You'd think the most amazing thing about
Tom Blumer's rant at PJ Media about a "smear" of recently-deceased anti-abortionist John C. Willke would be the long and bizarrely intense display of anger toward the
Cincinnati Enquirer with which it begins ("recruiters often appear in local grocery stores, desperate to almost give away three-month 'trials'... This once respectable full-throttle newspaper, which now looks as if it was cobbled together and produced at FedEx/Kinko’s on the fly..."). But then Blumer starts to pick apart the alleged smear. He quotes the
Enquirer:
Willke’s view on abortion didn’t come without criticism. Willke, who was a retired general physician, believed the stress of rape caused the female body to inhibit conception. Former Missouri congressman Todd Akin also touted that idea, saying victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant. The 2012 comments caused a media sensation and national debate on the subject.
Willke first put forward that theory over 30 years ago and in 1999 he said rape “can radically upset (a woman’s) possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing a pregnancy.”
So, Willke didn't say this, and shouldn't be associated with Akin's famous disaster? Oh, no:
Willke didn’t just “say” it in 1999. He fully documented his reasoning in an April column that year. Emilie Eaton and others obsessed with diminishing Willke should actually read it. Using a set of reasonable assumptions based on data available at the time, the doctor estimated that there were perhaps 450-740 potential instances per year of forcible rape-related pregnancy (as opposed to instances involving statutory rape) nationwide.
You think at first it can't be happening, but --
Willke’s (and Akin’s) naysayers often absurdly assert that there are 32,000 “rape-related” pregnancies per year, over 100 times greater than Willke’s midpoint estimate... The correct number, if it could ever be determined, is far closer to Willke’s [450-740] than it is to 32,000.
If it could ever be determined?
...Akin’s comments didn’t spur a national debate. They spurred a national smear. Almost no one is any smarter on this subject as a result of the press’s coverage of Akin’s failed 2012 U.S. Senate campaign. More than a few people, though they feel really smart, are instead quite a bit dumber.
So, Blumer's argument is: Todd Akin was right. The dream will never die!
