By Jeffrey Page

This is a certainty. Rep. Todd Akin, who is 65, knows less about human reproduction than a precocious 12-year old. His explanation of the relationship between rape and pregnancy is right out of the Dark Ages.

“It seems to be,” he said, “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 shut the whole thing down,” he said.

As a result of Akin’s bizarre reference to “legitimate rape” – is that the kind where you ask permission? – the Republican Establishment, such as it is, called for him to withdraw from the Senate race in Missouri. But he promptly told Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and Senator Scott Brown, (R-Mass.) and others to go to hell. In the incumbent, Democrat Claire McCaskill, Akin sees easy pickings and nothing like a little ignorance on pregnancy is going to knock him out of the campaign.

Quit the race? When a day after his idiotic remark, Akin apologized but made sure to inform listeners to Mike Huckabee’s radio program that he was running by the grace of you know who? Romney and other critics must be nuts.

So that’s how it stands.

Except that when you ignorantly dismiss an issue affecting half the American population, there are questions you are required to answer.

Congressman Akin:

–How “really rare” is it for a woman who has been raped to get pregnant? You attribute this to some doctors. Identify them.

—How many doctors told you that such pregnancies are really rare? Was it more than two?

–What were their sources? Police records? FBI crime statistics? Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Oh, wait. These agencies don’t differentiate between legitimate rape and illegitimate rape, so what information did you examine? You did actually see this information, didn’t you?

–What precisely is a “legitimate rape?” How does a legitimate rape differ from an illegitimate rape? Has anyone else ever used the word “legitimate” to describe a rape? Or are you breaking new ground?

–Do you have any idea of what you’re talking about when you say that a woman’s body “has ways to try to shut the whole thing down”? What are those ways?

–In your apology you said your comment was ill-conceived and wrong, and that you apologize. But you also said, “I used the wrong words in the wrong way.” Please elaborate. And please give an example of how someone could use the wrong words in the right way.

–Please explain why your initial statement and subsequent apology appear on your campaign web site, but not on your Congressional site?

Todd Akin, who is old enough to qualify for Medicare, is the father of six children. You’d think by this time he would know a little something about sex.

jeffrey@zestoforange.com

 

Tags: abortion, Jeffrey Page, rape, Todd Akin

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