Twitter reacts to Rep. Todd Akin’s claim women can’t get pregnant from ‘legitimate rape’
Representative Todd Akin’s apology for having “misspoken” in an interview where he claimed women were less likely to get pregnant in cases of “legitimate rape” isn’t doing much to quiet the Internet firestorm.
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Akin said of rape resulting in pregnancy during an interview with KTVI. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
The Missouri republican hasn’t yet named the doctors feeding him this information, but according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 32,000 pregnancies result from rape every year.
Akin later apologized in a statement on his website:
As a member of Congress, I believe that working to protect the most vulnerable in our society is one of my most important responsibilities, and that includes protecting both the unborn and victims of sexual assault. In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year.
But that hasn’t stopped the Twitterverse from taking his remarks and running with them. Akin hasn’t tweeted since August 14, but if he were to log on now, he’d find he’s the of target parodies, jokes, criticism and political analyses.
The question now? Will Akin’s comments be enough to lose him the election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill? An August 7 poll showed Atkin leading McCaskill 51 to 40 percent. So now, the Internet waits…. 
