Shauna Prewitt:
Eight years after my rape, I find myself on trial against ignorance again. Rep. Todd Akin’s recent comments that “legitimate rape” rarely results in pregnancy not only flout scientific fact but, for me, cut deeper. Akin has de-legitimized my rape.
You see, nine months after my rape, I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. You could say she was conceived in rape; she was. But she is also so much more than her beginnings.
This is a great article. Todd Akin is an idiot and it saddens and alarms me that people I respect are defending him. Yes, abortion should be illegal, even in the case of rape, but not because the likelihood of pregnancy in rape cases is low. Unfortunately in our fallen and sinful world, plenty of women are raped and many of them conceive a child from it.
No, abortion should be illegal even in rape cases because murder is wrong, even if the life was conceived through the sinful actions of a monster. Todd Akin has tried to diffuse the political tension of his position (which completely backfired, but that is beside the point) because he doesn’t hold his position with conviction. In so doing, he has called the legitimacy of rape victims who conceive from the rape into question. The way we convince the world that abortion is always wrong is not by de-legitimizing rape victim’s shame, humiliation, and very real suffering as the result of the sin committed against them.
I do hereby utterly refuse to support or defend the horribly ill-conceived and uninformed comments of Todd Akin. May God have mercy on us if this is the sort of clueless leaders we have to look forward to in this country.