(hell, yeah) Scarleteen

Rep. Todd Akin, the newly-christened GOP Senate nominee in Missouri, said in an interview airing Sunday that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy.

Explaining his no-exceptions policy on abortions, Akin was asked why he opposes abortion even when the pregnancy is the result of rape.

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in a clip posted to YouTube by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

More at the Washington Post here.

From a representative of the political party, of course, that is generally opposed to comprehensive sex ed. Looks like someone’s education about pregnancy may have consisted entirely of “When a man and a woman love each other very much….”

Again: UGH.

Note: Just in case anyone reading didn’t get better sex ed than that either, “that whole thing,” — AKA, the process of reproduction, for those of us who want to talk about these issues like anything resembling grownups — is not “shut down” by sexual assault. Ovum, fallopian tubes, sperm cells and everything else involved in a pregnancy don’t care about consent or nonconsent.  Pregnancy occurs and doesn’t occur both with sexual assault and abuse and with consensual sex.

As well, “legitimate” is not a term used with rape in credible rape information, victim services, or rape laws.  Who on earth even knows what this guy thinks it means.