Legitimate Rape

Rep. Todd Akin is the Republican candidate for the Senate in Missouri. During a tv interview yesterday, he said women don't get pregnant from "legitimate rape" because their bodies put up a biological defense. (Ask a doctor if you don't know this is batshit crazy.) The resulting firestorm has exploded on Republicans in ways they never expected because Akin seemed to be suggesting that if a woman who is raped becomes pregnant, then by definition she wasn't raped at all and should be considered an accomplice in the action. It's also drawing attention to the fact that, like Akin, Paul Ryan is an original co-sponsor of the “Sanctity of Human Life Act.” This so-called personhood legislation defined life as beginning at “fertilization, cloning or its functional equivalent” and would have empowered the federal and state governments to pass laws to protect life from that point on. In other words, abortion would be defined as murder. The bill made no exception for incest or rape -- “legitimate” or otherwise. Paul Ryan has the same record as Todd Akin. Mitt Romney called for passage of their legislation. And these people are leaders of the political party that says they want to get government off our backs.