GOP Lawmaker Backs Akin's 'Legitimate Rape' Theory

Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" remarks may have sparked a political firestorm and cost him his job, but they were "partly right," a GOP lawmaker said today. Speaking at a function in Smyrna, Georgia, US Rep. Phil Gingrey supported the former House member's distinction: "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 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," he added. And as a veteran OB-GYN, he agreed with Akin's contention that a woman experiencing "legitimate" rape may be unable to conceive, the Marietta Daily Journal reports. Gingrey said he has advised women to relax to help facilitate pregnancy, because tension can curb ovulation—so Akin "was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there. ... And yet the media took that and tore it apart." Indeed: We ran a story calling it literally medieval. But Mitt Romney and President Obama didn't agree with him, either. (More Todd Akin stories.)