Senatorial candidate Todd Akin is under pressure from Republicans to withdraw from the Missouri race against incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill for comments he made the other day about rape and abortion.
What he said was, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” He went on to say that if nevertheless a pregnancy ensues he didn't think that the child was the one who should be punished.
There are two things here for which he's being criticized. The first is his claim that somehow the trauma of rape causes a physiological "shutdown" that somehow prevents conception. The second is that even if pregnancy occurs an abortion is not a satisfactory solution to the problem.
He may be wrong about this, I don't know, and even if he's correct the context sounded a bit insensitive, but let's assume that he's mistaken about both the biological and the moral questions. Why is that a reason why he should withdraw from the race? Republicans afraid of their own shadows fear he'll be labelled "extremist" and that this will cost him the election in November, but the appropriate response is to seize the opportunity to point out that what apparently passes for acceptable views among Democrats are far more extreme than those of Rep. Akin.
Which, for example, is more extreme, to want to protect the defenseless unborn or to support killing infants?
Both of the Democrats' two most recent presidents in one way or another support infanticide, but despite the fact that the practice is still murder under the law, no one called these men "extreme," or demanded they leave office, or withdraw from a campaign.
We might also ask which is worse, to be accused of holding incorrect, even nutty views about a woman's physiological responses to rape or to actually be accused of committing rape? President Clinton is a hero to Democrats notwithstanding that he was accused of raping Juanita Brodderick, and not only is a hero he's been invited to give the keynote speech at the Democrat convention this month.
Todd Akin is closer to the mainstream on the issue of abortion than either Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, and his words are not nearly as repugnant as Mr. Clinton's deeds.
But there's something else about this that the Republicans don't seem to understand. If they force Akin out of the race they're opening the door for a fusillade of attacks on Paul Ryan who also believes that abortion is not morally justified even in the event of a rape-caused pregnancy. Of course, a lot of Catholic Democrats believe this as well, but that'll be ignored. What'll happen if the GOP somehow persuades Akin to leave the field is that the Democrats will start asking why Akin gets jettisoned but Ryan's allowed to stay on as a vice-presidential candidate.
In other words, forcing Akin out of the race isn't going to make the controversy go away.
Akin's biggest offense is that he was verbally maladroit and probably medically mistaken, but if saying something factually incorrect or dopey ipso facto disqualifies Republicans for public office then let's start holding Democrats to the same standard. We can start with the current Vice-President, the House Minority Leader, and the DNC Chair.
UPDATE: Todd Akin has declined to submit to almost universal GOP pressure for him to drop out of the race. Very well, now let's see the Republicans dare the Democrats to make his views on abortion an issue in this race when at the top of their ticket they have a man who voted twice in the Illinois state senate to allow abortionists to let babies born alive after a botched abortion die from inanition.
Let's see if the Republicans will dare the Democrats to make Akin's views on abortion and rape an issue when their former president and the keynote speaker at their convention twice vetoed bills that would ban partial-birth abortion and was accused at least once of having raped a woman.
