Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri, justified his opposition to all abortion, even in instances of rape, by saying that "legitimate rape" rarely leads to pregnancy — comments that have set off a media firestorm in an already contentious race. In an interview with a St. Louis television station posted today, Akin said that female bodies "[have] ways to try to shut that whole thing down" and that only rapists, and not unborn children, should be punished. “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV, in an interview first reported nationally by Talking Points Memo. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." (more…)
