More Akin abortion remarks stir criticism

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin is again drawing attention for comments about abortion — this time, for saying that doctors are “giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant.” The Republican congressman from suburban St. Louis made the remark in a 2008 House speech. The video was being recirculated today on the Internet as Akin campaigns against Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill. In 1979, an Illinois physician had his license suspended after being accused of performing abortions on women who weren’t pregnant. But a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman in Missouri called Akin’s assertion ridiculous and an example of how he is out of touch with women. Akin apologized last month after remarking in a TV interview that women have biological ways of avoiding pregnancy in what he called “legitimate rape.”