Did GOP Congressman Sink His Senate Bid?

Congressman Todd Akin (R-Missouri) is under fire for comments about rape victims. The comments gave Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) an opening.  

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) is the most vulnerable member of the U.S. Senate. Her state highly disapproves of her and President Barack Obama. A major swing state, it's trending more redder. Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) carried the state by just a point. The Republican candidates who are running for the U.S. Senate are hoping the bad economy and President Barack Obama's job approval could be the ticket to reclaiming the Senate.

Congressman Todd Akin (R-Missouri) won the Missouri GOP primary and will be the one running against McCaskill.

Akin is a Republican member of Congress since 2001. His district covers the suburban St. Louis County.

Akin won a bitterly fought primary against two other candidates, one rival being endorsed by Tea Party maven former governor Sarah Palin. Akin wasn't endorsed by Palin, but managed to win over Missouri Republicans.

Akin who is a pro-lifer said something over the weekend that may have gave a struggling McCaskill the break she needed.

Republicans emboldened by the culture wars have finally taken its toll. Akin being a representative of the culture war, said something inappropriate about rape victims and the media has zeroed in on it!



According to Talking Points Memo, a progressive blog, his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) has distanced herself from President Barack Obama. She is facing a tougher reelection this year.

“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.”


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.”

In a tweet, McCaskill said she was “stunned” by Akin’s comments.

After the interview caused a firestorm, Akin said in a statement that he “misspoke.”

Akin is perhaps the boldest among a crop of conservative 2012 nominees who could hamper GOP efforts to take back the Senate in the fall. Akin has called for an end to the school-lunch program and a total ban on the morning-after pill.

His claim about “legitimate” types of rape is not completely foreign to the current Republican Congress, however. In 2011, the House GOP was forced to drop language from a bill that would have limited federal help to pay for an abortion to only victims of “forcible rape.” Akin was a co-sponsor on the bill.

Nor is this Akin’s first time suggesting some types of rape are more worthy of protections than others. As a state legislator, Akin voted in 1991 for an anti-marital-rape law, but only after questioning whether 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.