Now that Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin has made us aware that there is something called “Legitimate Rape,” and that a woman’s body is capable of “shutting that whole thing down,” we are now getting word that Mr. Akin and the Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, sponsored a bill called ‘No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,’ that would have changed the definition of word “rape” to “forcible rape.”
The new definition of rape did not go through because of public pressure and the bill’s absurdity, but imagine what would have happened if these crazy nuts had their way – a woman who suffered the torture of being raped, would have had to explain how forcible the rape was and then a qualified third party would then determine if the forcing was enough to qualify as a rape.
Akin and Ryan were the original co-sponsors of the controversial bill H.R. 3, “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which initially included language which changed the definition of “rape” to “forcible rape,” until public pressure forced the bill’s supporters to remove that unacceptable and narrow definition. As I wrote previously, Paul Ryan is not just anti-choice, his anti-choice views are extreme and just plain bad for all women.
Linking Ryan to Akin and the idea that there is such a thing as “legitimate rape” based on pseudo-science and folklore is something that needs to be done before the upcoming election. While Team Romney attempted to create distance with Akin, saying that both Romney and Ryan “disagree” with his statements, there was nothing in their statement that said they condemn his remarks as hurtful to victims. There was also nothing in Team Romney’s statement that pointed out that what Akin said about pregnancies resulting from rape being rare is just flat-out wrong.
Ryan was against abortion in all cases including rape until Team Romney’s statement. Romney has said he would get rid of Planned Parenthood and has been moving further right on women’s issues since he was a pro-choice governor of Massachusetts. This could be a huge problem for the Republican ticket in November.
