Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill, justified his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
If a bigot like this does stand then the Republicans will be represented by what comes out of such vile mouths. Starting out with what sounds like hate speech directed at females in general and in particular rape victims, he mouths off about “medical research”, as though it were an observable fact. Which it isn’t. Rapists are not uniquely infertie. And pregnant women may not know what to do regardless of rape victims.
Having government people with this sort of view is indeed a very specific and dangerous threat to the rights of women.
The evil nonsense that implies that a woman who has not miscarried post rape is somehow complicit must not be glossed over. Such conservatives attempts to contrast Romney into a moderate become ever more bizarre. But this candidate for Senate should stand down.
This race – the one with Obama and Romney appears to be one of those that you will look back on and say it was a foregone conclusion. But you have to question strategies like this Todd Aitken – are idiots like him wheeled out solely to make Romney seem more acceptable and mainstream?
If the Republicans have him running for The Senate, it is quite a refection upon their values. They had better replace him before Wednesday.
Followup
Update: 20 August 2012
I remember reading that the Romney campaign is in favour of allowing rape victims appropriate care including access to abortion and has rebuked Todd Aiken for his statement. It is also possible that Aiken deliberately set off alarms bells so that Romney could rebuke him.
The easily impressed will be briefly impressed but the lasting image, the taste in the mouth is left by Aitken and what his statement implied. Is that now the Tories think?
I fear that it really is. They believe in controlling a little too much and reducing human rights as a commercial enterprise.