Sex Education for Todd Akin

According to Todd Akin, the Republican candidate from Missouri, 'legitimate rape stops pregnancy.' He further says that 'the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.' Evidently, being terrified, or disgusted, is enough to stem the tide of semen that is swimming towards the Fallopian tubes. How does he define legitimate rape? He adds, 'first of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare.'

Perhaps Todd Akin should have boned up on his research before disclosing his ignorance because a major study done by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, estimates that 'almost 32,000 women each year in the U.S. become pregnant through rape.' Moving further away, another study conducted by the American Journal of Public Health shows that 'approximately 1,152 women are raped every day in the Democratic Republic of Congo,' a country infamous for its policy of using rape as a tactic of war. Perhaps the good senator should take a trip to the Congo, or to Rwanda, or to Serbia, and tell those women who fell pregnant through rape that they could have 'shut down' the whole process but they weren't THINKING!

The controversy over his comments on rape arose as a result of his earlier comments about the morning after pill, a pill designed to prevent conception. Akin is against the use of this pill. 'As far as I am concerned,' he said in an interview, 'the morning-after pill is a form of abortion. I think we shouldn't have abortion in this country.' However, the morning-after pill does not perform any type of abortion but simply prevents pregnancy. Pregnancy usually does not happen immediately after sex, but can occur several days later and is something that is usually offered to women who have been raped. He is against the pill being used by women who have been raped, or who have been victims of incest.

Please Todd, stay in Missouri and seek out a birth-control clinic to see if they offer any classes on sex education.

Note: Eve Ensler has responded to Mr. Akin's comments on rape.