As one who would like to see the Senate flop to the GOP this year, I cringed when I heard the story about Todd Akin in Missouri suggesting that women who are raped are less likely to get pregnant.
Even if he can cite a peer-reviewed scientific study that backs up his suggestion, he was stupid to make such a statement. He quickly tried to walk it back by claiming he "mis-spoke", but that doesn't really work. I wonder if he really did hear that from a Doctor. We'd all like to believe that's true, but even if there are great studies out there backing up the statment, it's probably not a great thing to say when running for a national office.
He was on a radio show and the interviewer was asking him about his views on abortion. I was able to later hear what he said in context, and it was sort of an aside in a much longer explanation of his conviction about protecting life. He would have done much better to simply leave out his thoughts about the ability of women to fend off pregnancy in the case of rape. Obama himself expressed outrage in response to the statement.
His better response was that we should worry more about punishing the rapist than punishing the innocent baby that resulted from the crime.
Of course, in all discussions about abortion we hear the pro-choice folks talking about, "What will you do, outlaw abortions from rape or incest? Huh? Huh?"
Reasonable people can have their opinions on that question, but it's a distraction from the core issue, which is abortion as birth control. I'm a self-control guy who actually holds old-fashioned notions of honor and responsibility. Plus I'm a Christian who believes such things belong to God, not men. I think abortion amounts to murder of a developing child, and it's silly to try to suggest a child is somehow less human if it happens to still be in the womb.
For now I have to deal with my disappointment that a single unfortunate sentence uttered by Mr. Akin will send Claire McCaskill back to the senate for 6 more years to continue inflicting terrible damage to the republic.
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