He says he misspoke and has since retracted his words and apologized. But now, he may have more to lose than just the Kansas senate race.
Republican senate candidate, Rep. Todd Akin of Kansas, could never have guessed he could stir up so much controversy in so little time. But boy, did he — by putting his big foot in his even bigger mouth:
“It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”
We all know the story by now… Akin was trying to present himself as a good conservative and draw a difference between himself and the person he hopes to unseat: Sen. Claire McCaskill. The subject was abortion and the question was regarding if there would ever be a time when aborting a pregnancy would be the right thing to do. Of course, the rest was history.
Since Akin’s fateful words, Republicans have been knocking each other over to condemn his remarks. Most are calling for him to withdraw as a candidate for the U.S. Senate (a race he’s almost guaranteed to lose now), while others are asking him to step down from his seat in the House of Representatives. Even Karl Rove’s SuperPac has pulled its funding from Akin’s campaign. Everyone sees how this huge Republican flub could easily trickle down to Mitt Romney and damage his chances in November — particularly since it immediately follows the news that Republican congressman Kevin Yoder was reprimanded for disrespectfully skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee in Israel.
So, it was no surprise when Romney released a statement yesterday calling Akin’s comments “inexcusable.”
“Congressman’s Akin comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable and, frankly, wrong,” Romney said. “Like millions of other Americans, we found them to be offensive.”
President Obama also responded by saying “Rape is rape, and the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn’t make sense to me.”
Republicans have taken a huge PR thrashing the past few days, which has made them, as a party, look inept. Still, it remains to be seen: will the Akin controversy create a negative drag on the rest of the party, INCLUDING Mitt Romney?
TDB: "Todd Akin’s ‘Legitimate Rape’ Claim a Peek Behind Anti-Abortion Curtain"Excerpts:So where did Akin learn this misogynist claptrap? It’s junk science that has been circulating in the anti-abortion rights movement for some time. In a 1999 essay titled “<span>Rape Pregnancies Are Rare</span>," National Right to Life president John Willke urged abortion opponents to make distinctions between different kinds of rape. He argued that the physical trauma of rape made it close to impossible to get pregnant.The <span>Centers for Disease Control says</span> that more than 32,000 pregnancies result from rape everyyear. That doesn’t really sound like the freak occurrence Willke portrays rapes resulting in pregnancies to be, unless you believe that most of those women are lying, which is the implication in the argument. But what if it was true that pregnancies from rape almost never happened? Late-term abortions are relatively rare, but that doesn’t stop abortion rights opponents from talking… Read more »