Report: Akin arrested eight times for anti-abortion protests

Findings from a new report double the number of times Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) has been arrested in anti-abortion protests, as video surfaced of him comparing criticism of his infamous "legitimate rape" remarks to beheadings carried out by extreme Islamic groups.

The National Journal reported Saturday that, according to records obtained by Right Wing Watch, the four arrests occurred between October 1985 and February 1987, in addition to the four arrests reported last month by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Akin is currently embroiled in a race for the Missouri Senate against Democratic candidate Claire McCaskill. His campaign has dismissed the initial arrest report as "something that happened a quarter of a century ago," as the last known arrest occurred a dozen years before he was first elected. But last month, Salon publisheda flyer from a 1995 militia rally featuring him as a speaker.

Akin has denied knowing the organizers of the event, including anti-abortion activist Tim Dreste, but Right Wing Watch reported that Dreste registered eight website domains affiliated with Akin last year in anticipation of Akin's senatorial campaign.

On Friday, Right Wing Watch also posted footage from a September speech in which Akin decried the national lambasting he has received since saying the female reproductive system had ways of "shutting down" a pregnancy caused by "legitimate rape," as compared to the attacks foisted upon former president Bill Clinton, who was impeached and acquitted following revelations of an extramarital affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.

"It struck me that, if you said something wrong, it's worse than doing the thing wrong," Akin said. "We had a president, who introduced the current president [Barack Obama, at this year's Democratic National Convention], and he was accused of some things that, doing something wrong, as opposed to saying something wrong. It surprised me that the saying it wrong is almost seems like it's worse than the doing it wrong, and that's part of that political correctness, that, 'You've offended me.' And we see that all the time, that the Islamists pull out on us, that, 'We're offended, so we're gonna cut your head off slowly.'"

Video of Akin's remarks, posted on YouTube by Right Wing Watch Friday, can be seen below.