“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
~Rep. Todd Akin
KTVI-TV Interview, August 2012.
Flipping through Women Without Superstition this quote by Sherry Matulis recounting her rape and consequent pregnancy in 1954 caught my eye:
"Contrary to what the purveyors of mystical notions seem to think happens in cases such as this, I discovered that my ovaries hadn't magically shut down; and I had been impregnated by the rape. The feeling that came over me at that time is one I've never really been able to describe. It was part fear, panic, revulsion and ,mostly, an overwhelming sense of helplessness --- of not knowing where to turn for help because at that time there wasn't any help."
~Sherry Matulis
in her speech How I Earned My Feminist Credentials delivered at the fiftieth annual convention of the American Humanist Association in Chicago, May 1991.
Akin has apologized, "I used the wrong words in the wrong way and for that I apologize." Then later says in his reasoning for not dropping out of the race, "Is there a matter of some justice here? I misspoke one word in one sentence on one day." (Quotes from here).
The fact that he thinks the only erroneous mistake was the word "legitimate" (which is as bad as "forcible") rape tells me it wasn't a slip up - that what he said to him is truth. This is why decisions about our bodies shouldn't be made by old men. We've made progress, thanks in no small part to Sherry Matulis and all the women fighting for our reproductive rights - the right to control our own bodies and live healthy and productive lives.
We've made progress, but more need to join the fight. Count me in.
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