Yes, we’re going there. Rep. Todd Akin is the US Congressman for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District. He’s running for the US Senate, challenging Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill in the upcoming US election.
On August 19, on St. Louis TV station KTVI-TV Akin was asked the usual panoply of questions, including the one about abortion in cases of rape and incest. His answer: Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, 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. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.
(We have underscored the statement that is the crux of the controversy, so you can have the context. The hyperlink is from the actual coverage from FOX2now, KTVI-TV if you want to see the whole thing.)
Now some facts. Our opinion on abortion is multifaceted. First off, I don’t have a uterus, so whatever I have to say is Not Scottish. I don’t get to have an opinion.
Secondly, baby humans don’t magically happen – they occur from penile-vaginal intercourse, or to use a common term, copulation. That’s how it happens in the vast majority of cases, with the notable exceptions of IVF or the timely application of a turkey baster filled with suitable donor genetic material. Both of those circumstances are fully, actively consensual.
Conception from sharing underwear or using the same drinking fountain are so mathematically rare as to be nonexistent. We will skip over this carpenter guy from Bethlehem, as we’re being factual, not theological.
Third, the question of abortion in the case of rape or incest is a simple one. There is no active consent to rape, therefore the act is illegal. The potential of active consent to incest is deemed by society to be very, very, very unlikely, as well as illegal, under the majority of laws regarding consanguinity, even in Missouri.
Fourth, There is no gland, secretion, hormone, mechanism or magic hygienic product either in, near, or potentially attached to the female body that can detect a “legitimate rape” and reject the morula of conception in a spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. It does not exist. I’ll repeat that: It Does Not Exist.
Now the ethical question becomes clearer, knowing that Rep. Akin is talking out of his ass, cloaking his quote in “…from what I understand from doctors…” as if that were some kind of Shield of Science to mask the intellectually ignorant stench of his statement.
This tells us that Rep Akin is dramatically unfit for office beyond that of Municipal Lotion Boy. If he had any decency at all, he would immediately go far, far away.
Hopefully voters in his district will send him that message come election day.
RoadDave 
So the guy proved himself to be a jerk or doesn’t not have the ability to express himself or both. There is no bigger meaning of life issue her. Don’t vote for him.
Normally, I’d shrug and say “Open mouth, insert foot.” But I think this (as a friend of mine refers to folk like this) “fucktard” has gone right past the knee, and is headed for his own hip!
And yet, for all the immediate distancing statements of various GOP personnel, the party surges forward with a “damn the abortions, full conception ahead” platform.
I’m sorry, somehow I missed the moment of national voluntary lobotomization…. 😀
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But while Akin is wrong in his assertion about rape and pregnancy, he certainly isn’t alone. His remarks tapped into a strain of thinking that dates back to at least the 1980s, with anti-abortion politicians from Pennsylvania to Arkansas making the case that the trauma of rape can often prevent pregnancy. The argument does not come up frequently, but when it does, it nearly always leads to political controversy.