Do yo think “Life Begins at Rape” bumper stickers would sell at the RNC?

People are up in arms this evening over something that vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said recently, when asked to comment on his fellow Republican Todd Akin’s statements concerning “legitimate rape”. (As you’ll recall, Akin, who is running for Senate, had said that “real” rapes don’t result in pregnancy, implying that women who claim to have become pregnant by rape were in fact complicit in the act.) Ryan didn’t, at least from what I heard, say that Akin’s comments were offensive, ridiculous and run contrary to everything we know about human physiology, but that’s not what people are upset about. (Ryan just said that Akin’s comments were bad for the party, and that he should bow out of the race.) No, people are upset that Ryan referred to rape as just another “method of conception.” He’s technically right, of course. Rape is a means of conception. But apparently people don’t like it when their vice presidential candidates appear, through poor word choice, to legitimize rape… making it sound as though rape is just one of many ways available to us men who want to have children. Personally, I respect Ryan in this instance, as he appears to be pretty straightforward on the issue, saying that he does not believe that the victims of rape should be able to terminate the resulting pregnancies. Regardless of whether he chooses to refer to rape as a “method of conception,” I think that should be enough to disqualify him in the eyes of every American woman, but what do I know? Apparently some women like being told that rape is a precious gift from God… Here’s the video. Let me know what you think.

Upon watching it again, it does sound as though Ryan is working for a marketing firm tasked with rebranding rape, and making it more palatable. When he describes rape as another form of conception, it kind of brings to mind the, “Pork- The other white meat” campaign. I can can picture the ads now… “Rape- The other form of conception”.

Or, here’s an even better idea. And I bet that we could make a lot of money money with it… What if we make “Conception Begins at Rape” bumper stickers, and sell them at the Republican National Convention tomorrow?

Or, I guess, it would actually be “Life Begins at Rape,” right?

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16 Comments

  1. Eel
    Posted August 27, 2012 at 9:58 pm | Permalink

    No too long ago weren’t we discussing a certain candidate for office here in Ypsi who didn’t believe in date rape? These views concerning rape are no longer the Republican fringe.

  2. roots
    Posted August 27, 2012 at 10:26 pm | Permalink

    I just laughed out loud, a little. Which is terrible! Dammit, Mark.

  3. Edward
    Posted August 28, 2012 at 6:33 am | Permalink

    I like “life begins at rape” for a plank of the Republican party, right along with “science is witchcraft”.

  4. Thom Elliott
    Posted August 28, 2012 at 6:52 am | Permalink

    One thing I have noticed missing in all this surreal debate about rape is that rape is of course not merely a behaviour. The tautology Mittens said and everyone else seems to be saying; “rape is rape” which says nothing, doesn’t describe rape at all. They are saying that tautology because the commonly held belief of masculinist men is that they believe many rapes are just “feminazi” women claiming it after the fact. Rape is the behaviour of either an entitled male “creeper” in an aquaintence rape scenario, which is epidemic, or the predatory serial rapist, who is just short of a serial killer. I can think of one reason Ryan would speak this way, because he has probably had sex with a woman too drunk to say no. He is an Ayn Rand adherent, who seemed to enjoy rape, and an entitled college republican who “creeps”.

  5. Anonymous Mike
    Posted August 28, 2012 at 9:24 am | Permalink

    These people are extremists. They do not believe that birth control should be publicly available, as it defies god’s law. They are not pro life though. They believe in the death penalty. They are religious zealots, not unlike those of the Taliban.

  6. Meta
    Posted August 28, 2012 at 9:43 am | Permalink

    Here’s something to add to your point, AM.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pzqq9sxKkY

  7. Knox
    Posted August 28, 2012 at 10:13 am | Permalink

    I wasn’t aware of it, but women who choose not to terminate their pregnancies after rape then have to negotiate parental rights with their rapists. The following comes from the Christian Post.

    ……..In response to Akin’s statement, a woman who was raped and decided to give birth to her baby, and now works as a lawyer, revealed that rapists in 31 states retain the same custody and visitation rights over the children they conceive through rape as do regular fathers.

    “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,” said Shauna R. Prewitt a lawyer in Chicago in a piece for CNN.

    “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. I blissfully believed that after I finally had decided to give birth to and to raise my daughter, life would be all roses and endless days at the playground. I was wrong again,” she added.

    Prewitt revealed that what she discovered was that the majority of U.S. states, 31 in total, have no laws that prohibit a rapist from exercising custodial rights. A woman is forced to risk her own legal rights to have the rapist brought to trial in exchange for the man dropping his interests in interacting with the child.

    Prewitt, who became a lawyer after her ordeal, and wrote a paper for Georgetown Law Journal in 2009 addressing the same issue, continued: “When faced with the choice between a lifetime tethered to her rapist or meaningful legal redress, the answer may be easy, but it is not painless. For the sake of her child, the woman will sacrifice her need to see her once immensely powerful perpetrator humbled by the court.”

