Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey says Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock — who lost their senate races to Democrats over comments about pregnancy and rape — may have been “partially right’’ in their beliefs.
Gingrey, who co-chairs the House GOP Doctors Caucus, told the
Marietta Daily Journal Democrats still control the Senate because those comments were “considered a little bit over the top.’’
Last August, Akin, a Missouri congressman, said victims of "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant, because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." He later issued an apology.
Then, in October, Mourdock, the Indiana state treasurer, said he opposed abortion without exception because if conception occurred as a result of the crime, “it is something God intended to happen.’’
“Mourdock basically said ‘Look, if there is conception in the aftermath of a rape, that’s still a child, and it’s a child of God, essentially.’ Now, in Indiana, that cost him the election,’’ Gingrey said.
“In Missouri, Todd Akin … said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation.’
“And what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents —that’s pretty tough and [she] might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.’
“That’s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don’t find anything so horrible about that.’’
Gingrey said Akin went on to explain that “in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur." He claims Akin was partly right on that.
Gingrey, who has been an obstetrician since 1975, told the newspaper: “I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things.
“It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he?"
But, Gingrey added, the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, “you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak.
“And yet the media took that and tore it apart.”
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