Todd Akin shared his perspective “Legitimate rape survivors can’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”  The GOP vilified him and several Republicans asked him to withdraw from the Missouri Senate campaign. 

His subsequent apology “I used the wrong words in the wrong way – fact is rape can lead to pregnancy” were both confusing and disingenuous. On one hand, he’s saying “legitimate rape survivors” can’t get pregnant and then he says rape can lead to pregnancy. Todd seems confused.

Todd Akin has spent the past two years in Congress writing abortion policy and trying to rewrite the definition of rape with GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. It seems that “forced” rape was the acceptable word both agreed on and Todd Akin misspoke when he said “legitimate.” 

On the issue of abortion policy, there is little daylight between Akin and GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan, since they cosponsored H.R. 3 – No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act, where they limited funding to forcible rape only and H.R. 227 Sanctity of Human Life Act where they defined personhood and concluded that a fertilized egg has rights of any human being.

After 48 straight hours of Republicans falling all over each other calling for Rep. Todd Akin to rescind his ridiculous, ignorant-of-basic-biological-functions comments about rape and abortion, their party just voted to embrace Akin's position by including a constitutional ban on all abortions -- even in cases of rape or incest -- in their 2012 platform. 

Akin has simply stated what the GOP has been proposing in various legislations all along.  A “War on Women” was declared a long time ago and the House and Senate chambers have been staffed with the people ready to carry out the mission.