Rape victims speak up against Akin’s ‘legitimate rape’ comment

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As Missouri Republican senatorial candidate Todd Akin scrambles to salvage himself from becoming a political football, the outrage over his stupefying comments regarding “legitimate rape” continues to grow.

“It was like I had been slapped,” a St. Louis-area rape victim told KTVI-TV. “I heard that comment and I just began to shake. I was fit to be tied. I was really incensed.”

Akin had said during a Sunday television interview that, “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that thing down.”

The woman, who did not go on camera, said she had been raped at knifepoint for hours.

In Florida, another victim, Anita Law, told The Huffington Post the attack on her when she was a 19-year-old University of Maryland student left her too traumatized to carry out the ensuing pregnancy.

“It ruined my world for a long time,” said Law, now 43. “If I had had to carry that rapist’s baby to term, quite honestly, I might have taken my life.”

Law said Akin’s remarks were “a perfect example of why male politicians shouldn’t be legislating women’s bodies.”

A report by KCTV, aired Monday, can be seen below:

KCTV 5

[h/t The Huffington Post]

Read more:

 

• GOP Senate nominee: Women don’t get pregnant from ‘legitimate’ rapes
• McCaskill: Rape remarks are a ‘window into Todd Akin’s mind’
• Scott Brown calls on Todd Akin to quit after ‘legitimate’ rape remark
• Scarborough on Akin: ‘This Republican party does not want to win’
• Rep. Speier: Akin’s rape views ‘consistent’ with ‘vast majority of Republicans’
• Obama admonishes Akin: ‘Rape is rape’
• Akin apologizes: ‘I was talking about forcible rape’