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The No Fail, Holy Grail, Beyond the Pale, Innocence Machine

In the mid-1600s, a good number of witches happened along in Salem, Massachusetts, but the good people of Massachusetts were not without wit and wisdom.  They devised a fair and balanced trial to determine whether the woman in question was a witch, or whether she was not.  

 They put the woman to a trial.  This is how it went:  they tied her to a kind of balance beam, and dunked her into a "pure" pond, while a deacon of the church slowly recited the Lord's Prayer three times.  If the accused did not survive the dunking--that is to say, came out dead--they announced that she was not a witch after all.  If she survived--that is to say, if she were still alive--she was proclaimed to be a witch, and they pronounced a sentence over her.  After all, only a witch could survive an ordeal like that!

 No one ever recalled any acquittals.  Every one they tried died:  the innocent drowned, and the guilty got what witches deserve.

 Now we have some new witch trials.  It goes like this:  Todd Akin, who wants to be the new Republican Senator from Missouri, says that "legitimate rape" rarely results in a pregnancy.  

He said, in an interview airing Sunday,  that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy.  Explaining his no-exceptions policy on abortions, Akin was asked why he opposes abortion even when the pregnancy is the result of rape. 

 “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in a clip posted to YouTube by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Now the networks do not report whether the good Mr. Aiken recited the Lord's Prayer three times while he explained this, but it is a fine way to determine whether women really were just asking for it in the first place.  If they drowned become pregnant, they were guilty!  If no baby results, they were innocent, and have nothing to complain about, anyway.  Right?

 But even if the dunking results in a pregnancy, the woman should not be allowed an abortion.  Nope.  Maybe the pond wasn't pure, either.  Find the man and punish him!  The woman should give birth!  After all, she is pregnant.  

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