Franks' remark came at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Franks's rape comment sparks furor

A House Republican pushing for a 20-week nationwide ban on abortions said Wednesday that the incidence of pregnancies resulting from rape is “very low” — then scrambled to clarify his comment after it went viral with comparisons to former GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin.

“The incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) as the House Judiciary Committee debated his bill to ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks including in cases of rape and incest.


After the committee meeting, Franks told POLITICO: “My bill does nothing to restrict abortion even before the first five months, so all issues related to rape are long since dealt with.”

( PHOTOS: 5 controversial Todd Akin quotes)

He said that Democrats are the ones who “constantly want to inject” rape into the abortion debate and have done so ever since the original Roe v Wade case. By focusing on rape instead on “the child that was being killed” they try to change the dynamics of the debate, he said. “So sometimes Republicans get beat up for having to respond to it, but it’s always the left that brings it up because it results in Republicans getting beat up by it.”

Franks’s comments immediately stirred comparisons to the controversies during the 2012 elections, when Akin and other GOP candidates made a series of statements about abortion and rape, or questioned whether abortion was ever needed to save a woman’s life. In several states — notably Missouri and Indiana — the remarks and their aftermath played into the larger Democratic theme of the “war on women” and helped Democrats win those seats and keep control of the Se

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) challenged Franks when he made his comment in committee, saying his assertion was “astonishing.”

“The idea that the Republican men on this committee think they can tell the women of America that they have to carry to term the product of a rape is outrageous,” Lofgren said.

It wasn’t only Democrats who objected. Gabriel Gomez, the Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate, told ABC News: “I think that he’s a moron and he proves that stupid has no specific political affiliation.”

Franks did not immediately try to clarify his remarks when challenged by Lofgren, but attempted to do so after the committee returned from a lunch break. By then, they had been widely reported and the DCCC had circulated them.

“Just to make clear my point earlier, pregnancies from rape that result in abortion after the beginning of the sixth month are very rare,” he said.

Lofgren again challenged him, repeating, “The suggestion that rape rarely leads to pregnancy has no basis in science or fact.”

Franks replied, “And I would just like to point out the fact that I never made such a suggestion.”

The House Judiciary Committee ultimately passed Franks’s bill, which would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks based on the controversial assertion that a fetus can feel pain at that point. It is scheduled to get a vote in the full House next week, a spokesman for Majority Leader Eric Cantor said.

In addition to voting down a Democratic amendment along party lines that would provide an exception in cases of rape or incest, the committee voted down amendments to provide a full exception to preserve the life or health of the woman and a more detailed amendment that would provide an exception if the pregnancy could result in lung disease, heart disease or diabetes.

A similar 20-week ban that would have applied only to Washington, D.C., failed in the House last year. But that vote was held under a procedure that needed a two-thirds vote for passage.

Eleven states have passed similar laws, though some, like Arizona’s, have since been blocked in court. Arkansas and North Dakota have gone further, banning abortion after 12 and six weeks, respectively.