Long Lost Ancient Medical Text Unearthed!

I'm sure you've all heard Todd Akin's (R) sound bite or seen this clipping. I found this you tube song response fun.

In Ancient Greece and Egypt philosophers and "physicians" believed that a women's uterus, if it was tired of NOT being pregnant, would wander around in her body, bumping into other organs--kidneys, lungs, bladder--and causing all kinds of ailments--fainting, stomach ache, insanity. Plato suggested in the Timaeus that this was analogous to the male penis, which when deprived of sex, may move of its own accord in its desire to procreate. They called this wily uterus a "wandering womb," which is the original meaning of "hysteria." Neither Plato nor Hippocrates write of a similar function of the female body to prevent pregnancy when the female body has been forced to have sex against it's will. Perhaps Todd Akin has unearthed a long lost ancient text, since the "doctors" he cites seem as mystified by the female body as Plato and Hippocrates.

Most philosophers of science (Todd Akin sits on the house committee for science) until the eighteenth century, with the notable exception of Aristotle, believed that both male and female must orgasm in order to conceive a child, suggesting that they both must like the sex act (see Thomas Laqueur's outstanding history of sex, Making Sex). Although for the sake of female pleasure in consensual heterosexual sex this idea could be revolutionary now, this historical theory does support Todd Akin's claim that she must have wanted it, and that therefore if a woman is pregnant it was not "legitimate" rape. Still the bodily function to which Akin refers that actually does prevent pregnancy (does it prevent disease as well?) in the case of "legitimate" rape is not suggested even in these earlier scientific theories of the female body. Obviously Todd Akin has found some really monumental scientific evidence, or perhaps he was merely logically extrapolating from these theories? He seems to have skipped most recent scientific writings about the female body. I might humbly suggest he get a copy of the Boston Women Health Book Collective's Our Bodies, Ourselves to balance his knowledge base.

Upon reflection: For those of you who have been angered by Rep. Akin's statement, why not take this moment of anger and turn it into a teachable moment? Send Todd a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves (available for purchase online at above link). Here are his mailing addresses. Why lambast when you can educate?

Hon. Todd Akin
117 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515

OR, his district address at:
301 Sovereign Ct., Ste. 201
Ballwin, MO 63011

Best of Luck, Todd.