Rep. Todd Akin’s comment on “legitimate rape” riles. Photo credit: Facebook/Todd Akin Campaign
The background
The Republican candidate for Missouri senator, Rep. Todd Akin, is backpedalling – sort of – after claiming that women couldn’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape” because they have “ways to shut that whole thing down”.
Akin, explaining his opposition to abortion under nearly all circumstances to a local television station on Sunday, said, “From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” (Notably, US studies have shown that roughly 5 percent of rapes result in pregnancy, around 32,000 pregnancies per year.) He has since released a statement explaining, “In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year.” Not exactly an apology.
Akin is a relatively minor political character in this theatre, but his comments have ignited a firestorm of controversy and have had some in the commentariat wondering, what does the Republican party have against women?
Romney-Ryan, Republicans distance themselves from Akin
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, quickly issued a statement claiming that they disagreed with Akin and stating, “A Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.” In fact, it doesn’t look like anyone is coming to Akin’s defence – Think Progress reported that a number of conservatives are calling for Akin to step down, noting that “Akin’s views have long been out of step with the American political mainstream.”
Akin’s comments in line with Ryan’s thinking
Though the Romney campaign moved to distance itself from the Missouri representative, Ryan last year co-authored a bill on abortion with Akin, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”. Federal law prevents federal funding, such as Medicaid, to go towards abortion, with exceptions for rape victims. This bill would have narrowed the federal definition of rape to “forcible rape” and made it more difficult for victims of, for example, statutory rape, to have abortions paid for. Ian Milhaser at Think Progress wrote that Ryan and Akin’s bill would have forced many rape survivors to carry their rapist’s baby to term. More than that, however, despite the Romney camp’s claim, Ryan has in the past agreed with Akin’s stance. “So rape survivors are out of luck.”
Enough is enough: End the Republican war on women
Donna Ladd, writing at the Jackson Free Press in Mississippi, saw Akin’s comments as part of the larger “war on women”, citing Rush Limbaugh’s sexist attacks on Congressional testifier Sandra Fluke and “many Republicans supporting all sorts of anti-women regulation including outlawing in vitro and birth-control pills”. Concluded Ladd, “This is too much, and it’s time we decide what kind of nation we’re going to be in the future. Speak up, women and men. An attack on one woman’s rights and self-respect is an attack on us all.”
Will it hurt his chances in the senate race?
Maybe, maybe not: He was already unlikely to see any votes from those who are most outraged by his comments and, Jamie Tomek, president of the Missouri branch of the National Organization for Women, told The New York Times that statements like that probably won’t hurt him. Even so, Akin’s Democratic opponent, incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill, is likely to make sure that everyone heard what he said. Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post‘s The Fix blog compared him to Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a social conservative whose shoot-from-the-hip comments derailed her presidential campaign: “[I]f he can’t resist the urge to say stuff like this in the coming months, it’s going to take the focus off of McCaskill and cause big problems for the GOP in its efforts to reclaim the Senate.”
Akin’s controversial comments, from 2:15:
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