Missouri Republican Candidate for US Senate: “Legitimate Rape” Victims Don’t Get Pregnant.
Posted: August 19, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Voter Ignorance, War on Women, Women's Rights | Tags: "legitimate rape", abortion, Claire McCaskill, Missouri Senate race, morning after pill, rape, Tea Party, Todd Akin 41 Comments
Todd Akin
Where does the Tea Party find these freakazoids? Missouri Representative Todd Akin is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, running against current Senator Claire McCaskill. This insane, anti-science knuckle-dragger claims that if a rape is “legitimate,” a woman’s body can magically prevent pregnancy. And he claims he got his information from doctors!
Today Akin appeared on a local St. Louis TV show, The Jaco Report. The host, Chris Jaco asked him if there were any circumstances under which Akin believes abortion would be acceptable. In response Akin went into a bizarre dissertation about how Americans’ believe in the value of life is what makes this country great. For example, look at the firefighters who rescued people on 9/11 and didn’t even ask for their IDs. And then there are the American soldiers who were willing to rescue wounded people–even if they were only Iraqis.
Finally, Jaco broke in and pressed Akin on the abortion question. Akin said he thought abortion should be allowed in the case of a tubal pregnancy where the child could not survive, if the woman’s life were in danger. But not in cases of rape:
“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.”
Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.
“Let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work, or something,” Akin said. “I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”
Here’s the video:
A 1996 study by the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found “rape-related pregnancy occurs with significant frequency” and is “a cause of many unwanted pregnancies” — an estimated “32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.”
Naturally, this isn’t the only strange idea Akin has about rape and women’s behavior. TPM learned that in 1991, Akin opposed a law against marital rape because “it might be misused ‘in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband,’ according to a May 1 article that year in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.”
Eventually, Akin was apparently pressured into voting for the bill. Akin also thinks the morning after pill is a “form of abortion,” and wants it banned.
Right now Akin is leading McCaskill by several points in the Missouri Senate race.
peej
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Sky Dancing 
Here’s another one of Akin’s greatest hits: GOP Senate Candidate Suggests The Voting Rights Act Of 1965 Should Be Overturned.
After taking some heat, Akin flipped.
Much as I dislike Claire McCaskill, she’s a hell of a lot better than this moron. I hope Missourians wake up before November.
This wingnut would be more at home in the Dominican Republic than here. What a terrible waste of skin.
And oxygen.
I agree BB. Whether we like McCaskill or not we don’t want to lose a Senate seat to a dumbass who believes and unashamedly spews this sort of medieval nonsense.
Damn what are the GOP/TP candidates going to call for next? Chastity belts where hubby or their daddy has custody of the key? The Bullshit is getting so deep we’re going to need waders soon.
BTW…GOP pundits are calling on Akin to step down. I can’t imagine why.
I know several women who were raped and got raped as a result — that is anecdotal evidence.
It is so typical for these MALE (or male with boobs) jerks who claim that there is a story or “research” to back up their jackass ideas.
Back in the 60s and 70s some college professors were claiming from their pulpits that no woman could be raped. So their students who had been raped — were made to feel even shittier. Psychology is still dominated by males — many of them stupid males.
Another male who is scare to death of women.
These asshats just make that crap up as they go along to excuse their wingnuttiness. No doctor would tell him that, well maybe his proctologist.
Tom Coburn?
Ron Paul?
Two good guesses. I forgot about them as a self defense mechanism.
Oh but it would solve the whole birth control coverage problem! It’s your own fault you got pregnant, you don’t need medical coverage for contraception!
time for a pack of she wolves to get on him……….
she wolves indeed…let me at him I will tear him to pieces.
Wow, hate men much? Ascribing evil motives to half the population based on gender is as heinous as any prejudice ever perpetrated. Sure, women have often gotten a raw deal, and continue to, but not all of us men are in favor of that situation.
I apologize if I am misinterpreting the point of your post, but it is pretty hard to follow.
I don’t think she was referring to all men–just the ones like Todd Akin
Yes Sir Eric, hate men who rape, very much. Hate men who encourage violence against girls and women. Hate it when they instigate, encourage and perpetuate the rape culture. Yeah, that’s exactlyhow I feel, hate men who get away with this garbage, and this kind of terror.
