Letters: A congressman’s medieval views on rape

Re “Rape remark sets off an uproar,” Aug. 20

I thought we had finished the silly season of this campaign, but we have a new entry: Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Party’s candidate for one of Missouri’sU.S. Senate seats.

Thanks to him and some unnamed doctors (I bet they’re glad), we ladies now know we have some sort of toggle switch we can throw and render any attack sperm sterile. It sort of sounds like a Star Trek episode gone bad.

I have a question for the Republicans: Where do you find these people?

Marion Lewish

San Diego

I now understand why the U.S. consistently lags in science education. When we have a congressman like Akin who serves on theHouse Committee on Science, Space and Technologyand declares that women’s bodies prevent conception during rape, what hope is there for science education?

Since Akin claims to have been informed by doctors, perhaps he can be asked if biologists have also told him that “creation science” is just as valid as evolution.

Ed Schoch

Westchester

A funny thing happens to me every time I convince myself to support the Republican Party, with its emphasis on individual freedom and its championing of ambition: Up pops another one of its politicians to display appalling ignorance. The latest of these “leaders” claims that he “misspoke” when he offered his idiotic musings on women’s bodies.

“Misspoke” is a term that originated, appropriately, in the Nixon administration. I think I’ll remind myself of this whenever I’m about to be conned into believing the GOP’s pieties.

Michael Jenning

Van Nuys

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