elliemurasaki: trigger warning, rape

our roads may be golden, or broken, or lost (

elliemurasaki) wrote,
@ 2012-08-19 06:41 pm UTC

Entry tags:

trigger warning, rape

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/19/13365269-missouri-republican-legitimate-rape-rarely-causes-pregnancy?lite

Surely, Mr. Akin, you or one of the doctors you mention can get on national news and explain in detail how a woman's body, unaided by hormonal or barrier contraception, can prevent pregnancy, and why that mechanism works only when a woman is raped, not when she has consensual sex without intent to be pregnant. Explain in detail, mind, not simply assert that it happens. And while you're at it, explain how your branch of Presbyterianism can defend their opposition to contraception given that the female body has natural contraception; as Wiki assures me your college degree came from a Presbyterian theological school, I'm sure you're up to this.

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	no subject grimsqueaker 2012-08-19 10:58 pm UTC (link)
	With friends like these, Christianity doesn't even need enemies as incompetent as Dawkins... or enemies at all. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 7 comments) (Show 7 comments)

	no subject grimsqueaker 2012-08-19 10:58 pm UTC (link)
	Especially Presbyterianism. Poor old CoS. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 6 comments) (Show 6 comments)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2012-08-19 11:06 pm UTC (link)
	PC(USA) doesn't have a problem with contraception. Akin is PCA, which is more conservative. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 5 comments) (Show 5 comments)

	no subject grimsqueaker 2012-08-19 11:15 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, so it isn't Presbyism at fault here. It's some mangled, bizarro-world version thereof. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 4 comments) (Show 4 comments)

no subject

elliemurasaki
2012-08-19 11:27 pm UTC (link)

Something like that.

I'm having an entertaining discussion with somebody on Slacktivist. By 'entertaining' I mean 'banging my head on the wall and hoping it'll shut him up'. He seems to be of the opinion that abolishing faith would improve the world, and he justifies this by pointing to the Crusades, to gay teens bullied for not praying themselves straight, so forth, so on. I suspect he'd take this incident as another point validating his opinion. Hasn't seemed to occur to him that the USSR having killed a fuckton of priests for being priests proves that the Crusades are more the fault of tribalism and less the fault of faith, and that the existence of atheist heterosexist bullies proves that heterosexist bullies are more the fault of heterosexism and less the fault of faith. Also hasn't seemed to occur to him that by his definition of faith (believing without evidence), some religious people have no faith, because they have personal experience of the divine. Or that abolishing faith would require doing away with those people, and that saying those deaths were caused by faith would be appallingly victim-blamey.

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	no subject grimsqueaker 2012-08-19 11:32 pm UTC (link)
	Faith or religion? After all, the USSR was a faith system... (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2012-08-19 11:37 pm UTC (link)
	He keeps saying 'faith', so. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

no subject

grimsqueaker
2012-08-19 11:44 pm UTC (link)

That's a very different thing, then. Because all extremisms stem from some form of faith, but that doesn't mean all evil stems from some sort of faith, and especially not from religion. Not all evil, after all, has that sort of motive...

A better argument is to ask what positives have come out of faith, rather than what negatives have come from not-faith. (And ask him if he's willing to abolish the economy. After all, that's entirely faith-based)

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	no subject tptigger 2012-08-20 06:03 am UTC (link)
	I'm sorry. I keep voting against him, he keeps winning. Hopefully, Claire will kick his butt in the senate. (He can't run for Congress since he's running for Senator) I'm on his mailing list 'cause I'm always yelling at him, and the man simply Doesn't Get It. Last edited 2012-08-20 06:05 am UTC (Easier to put here) (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject elliemurasaki 2012-08-20 06:41 am UTC (link)
	Good luck. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

Well...

ysabetwordsmith
2012-08-20 07:15 am UTC (link)

Either a hormonal trigger or a muscular reflex would do it. Human females actually have those, as has been documented -- people study things like why orgasms exist, they give a slight boost to conception chances -- but they're not strong enough to make more than a minor statistical blip, not in this species.

But then these guys aren't talking to people who make decisions based on facts.

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	Re: Well... elliemurasaki 2012-08-20 07:20 am UTC (link)
	Huh. I thought he was completely talking out his ass. Now I have to go investigate the possibility that it actually happens. But I'm sure you're right that it doesn't exactly happen often, so he's still lying when he says J Random Rape Survivor is wildly unlikely to be pregnant as a result of the rape. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

Re: Well...

ysabetwordsmith
2012-08-20 05:09 pm UTC (link)

It's entirely possible that he just made it up, and happened to be vaguely in the area of some actual science. But it's not so much that rape makes pregnancy less likely. Rather it's that being in a long-term healthy relationship and/or having an orgasm makes pregnancy slightly more likely. One bit I remember was a study about whether or not orgasm makes the womb act like a vacuum to suck up sperm. It doesn't seem to. What it does is make the cervix repeatedly dip into the pool of sperm deposited nearby, essentially putting some of them right in front of the door. *chuckle* Kind of like they'd asked for directions and gotten an answer.

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	no subject randombastary 2012-08-20 10:34 am UTC (link)
	So much rage!! Too much to even have words!! (Reply to this)

	no subject redsixwing 2012-08-20 02:05 pm UTC (link)
	Nicely said. I kind of frothed at this for a while and gave up. Too much WHARRGARBL to even deal with it. >.< (Reply to this)

	no subject pauamma 2012-08-20 10:13 pm UTC (link)
	"legitimate rape"???? (Reply to this)

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