    She further dismissed the belief that no rapist would dare ask for parental rights for a child he fathered, citing her own experience and detailing the legal battles she had to go through.

    David Ward, Legal & Legislative Counsel of Legal Voice, a nonprofit organization that secures and protects women’s legal rights in America, confirmed in a phone interview with The Christian Post that many states do indeed currently allow rapists to hold the same custody and visitation rights as any other father. Ward could not confirm the total number of states that grant rapists such rights.

    Sara Ainsworth, a former staff attorney for Legal Voice, wrote in 2008 a paper titled “Parental Rights for Rapists?” which talked about the controversial topic in depth.

    “But for the thousands of women in the United States who become pregnant and bear children as a result of rape each year, the need to ensure that they can raise their children without further threat from the rapist is a critical – and largely unacknowledged – concern,” Ainsworth notes.

    The paper explains that 32,000 women in the Unites States become pregnant as a result of rape each year, half of whom decide to end their pregnancies while the other half decide to keep their babies.

    Highlighting the legal obstacles they face in most states, Ainsworth shares a number of stories of raped women who were forced under law to cooperate with their rapists over their children.

    “Another survivor, a 14-year-old girl, decided to give up her baby for adoption. She was required by law to give notice of the adoption to the rapist, an adult man. While she was permitted by a court to give up her rights to the child, the rapist retained his and then sought child support payments from her,” the lawyer writes. “Another survivor, who gave birth to twins after a date rape, raised them peacefully with her intimate partner until they were five years old, at which time the rapist learned of their existence and filed a lawsuit to establish his paternity and gain visitation rights, and attempted to use the mother’s sexual orientation against her in the legal proceedings.”

    Ainsworth concludes by suggesting that this is one issue that both the pro-life and pro-choice movements can work together on, by advocating for more legal protection for mothers who decide to keep their babies conceived by rape.

    Read more at http://global.christianpost.com/news/rapists-can-claim-custody-visitation-rights-for-victims-babies-80656/#OU92Q76KRvLKbsbW.99

  8. Elf
    Posted August 28, 2012 at 2:22 pm | Permalink

    How does one make something a meme? This certainly seems meme worthy. Is there someone who I can call?

  9. Elf
    Posted August 28, 2012 at 2:27 pm | Permalink

    And if any of you think, even for a fraction of a second, that Ryan would encourage his daughter to have the child of a psychopathic rapist, you are out of your minds. These are rules for the poor that they are establishing. They don’t apply to people like them.

  10. anonymous
    Posted August 28, 2012 at 3:30 pm | Permalink

    Let’s not forget the forced penetrative ultrasound of women being called for by some Republicans, which is essentially clinical rape.

  11. Posted August 28, 2012 at 9:34 pm | Permalink

    Elf,

    You are wrong. If he thought it would benefit him politically, he would force his daughter to carry the baby to term.

  12. Oliva
    Posted August 29, 2012 at 6:50 am | Permalink

    The lower one, with Ryan’s face and Romney’s “R” and the red background, is just so good.

  13. Meta
    Posted August 30, 2012 at 3:44 pm | Permalink

    For those who think Mark’s bumper sticker in in bad taste, check out this ad for Legitimate Rape.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtzqvqzBdUQ

  14. Posted September 24, 2012 at 11:27 pm | Permalink

    While you argue about this stuff there is a group from the “religion of peace” sneaking up behind you with a black burka. Your tunnel vision about pinning the “conservative evil doer” title on somebody is distracting you from the real evil and danger threatening the women in this country.

    If you don’t wake up ((((((and see that Obama is letting the evil, cruel, rigid, repressive, fanatic driven , civil rights destructive, theocracy known as “the religion of peace” along with it’s s insane, repressive, cruel, evil, ignorant practitioners, into the government and courts of this country, ))))) your required burka and nightly rape by a husband you didn’t choose, will make Ryan and Akin’s behavior seem like pure freedom.

  15. Meta
    Posted October 24, 2012 at 8:29 am | Permalink

    Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who has been endorsed by Romney, said last night during a debate that when a woman is impregnated during a rape, “it’s something God intended.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7I90ACVoWrg

  16. Meta
    Posted October 24, 2012 at 8:39 am | Permalink

    According to the TPM Polltracker, Murdock is only up by .3%, so this could make a big difference, and push his competitor Joe Donnelly into the lead. (Romney is expected to win Indiana by 12% though, so it probably won’t help the President much.)

    http://polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com/contests/states/IN

One Trackback

  1. By Elizabeth Warren surges in the polls on September 17, 2012 at 9:56 pm

    […] partyElizabeth Warren surges in the pollsBy Mark | September 17, 2012I know that my “Life Begins at Rape” meme didn’t go anywhere, but I’m not giving up. I’m going to keep trying. […]

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