I won’t apologize for my hate, see I was ganged rape, and not one of them saw the inside of a jail house, not one, and my entire life has been effected by it. Thank you for assuring me that you are not one of those men like Todd, speak up and help us stop RAPE.
Fannie, I am just now reading the comments from the past few days. So sorry, I know we have talked about our own experiences but it shocks me every time I see so many victims within our tiny little blog community.
Obviously Akin missed the beginning of the nature special & didn’t realize that it was a wildlife biologist speaking & not a medical doctor whose clients are human females:
Or maybe he agrees with that other congressman who equates women with livestock, since his father was a veterinarian.
Please note the “forced extra-pair copulations among waterfowl species”. That’s a nice, biological way of referring to rape.
Yup, this person agrees with you!
Spammy must need a late night/early morning snack …. gotcha!!!
I thought it was the work F… oops. Sorry! I thought it wasn’t going through. Sorry. I must say, Congressional Committee assignments must be on who is in favor not what they know or what they understand.
It was most likely the link.
That’s what I’m sayin’.
I can’t resist.
Where does the tea party find these freakzoids?
— fundamentalist churches, of which there are many
yup, yup, yup … this is your brain on drugs places
I’ll bet that Todd A. is a rapist. But the sort that won’t admit that what he does is rape. “She wanted it” or “she was wearing red telling me she wanted it”.
Also Paul Ryan is either a rapist or a vicarious raper –by trying to give the rapist power over his victim’s body.
A growing number of conservatives are calling on Akin to withdraw from the Senate race.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/19/712151/growing-number-of-conservative-call-on-akin-to-withdraw-after-legitimate-rape-comments/
Imani Gandy: The Root of Todd Akin’s Pregnancy-Rape Theory
Oh, good grief!
WHAT? Please some one start a petition to have Todd Akin removed from the House Science Committee, come Monday the world will be laughing at us!
They are afraid he will lose since showing himself. Otherwise, they’d be just dandy with him in the race.
unfortunately any woman can be a target of rape — no matter the age or political party (or no political party). Any age! Even cops do not get this.
Way back when I was in college there was a serial rapist working next to the University. So a high ranking asshat cop came to give us a lecture about what to wear. I was in the back and tuned around to leave — and almost ran into a tight group of women. Turns out that this rapist that the pig cop came to “warn˝ us a out was in fact attacking elderly women — in their homes. The information in the back of the gym was accurate. The group in the back was listening to facts from a woman. Turns out the rapist was a college student targeting elderly women living alone. Yet the cops were blaming all young women.
Not much has changed. Except it is worse. The GOPig candidate is talking about legitimate rape. WTF WTF WTF
GOPig I like that.
This idiot is a throwback to the middle ages — test women for witchcraft by throwing them in deep water. If they float, they’re guilty (and will be burned). If they sink, and drown, they were innocent (and dead, but supposedly in heaven).
This guy needs to get shut up in a room with a few dozen women with pitchforks who’ve been raped. If he’s really a nice guy he’ll survive.
Flaming arrogant irrational idiot with congenital lithocephalus. May he lose his race, spectacularly.
Yup, ignorance is bliss, especially when the reporters don’t challenge people like Todd Akin. Yes, I agree, as it did remind me of the male’s thinking they had ‘ways’ of telling if women were witches. The most horrid part of his ignorance is that some people will stay with his belief that if women who are raped get pregnant, than well you know ( according to Todd Akin’s coo coo doctors who he can’t name or produce) they didn’t activate their ‘fairy’ defenses in his ‘coo coo universe’, just like the old way of testing for witches.
Please throw this guy out of office…
Suddenly, Akin is saying he “misspoke.” LOL
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-missouri-rep-todd-akin-says-he-misspoke-on-rape-and-pregnancy-20120819,0,512566.story
Men like him “misspeak” every time they open their mouths and say something.
No way he was too detailed in his answers and after all he is on the House Science Committee! 😯
This is so upsetting, and anyone who thinks women are safe from PLUB assholes like these are full of shit!
Rep. Todd Akin (R – Assholeville) Makes Up a Definition of ‘Legitimate Rape’: He’s Not an Extremist in the GOP | Angry Black Lady Chronicles
As a victim of rape, this statement here is spot on: