What of Akin? What sense should we make of the fervid controversy surrounding Missouri Senate Candidate and Congressman Todd Akin’s musings on abortion? What do the howls of protest say about the Republican Party: true-believers and cynical consultants?
As Akin’s moment is apparently over (though he might yet become the distinguished gentleman from Missouri), his remarks require reprise. Interviewed on St. Louis television, Congressman Akin was asked about his opposition to most abortions, even after rape. The congressman replied,“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”
Akin’s unscripted remark produced a firestorm of protest, first, not surprisingly, from Democrats and then, more surprisingly, from Republican politicians and consultants who concluded that Akin could no longer defeat vulnerable incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill.
Politics must be understood through context, not through truth. Congressman Akin, labeled a “Tea Party favorite” (a term that deserves unpacking) had just defeated two Missouri Republicans considered more “electable.” The party establishment was suspicious of this true believer. A replacement might make the seat “more winnable.” In social psychological terms, Akin did not have what Edwin Hollander spoke of as “idiosyncrasy credits,” allowing a do-over for a rabid gaffe. Akin lacked capital in the Grand Old Party’s favor bank. Soon after the remarks were publicized, Republican leaders, as well as former Republican senators from Missouri, called for Akin to quit. Rush Limbaugh suggested that Akin should look into his heart and do the right thing. Todd Akin was crucified by his allies, betrayed by his peeps.
But what of his remarks? The controversy centered on three claims: 1) some rapes are “legitimate,” 2) women rarely get pregnant through forcible rape, and 3) if a woman becomes pregnant, the unborn child should not be punished.
The most controversial, but the least substantial, is the first. Legitimate rape. The phrase chills. Can any rape be legitimate? Still, my readers are also talkers. Teachers ramble on with only a few scraps of notes before us: no presidential teleprompter. We create texts as we speak, hoping that we don’t get it too wrong. Congressman Akin got it too wrong, but perhaps in a way that each of us can sympathize. We have all stuck our foot in it. We search for the right word and when it can’t be found, we use a word that we pray is unnoticed.
Congressman Akin meant “forcible rape.” Does anyone doubt it? “Forcible rape” is a term of art, but one that distinguishes between violent rape and what is termed statutory rape (some statutory rape is forcible; some is consensual). The term blurs the line between stranger rape and acquaintanceship rape, both of which involve force. Implicitly, Akin suggests that what the public labels rape are distinct crimes that occasionally overlap (states characterize the crimes in legal terms as various degrees of sexual assault). The demand to “take back the night” through demonstrations and rallies recognizes that at the fearful core of the crime of rape is stranger danger, even if so-called “date rape” is more common.
Statutory rape – what might be labeled, following Akin, illegitimate rape – is a crime based on collective attitudes towards age. States differ in the age limits of statutory rape. “Children” could once wed at age twelve, and these crimes are based on our collective estimation of what children are capable of and what they can consent to. Puberty was once the marker of the right to marry. Today these laws make sense, even while, when consensual, they reflect a different category of acts from forcible rape.
Todd Akin erred in referring to “legitimate rape,” we give him that, but he did so in the attempt to distinguish violent rape (and, perhaps, stranger rape) from other acts under the same category. The goal of the “forcible” terminology, of course, is to narrow the instances of rape for which abortion is permitted.
The second issue is whether a woman who is forcibly raped is likely to become pregnant. Akin did not aver that such pregnancies could not happen, only that they were rare. This is a long-standing belief in the pro-life community. If he is wrong, he is not a fabulist, but a reporter of the fables of others. As I heard the statement, I wondered, “Is this true?” Might extreme trauma prevent pregnancy? As Joel Best argues in Damn Lies and Statistics, what we know depends upon what information we choose to collect, how we collect it, and from whom. We need to have a critical stance to all statistics we are fed.
Women who are raped can and do become pregnant. But statistics are conflicting. Estimates of pregnancies resulting from rape – extrapolation from surveys – range from as low as 200 to 3000 to over 30,000 in the United States each year. But Akin also claimed that stress or trauma prevents pregnancy. Again research appears mixed. Some research finds that rape victims are less likely to get pregnant than those engaged in consensual sexual activity; other studies suggest that rape victims are more likely to become pregnant; still other studies find that pregnancy rates are identical. I am not a biologist, haven’t examined the details of the study procedures and the populations involved. Surely some research is more credible than others. In my reading, there is some consensus in the fertility literature that extreme life stress decreases the likelihood of pregnancy, although this may involve long-term stress, rather than sudden trauma.
The third claim is neither a misstatement nor a factoid. It is a value. This pro-life perspective suggests that even if a woman gets pregnant after rape, she has a moral responsibility. The child should not be the second victim of the crime of rape. I do not find the claim persuasive, but it is one that I understand. If a fetus is a human life, deliberate abortion constitutes murder. And we recognize that the perpetration of one crime does not justify a second. The victim of sexual harassment does not have the right to castrate the harasser, and certainly not the harasser’s child. I find the logic of trauma more compelling, but this is not a wild and fanciful argument, but one of misplaced compassion.
Putting aside the gaffe and the controversial science, this value is the center of the Akin controversy. It is here that cynicism resides. This value led Republican Party mandarins to attempt to abort the Akin campaign. Yet, this same value is to be found in the 2012 Republican platform for all to read.
Todd Akin has been condemned for the sin of sincerity, a true representative of a false party. He claimed a belief that is ideologically central, but one that elites believe should be conveyed with a wink, a sop to the unsophisticated. This election is not to be fought over dead babies.
In the dark days of segregation, Strom Thurmond used to filibuster about States Rights and Southern traditions. His South Carolina colleague Olin Johnston, as explicitly a racist as there was in the Senate, cynically remarked of Thurmond’s crusade: “There is no use talking to Strom. He really believes that shit.” Todd Akin is a Republican problem because he believes his shit too well.
Even the distinction between “forcible rape” and “non-forcible rape” implies a dichotomy where none exists. All rapes are crimes of force of one sort or another; the question is not the presence of “force” but the relative presence of “forcible resistance” along a large spectrum of possibilities (not merely two), with the latter often foregone specifically because of the increase in trauma that can and does result (even unto death) from such forcible resistance. To elide this is to at the same time elide the entire problem of differential power relations along a variety of well-known axes in society in which Todd Aikin, by virtue of his being a public figure, a candidate for a major party, and at the same time a man, is well and truly embedded.
His problem is not that he misspoke or believed, nor is it in the relative cynicism of any party’s response. It is quite simply that he frames the issue in a way—the way that it is framed above—that does not ring true with respect to the empirical reality involved or to any woman, and women make up half the electorate. His further problem is that as a public figure in the particular context of the moment, he had and has a greater responsibility than all but very few to frame carefully, to think and reflect deeply, and to found his speech on acts of research and judgment equal to their potential effects.
That he did none of these and others responded swiftly isn’t a matter of personal indictment or even (to my eye) cynicism, but an acknowledgment of this failure. That he failed here doesn’t make him (as some on Facebook might suggest) ineligible to live or to speak as a citizen, but it certainly does (and ought to) make him ineligible to govern, at least to the eyes of this citizen. But of course the final determination will be made by the respective voting body at issue.
I just wanted to add to Aron’s critique. It is too easy to circumvent accountability for politician’s statements as “gaffes.” Akin is a professional and his statements. intended or not, show who’s “Geistes Kind” (spirit’s child) he is. When a MTA busdriver creates an accident, we also do not excuse it as a gaffe, even though it happens to most of us too.