Republican Senate Nominee: "Legitimate" rape victims don't get pregnant

not to be confused with "rape" which is erotic action that was not preceded with the level of consent demanded by the state

The "mistake" wasn't in the words he used -- the problem is the ideas behind the words. He can rephrase it anyway he likes and it is still an awful thing.

RABEL222 wrote:

Maybe you can explain legitimate rape?

aka "rape-rape", sexual violation of another by force

S'ok - I think he should stay in too. Let the people of MO stand up and be counted.

"I’ve been so encouraged by good friends who are closer than brothers."

Willke, meanwhile, defended his opinion in interviews on Monday, including one with The New York Times.

“This is a traumatic thing — she’s, shall we say, she’s uptight,” Willke told the Times. “She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.”

Amid a growing outcry for Akin to drop out of the Senate race, the Romney campaign joined those criticizing his comment.

Sunday evening, Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg issued a statement saying, “Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin's statement, and a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”

In 2007, however, Romney’s campaign had embraced Willke – who served as president of the National Right to Life Committee for a decade. In a statement announcing Willke’s endorsement, his campaign said the doctor would be “an important surrogate for Governor Romney's pro-life and pro-family agenda.”

"I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement in our country,” Romney said in a statement. “He knows how important it is to have someone in Washington who will actively promote pro-life policies."

Rep. Todd Akin caused a public outcry Sunday when he suggested that women who were “legitimately raped” would rarely become pregnant. Study after study has proven that theory false. But one provocative study, published in 2003, went even further: It found that a single act of rape was more than twice as likely to result in pregnancy than an act of consensual sex.

The study, “Are per-incident rape-pregnancy rates higher than per-incident consensual pregnancy rates?” was published in the journal Human Nature by Jonathan A. Gottschall and Tiffani A. Gottschall, two professors at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. They used data from the federally administered National Violence Against Women survey. There, they found a sample of 405 women between the ages of 12 and 45 who had experienced one incidence of rape that included intercourse.

Of those 405 women included in the sample, 6.4 percent — or 26 women — reported a pregnancy that year. A separate large-scale study showed that, for the general population of women that age, the per-incidence pregnancy rate for a single act of intercourse is 3.1 percent.

“Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,” the draft platform declares. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”