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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Foot in Mouth Disease by MARGARET DICKSON relationship can consent or not, while a rape victim does not have that option. I have a pretty thick political hide after many years as a campaign volunteer and Biology is biology is biology. eventually as a political candidate and then as an elected Aiken and Aldridge zoomed to national ridicule for their absurd of���cial. Mine was a deeply rewarding political career that remarks because they held elected of���ce, and they were justi���ably culminated in being portrayed by a political opponent as a skewered for them. prostitute on national television, an ad which CNN���s Anderson My disgust with both of them, though, is not political. Aldridge is Cooper featured among the worst political ads in the nation long gone from the public scene and Aiken will have a long road that campaign season. ahead to get past this politically. In other words, I often view comments made by politicians My disgust with them is far more personal. as distorted, self-serving, stupid or all of the above. Rarely do I In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was part of the group which get excited by politicians��� words and particularly not during an founded the organization that is now the Rape Crisis Volunteers election year that almost always results in style over substance. of Cumberland County. In those early days, there was no money That being said, Todd Akin of ���legitimate rape��� infamy and no of���ce. Records were kept secure in car trunks and under really got under my skin. beds. What there was, were dedicated volunteers with the support The notion that a woman���s body somehow shuts Representative Todd Aiken recently came down when a rape is ���legitimate��� is not only insulting but under ���re for remarks he made about rape. of local law enforcement and the district attorney���s of���ce. We took calls every day of the year, which usually meant long hours at reveals astounding scienti���c ignorance, not to mention He was not the ���rst politician to make either Cape Fear Valley or Womack as rape victims, usually, but not an odd attitude toward women. What on earth would be inaccurate comments about the subject. always women, submitted to physical examinations and underwent ���illegitimate��� rape, and who on earth would make that call? law enforcement questioning. Todd Aiken, who ��� if you can believe this! ��� is a member of I have held hands with women as they endured the ���rape-kit��� exam, a necessary the House Science Committee? procedure but one which often feels like a further violation. I have scrounged around We in North Carolina cannot be too smug about this dimwit, however. to ���nd clothing for a woman to wear home from the hospital as her own clothes We had our own version of Congressman-would-be-Senator Aiken almost 20 had become evidence in a criminal investigation. I have cried with women who are years ago in the form of a General Assembly member named Henry Aldridge, a devastated and terri���ed by what has occurred to them. I have raged with women highly trained Pitt County dentist by profession. Representative Aldridge, like his soulwho are angry beyond measure. I have watched, bewildered, as a 15-year-old, who mate Aiken, caused quite a stir with this unbelievable remark, which he never quite was raped outside of a skating rink, chalked it up to ���the way things are.��� I have sat disavowed, made in public to the House Appropriations Committee. beside a woman who was charged with manslaughter because she shot her rapist. I ���The facts show that people who are raped ��� who are truly raped ��� the juices have been to court with women who need moral support as they testify against the don���t ���ow, the body functions don���t work and they don���t get pregnant. Medical rapist who is in the courtroom with them. authorities agree that this is a rarity, if ever.��� ���Truly��� must mean the same thing So, yes, the remarks of Mr. Aiken and Dr. Aldridge before him, did and do get as ���legitimate ������ under my skin. Well, Mr. Aiken and Dr. Aldridge, medical authorities do not agree with that at all. Rape is not an issue to be tossed around as a partisan political football. It is a According to 1996 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology profoundly personal attack from which some women never recover women get pregnant about 5 to 6 percent of the time, and it makes no difference and all never forget. whether conception occurs snuggled under the covers of the marital bed or during Shame on all who try to use it for partisan an unwanted, abhorrent act of violence. Another large-scale study found that rape MARGARET DICKSON, Conpolitical advantage. victims actually have a slightly higher conception rate than women consenting to sex, tributing Writer, COMMENTS? but the reason for that is not known. It is known, however, that a woman involved in a Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM SEPTEMBER 12-18, 2012 UCW 5