Congressman Todd Akin believes that there is no way a woman can become pregnant if she was raped. On Sunday in an interview with Mike Huckabee, Akin said that if a "legitimate rape" occured, a woman's body has ways of shutting down to stop pregnancy. 

Is there any science to prove that? No.

Akin responded to press hounding him about his aforementioned theory by claiming that he just used the wrong word and is being criticized too much since mistakes often happen in the publice eye. What he meant to say was in the case of "forcible rape" women won't get pregnant.

Because that makes such a difference and now I can definitely understand how his thought process makes sense. No. Again.

Photo from The New Yorker

To put this all in context, Akin was in a discussion with Huckabee in regards to abortion and what should be covered by federal health funds. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney supports abortion in the case of rape but Akin believes too many women cry rape to justicy their abortions. Most Republican's feel the same as Romney, including his running mate Paul Ryan, and have feelings very similar to Akin, explains Michael Cooper of The New York Times. After all of these mispoken sentences left Akin's mouth, his collegues, and even Romney, encouraged him to leave the race for Missouri senate but he did not. 

As Amy Davidson of The New Yorker wonders, "the question isn't whether Republicans 'betrayed' Akin [by asking him to step down], or whether he, in another sense of the word, betrayed a truth about the party"... just some food for thought.