Long before `legitimate rape,' Akin alleged abortions on non-pregnant women

Todd Akin, who nearly derailed his U.S. Senate campaign in August by claiming that rape usually can't cause pregnancy, made another claim four years ago that was arguably as strange: That doctors at abortion clinics perform abortions on women who aren't actually pregnant.

The comment, made in a House floor speech in January 2008, wasn't fully explained at the time, but was apparently an allegation that abortion doctors were ripping off women who erroneously thought they were pregnant. It was part of a litany if alleged illegalities—tax fraud, medical lapses—that Akin claimed were happening in abortion clinics.

“And what sort of places do these bottom-of-the-food-chain doctors work in? Places that are really a pit,” Akin says in a C-Span clip unearthed by Slate.com. “You find that along with the culture of death go all kinds of other law-breaking: not following good sanitary procedure, giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant, cheating on taxes, all these kinds of things, misuse of anesthetics so that people die or almost die. . . . All of these things are common practice."


http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/f5f0c752-0d72-11e2-b591-0019bb30f31a.html