Former congressman Todd Akin, whose 'legitimate rape' comment torpedoed his U.S. Senate bid, dies
Source: Washington Post
Todd Akin speaks during a campaign stop at Union Station on Oct. 31, 2012, in Kansas City, Mo. (Charlie Riedel/AP)
Former congressman Todd Akin (R-Mo.), who famously lost a 2012 Senate bid after he expressed controversial views about abortion in cases of “legitimate rape,” died late Sunday, the Associated Press reported, citing a statement from Akin’s son Perry. He was 74. The cause of death was not immediately available but his son said that he had suffered from cancer for years.
“He was a devote Christian, a great father, and a friend to many,” Perry Akin told the AP. “We cherish many fond memories from him driving the tractor at our annual hayride, to his riveting delivery of the freedom story at 4th of July parties dressed in the full uniform of a colonial minuteman. The family is thankful for his legacy: a man with a servant’s heart who stood for truth.”
As a politician, Mr. Akin was prone to making controversial comments. He was best known for an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 2012, during which he sparked a national backlash for a statement about abortion that derailed his campaign. When asked by St. Louis television station KTVI to explain his no-exceptions policy on abortions, Mr. Akin first said that pregnancies arising from rape are “really rare,” and added, “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Mr. Akin first backtracked and later apologized for his comment in a television ad that framed his comment as a slip of the tongue. But in 2014, he walked back his apology in his book, “Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom.” “By asking the public at large for forgiveness,” Mr. Akin wrote, “I was validating the willful misinterpretation of what I had said.” Mr. Akin refused to bow out of the race and eventually lost to incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill, who went on to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate until 2018, when she lost her reelection bid to Josh Hawley (R), the state’s attorney general.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2021/10/04/todd-akin-republican-missouri-dead/
Full headline: Former congressman Todd Akin, whose ‘legitimate rape’ comment torpedoed his U.S. Senate bid, dies at 74
Blast from the past.
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rocktivity
