ryan’s views on women and their right to control their own uterus is pretty much the same as Akin’s. Romney, when asked by Mike Huckabee if he would support a “personhood” bill said “Absolutely!” Rush Limbaugh, the number one mouthpiece of the GOP created the whole Sandra Fluke fiasco by speaking out loud what the GOP is really thinking about women and birth control.
If you truly care about women’s rights, there is no way you could support the GOP at this point in time.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is telling it like it is. You should be sending money to the Democrats to help fight these attacks on women by the Republicans.
Jeffrey, and every other Democrat, believe me when I say that Republicans don’t want to control your uterus. There is not a more conservative person on the face of the earth, and, although I don’t like it, abortion was ruled as a right, so a bill won’t take that away. You would need an amendment to the constitution and that will never happen.
The issue that made Fluck and started the “war on women” was whether the government can force Catholic and other non-profits to pay for contraception and abortion. That’s it. Nothing more.
If you really care about women’s health issues, you wouldn’t be supporting the Obamacare, which will limit our freedoms to choose what procedures to utilize and when. If you have to wait 9 months to get an abortion, what the hell does it really matter? Are you going to abort in the third trimester assuming no health risks to the mom?
I’m on the 11th hole in life’s back 9, but I do have a young daughter. My concern is not for her health issues but for her freedom and economic opportunties as she becomes an adult. Our freedoms are being stripped away faster than even I imagined when the socialists/facists gained control of congress in 2006. I suggest you not look at the names of bills, but read them instead. You will learn that a bill that purports to give you freedom really does the opposite, because government’s don’t give you rights. They only take them away.
BTW, just as an FYI, that socialist utopia you’re searching for, will never be found here in earth. If the kubbutzs in Israel couldn’t make it due to the vagaries of human nature, socialism will never work on a larger scale. So far, history has proven me right. Can’t think of a socialist state I would want to live in. If you can, let me know. I’ll provide you the one-way ticket there.
Scott, if you’re really on “life’s back 9″, shouldn’t you have figured out what real socialists and real fascists actually are by now? If you had, you would realize that someone can’t be a socialist and a fascist at the same time. Labeling the current Democratic (and yes, Republicans, it’s DemocratIC. We don’t call you the Republic Party) socialist/fascist is nonsensical. Also, altering fluke’s name in an attempt to demean her is not classy and does not lend any weight to your argument. It detracts from it and makes you look like an imbecile. If members of your party actually desire more “freedom”, then stop trying to use wedge social issues to win votes. Let people lead their lives however they like within the law. Akin’s comments are not an outlier. They are a symptom of much broader problems in your party and that should be your concern.
Of course one can be a socialist and a facist at the same time . Take for example the nazis, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) . The were certainly facists and they called themselves socialists too .
It depends on whose definitions of “socialism” and “fascism” you use.
As Orwell wrote in “Politics and the English Language”: ‘The word “Fascism” has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable”. ‘
“Akin’s comments are not an outlier.” Prove it.
It is funny how Darryl and Jeffery (male names) demand women to vote with their uterus; it is as if Democrats believe we are unable to function without them.
I am a fifty year old woman and I agree with Tabitha Hale, stop using my uterus as a political tool and leave me alone.
I never would have imagined that when I reached adulthood thirty-two years ago that the Democrat party would treat me like a child for the rest of my life.
If more women had refused Democrat pandering this wouldn’t be an issue today.
Why don’t you genius liberals explain how my not paying for any woman’s birth control is denying her access to birth control. When Sandra Fluke showed up on capitol hill and proceeded to whine about how difficult it was to choose between a bottle of Ronrico rum and birth control she created the whole fiasco. No one else. What kind of idiot would willingly lie then demand that others pay for her lifestyle?
Anyone who invokes Dingy Debbie as a voice of intelligence and reason should be mercilessly ridiculed and never taken seriously again.
There is Rape which is bad, and should have te death penalty I can argue that this is “Legitimate Rape”.
There is Fake Rape, where a woman accuses a man of rape, either with nothing happening or when getting drunk partying and waking up the next morning thinking woah I should not have done that. This is NOT “Legitimate Rape” and is not rape period. (BTW, if someone slips a partying woman a roofie or something else that is rape end of story)
Perhaps our liberals friends might explain to me the left’s choice as a democrat keynote or am I the only one who sees the irony of the “All Akin all the time” democrats having Bill Clinton as their keynote speaker?
