“It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” — Representative Todd Akin, Republican of Missouri, asserting that raped women don’t get pregnant
Of all the ways one could imagine to help Barack Obama get re-elected, probably nothing could top the effectiveness of the recent remark by Representative Todd Akin. It constitutes a perfect nuclear strike against the Romney campaign.
If there is a winning strategy for Mitt Romney this fall, it certainly does not lie in a discussion of abortion — and that’s why Romney/Ryan have carefully steered clear of this topic. It kind of brings to the surface the fact that Ryan was a co-sponsor of a bill that distinguishes “rape” from “forcible rape” (I’m not making this up), and that he has asserted that abortion should only be legal when the mother’s life is in danger.
If not for Akin’s outburst, those inconvenient facts might have stayed buried. Now, of course, they have become common knowledge. It kind of makes you wonder whether Akin is secretly on the payroll of the Obama re-election campaign.