Politicians who are legitimately stupid rarely get elected.

[BigV]

mornin hq

I didn't buy the paper for 40 bucks, so, I don't know what it says. But with respect to pregnancy from rape rates, I've heard from sources I found credible numbers around 5%. So, it's not vanishingly small. And by comparison, pregnancy from consensual sex might be the same or higher (conceivably lower--hehehehe I said conceivably), but, so what?

Poor brother Akin's remarks were not so inflammatory just because of the rate, which he apparently underestimates by a good margin, but because it reveals a huge gap between his understanding and reality. He compounds this error (ignorance is only an original sin, and curable) by doubling down in all his follow up statements. He does eventually say that people do get pregnant from rape, but this is really just the last veil stripped from his true belief. No abortion because the innocent child should not be punished.

That's a noble notion, but his claim that a fertilized egg is a child is unsupported by everything I know. The urge to cue Monty Python's "Every Sperm Is Sacred" as their theme song is almost as irresistible as the claim is ridiculous. Though I can't find a cite right now, it seems clear that this is Akin's position.