…also, an 18 year plus one day old adult male having consentual sex with a female who is 17 and 363 days old is actually felony “rape” in many jurisdictions. Definitions matter…and so does geography.
Amen.
Merely an extension of identity politics. It’s what the left thrives on. In fact, its only reason for existence. Skin color, sex, education, money…whatever differences can be exploited by the progressives to incite jealosy…for which of course they have the solution.
Well said. I’m a woman who is getting very tired of my liberal friends insisting that a woman’s right to choose is the most important issue ever.
As long as she’s not trying to choose a different school for her children, or what level of health insurance her family needs, or how best to save for her retirement, that is.
And it’s so insulting for people to insist that women can’t wrap our pretty little heads around things like the economy – all we should care about is getting someone else to pay for birth control, and keeping abortion legal. Everything else, we should let the men worry about. (Math is hard, and all that.)
For those who are concerned about Akin’s stupid comment, let’s put it in perspective.
Assume he believes 100% that it is impossible for a woman to get pregnant from a rape, and even sponsors a bill to outlaw abortion in the case of rape, do any of you honestly believe it would have a chance in hell of being passed, being signed, and then surviving the constitutional challenges? NFW! Ergo, his odd delusion about biology poses zero risk to “women’s health.”
On the other hand, McCaskill has repeatedly demonstrated her willingness to vote for whatever lame brained economic shell game the Democrats as a body proposes, to the great detriment of economy today and decades into the future.
So you have a guy with a tenuous grip on biology that poses no risk in that area compared with a woman with a tenuous grip on economics that has already demonstrated a clear and present danger on that front. When looked at this way, how can you go against Akin on the basis of logic.
“Shut up. Stop making my uterus a political tool. Leave me alone.”
Good luck with that. As long as there are votes to be won your uterus will continue to be used as a political tool.
“you do not differentiate between different kinds”
Sorry to offend, but I do.
1) “rape”… forcible or unwelcome sexual congress. * trimmed for brevity, but relatively accurate for that*
2) “statutory rape” … rape by legal statute that may not fit the first category (see the 18 year old with his 16 year old girlfriend type case).
… sorry, I see that as different. Now if you use force or your attentions are unwelcome, you also hit #1 on top of this.
3) “seduction” basically lying to get laid; then getting caught and your partner crying rape after agreeing to having sex. Less common now as a category (it used to be claiming a desire to wed a woman, then retracting after sex), but still problematic.
For the record, I think #1 is generally considered “forcible rape” in a legal setting and #2 and #3 aren’t (unless they also meet the criteria for #1).
I’m not saying any of these are not criminal; but the degree of criminal action is different in these cases, and I expect to be “allowed” to acknowledge that, even if I stand when I pee.
While not a gynecologist, isn’t Tom Coburn an obstetrician?
I’m a born again Dem, that means I found a brain and became a Repub. Child of the 60s female and a real former hippie. Woman are completely clueless when it comes to knowing anything about birth control,their bodies, and abortion. Women have become in the last decades the classic sheeple. Fortunately women are waking up and are making an effort to learn about the world in reality. I don’t think government should have anything to do with regulating reproduction or financing it. If they say you can abort a baby they can say you must abort a baby ala China. The only laws I would like to see on the books is women must be fully informed about the hazards of all forms of birth control and abortion. I would also like to see an age limit of minors getting abortion with out informing a parent or guardian set at 16 and under. Lest you get your drawers in a bunch most abortions occur within the over 21 crowd. Heres some sites that illustrate my positions.
http://onemoresoul.com/contraception-abortion/risks-consequences/what-a-woman-should-know-about-birth-control.html
http://www.pathlights.com/abortion/abort05.htm
http://www.pathlights.com/abortion/abort08.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minors_and_abortion
http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RO3Y6HdfnM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPF1FhCMPuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8B1nKGIAeg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHKOhBYe_ks&NR=1&feature=endscreen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpmagU1Vy7o
http://www.redstate.com/nikitas3/2010/03/11/conservatives-are-the-real-womens-rights-advocates/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UPHvj12zc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZFwsoa_Zr4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI67MuPwsX0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM2FyiA58KI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAmnUG2JhEE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVteKj6XoS4&playnext=1&list=PL4F3ADDC3F9D5A4D6&feature=results_video
Our Uterus has become a political football when is should become a beach head in which we protect and defend.