From what I understand from doctors, thats really rare , he said. If its a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But lets assume maybe that didnt work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist.

Akins comments were widely denounced as ignorant and offensive including by members of his own party. National Republicans unsuccessfully pushed for him to drop out of the race. He then lost to McCaskill.

There was also Richard Mourdock, another 2012 GOP Senate candidate who justified opposing abortion in cases of rape, saying that if a woman becomes pregnant under those circumstances, its something God intended .

In this case, national Republicans distanced themselves from Mourdocks comments even while many of them stood by him. He lost the Senate race.

In 2010, Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle was asked what she would say to a young girl who was raped by her father, became pregnant and was considering an abortion.

I think that two wrongs dont make a right, Angle replied. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade .

Angle also lost her race .

But these sorts of positions are no longer outliers in the GOP. The rhetoric is not only widely embraced, but this stance of forced birth has become law in many states thanks to the Supreme Courts conservative majority overturning Roe v. Wade.

Its true that abortions resulting from rape and incest are a small percentage of overall abortions. And to be clear, there are no good or bad reasons for having an abortion.

But those cases often receive the most attention because they are so shocking and horrifying, especially when the victims are children themselves.

Nothing could provide a clearer example of where the Republican Party is now than the case of the 10-year-old girl in Ohio who was impregnated by her rapist and then barred from having an abortion in her own state. The girl ended up traveling to Indiana for the procedure.