By R M Austin
It is a measure of the nature of the current presidential campaign that at the very moment when the celebrated Augusta Golf Club was announcing the admission of female members for the first time, one of whom is the former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, the media should be lit up by the unfortunate comments of the Congressman from Missouri, Todd Akin. He, like a number of Republican Congressmen, hold extreme views on women’s reproductive rights. Aiken said in an interview last Sunday that “legitimate rape” does not lead to pregnancy. The furies have been pursuing him ever since, in spite of his attempts to apologise. Thankfully he did not repeat on this occasion his well-known view that the American government should compel rape victims to carry pregnancies to term.
A combination of women’s rights groups, members of his own party, and an array of commentators have given him no peace. Poor Congressman Akin. He really thought that he would have gotten away with these remarks because for the longest while fringe political characters and outrageous policy proposals outside of the mainstream seemed acceptable
