Legitimate rape and half a brain: both are dangerous

If it weren’t so fantastically disgusting, it would be hysterical. If it wasn’t so sleazily, politically opportunist, it would remind me of the classic meme from the old Home Improvement show of the 90’s: the hapless Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, once again in trouble for not understanding a situation, goes at talks with the sage behind the hedgerow, Wilson. Wilson shares a bit of his wisdom, quoting Descartes or sharing a story about hiking the Himalayas with Buddhist monks. Then Tim returns to his wife with a litany of word-salad nonsense to prove to her and the entire audience that he never listened to a word that was spoken.

If it wasn’t so fantastically disgusting, it would be hysterical. But it’s not. Let’s go to the tape:

http://youtu.be/fdisTOKom5I

Well, you know, people always want to try and make that as one of those things “well, how do ya slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question.” It seems to me, first of all 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.

Yes, Congressman. The “female body” does indeed have ways of “shutting that whole thing down.” More correctly, the process of fertilizing an egg requires that cells (sperm) from outside the body enter the correct fallopian tube. Female bodies – shockingly similar to male bodies – are not open to this kind of thing. In fact, they have what is known as an “Immune system” which is designed to prevent all foreign bodies from entering.

And yes, despite the fact that reproduction is a necessary component of life, that same immune system goes to work in the reproductive system. Of course it does: how does the body differentiate between a potentially-lethal infection and the “miracle of life?” Your body’s defense systems do not sleep and they do not prejudice themselves, one foreign body from another.

Moreover, the pH of the uterus through which sperm must travel is considerably more acidic than sperm can survive, on average. The uterus is lined with cells that will trap and destroy sperm, or else get them lost on their long, long journey to the fallopian tubes. And there are, of course, two fallopian tubes, spaced very far apart indeed. Even if some sperm actually make it to the entry of a fallopian tube, that’s not the same thing as being at the correct fallopian tube. Odds are, half the sperm that survived the journey are knocking on the wrong door.

These are just some of the impediments to pregnancy. The easy ones, really. Don’t be so foolish as to believe that fertilization comes within even a mile of a successful pregnancy, either. The idea that “life begins at conception” is as laughably naive as it is face-smackingly insulting. Ask anyone who knows.

Yes, Congressman. Pregnancy after rape is rare. But only because pregnancy itself is shockingly rare. Or did you think you just kept getting lucky every time you got laid?

And there is no – I repeat absolutely no – biological difference between rape and any other form of sex.