Recently a Republican representative shocked the entire country on a St. Louis television station KTVI-TV by contradicting science and stating the body’s defense mechanisms adapted to the individual. The Republican Party wants to take away a woman’s personal, bodily right to choose abortion for herself.

“If it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child,” said Congressman Todd Akin of Missouri.

Akin talks about putting punishment on the rapist and not on the child, yet fails to mention the victims of rape who find themselves pregnant with their rapist’s child.  He fails to acknowledge that the victims of these crimes would bear the punishment if they were forced to bring their pregnancies to term.

Akin tried to backpedal, meaning to say forcible rape instead of legitimate rape. If this were the case, it still shows a fundamental lack of knowledge of the female reproductive system. Akin and the Republican Party want to take away the women’s rights of making decisions for their own bodies without even fully understanding the rights they are taking away.

Akin is not alone in these beliefs, nor is he the first Republican to demonstrate such ignorance.

“The facts show that people who are raped – who are truly raped – the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant,” said Republican Rep. Henry Aldridge of North Carolina.

In this day and age where there is a wealth of knowledge readily available at the click of a button, it is baffling to think there are still elected officials that hold these beliefs. It is a scary thought that a group of elected officials want to make laws based on facts founded on pseudoscience and assumptions.

“The odds that a woman who is raped will get pregnant are one in millions and millions and millions,” said Republican Rep. Stephen Freind of Pennsylvania.

The idea that a woman cannot get pregnant from being raped is preposterous. Studies have found that pregnancy occurs roughly five percent of the time, resulting in over 30,000 unnecessary pregnancies due to rape annually. Elected officials are ignoring these facts and trying to control a woman’s choice over her own body.

Republican women are not safe from the ignorance spouted by the Republican Party.

“I actually think that a woman conceiving during rape is so completely rare that, I mean, it almost doesn’t happen,” said Emily Jarms, a delegate of the Republican National Convention in Oregon.

The Republican Party has recently shown their complete lack of knowledge regarding women’s reproductive health. If in power, the Republican Party will take away the bodily sovereignty of thousands of women using lies and misinformation in place of scientific facts. It’s a direct violation of our rights as Americans, and the citizens cannot allow this to happen. It is a woman’s right to make choices for her own body, and the government should not be able to take that away from women. *