The GOP's so-called 'rape apologist caucus'
A gallery of four Republican candidates who made notorious statements about women and rape, prompting Atlantic magazine to nickname them the "rape apologist caucus." All four were defeated in the elections on Tuesday.
Todd Akin, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senator from Missouri, lost key funding and support when he said while defending his anti-abortion stance that it was rare for a woman who has been raped to get pregnant. "First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," Akin said. "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."AP
U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock got into hot water when he, too, was defending his position against abortions for victims of rape. “I struggled with it myself for a long time,” he said, “but I came to realize life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”Reuters
Tom Smith, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, was heavily criticized when he said getting pregnant during a rape was similar to getting pregnant out of wedlock. He too was defending his position that victims of rape should not be allowed to have abortions.AP
Roger Rivard, a freshman Assemblyman in Wisconsin seeking re-election, got in trouble when it surfaced during the campaign that he had said in December of 2011 that his father had advised him as a teenager to be wary of having sex with girls under the age of consent because, “some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning.”Handout