Gingrey’s attempts to explain Akin’s rape remarks left many Republicans frustrated. | John Shinkle/POLITICO GOP fury at new rape comments

Rep. Phil Gingrey’s attempts to explain Todd Akin’s rape remarks are leaving many Republicans beyond frustrated that a few in their party can’t help but insert rape into the already contentious abortion debate.

“This is actually pretty simple. If you’re about to talk about rape as anything other than a brutal and horrible crime, stop,” said Republican strategist Kevin Madden, who was a senior adviser in Mitt Romney’s campaign.


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On Thursday, the Georgia Republican didn’t heed that advice, telling a local Chamber of Commerce breakfast that Akin was “partially right” when he said last year that a woman can stop herself from getting pregnant.

“We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate,’” Gingrey said.

He also said that Akin’s definition of a “non-legitimate rape” could be “a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents.”

The comments were reported by the Marietta Daily Journal. Gingrey later said that he wasn’t trying to defend remarks by Akin or Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, and that his position was misconstrued “in my attempt to provide context as to what I presumed they meant.”

But Gingrey’s lengthy explanation of what Akin meant was quickly circulated by Democrats, repudiated by medical groups, and had some Republicans smacking their heads in frustration.

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And it may have added new urgency to a training program that’s already being launched by an anti-abortion group — the Susan B. Anthony list — to keep candidates and lawmakers from continually making the same kind of comments that may have helped ruin Republicans’ chances of winning the Senate.

Former Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) questioned why Gingrey was talking about the months-old comment in the first place.

“There’s no way to defend what Todd Akin said,” Bono Mack said. “You just can’t do it and you shouldn’t try to put it into a scientific context. It was a bad statement. And to try to defend it or explain someone else’s poor choice of words, it would be a fool’s errand.”

Bono Mack, who was first elected in 1998 but lost her reelection this fall, said some House Republicans don’t understand the full range of emotions associated with the abortion debate.

“It was my belief when I was in the Congress, and I tried to explain this to my colleagues: The abortion issue isn’t just about abortion. It’s about so much more. It’s about delving into what it means to women and what it means to Americans,” she said. For women, it means “a loss of autonomy. To Americans, it means government intrusion into their lives.”

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the lawmakers are falling for a trap set by proponents of abortion rights who want to focus the debate on extremes such as rape instead of other abortions.

“It’s a tactic to [force pro-life lawmakers to] talk about this rather than the 98 percent of abortions because they know that they lose it,” Dannenfelser said.

She said that SBA List is working on a new training program for candidates and lawmakers to “make sure that in future elections, a candidate can never with a straight face say, ‘I never thought about that or I got caught flat-footed.’”

Marina Ein, whose public relations firm does crisis communications, said the party needs some kind of “sensitivity training” for its candidates if it wants to do better in the next elections.



“It all boils down to whether or not the Republican Party thinks this is a problem,” she said. “If they want to make inroads with women, then they need to subject every one of their candidates to sensitivity training — not to mention reality training.”

The training would have to “educate politicians on subjects that are absolutely taboo, except to say, ‘I sympathize with the pain of anyone who goes through fill-in-the-blank,’” she said.

Madden’s advice is simply to stop talking.

“Our pro-life values as a party should be framed in terms of the culture of life," he said. "It’s easy enough to do that. It shouldn’t be conflated with other issues.”

Bono Mack blamed the problem, in part, on too much focus on the politics of abortion instead of the real policies, especially in legislation she saw on the House floor.

It was “never about truly pushing a policy, regardless of how you felt about abortion. There were never the votes in the Senate. [They were] putting this forward to make a statement some way or another to help a particular congressman or to shore up their base. I believe it was short-sighted.”

The string of Republican lawmakers landing in hot water for talking about rape is getting longer — even though the election has been over for months.

Akin famously said in a television interview during his challenge to Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill that a woman’s body can “shut” down a pregnancy during a “legitimate” rape. Then, Richard Mourdock said in his Indiana Senate race that a child resulting from rape is a gift from God. And Rep. Joe Walsh in Illinois questioned whether medically necessary abortions are really medically necessary. All three Republicans lost their races in November.

Medical groups on Friday protested Gingrey’s comments, too.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said adrenaline wouldn’t have any impact on ovulation and said rape is “never legitimate.”

"Rape, defined as any genital, oral or anal penetration without consent, is never legitimate,” ACOG said in a statement. “While chronic stress, for example from extreme exposure to famine or war, may decrease a woman’s ability to conceive, there is no scientific evidence that adrenaline, experienced in an acute stress situation, has an impact on ovulation."

Barbara Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE, a national infertility association, said there are many reasons for infertility.

“I can assure you we never tell women to ‘just relax,’ as we know the complexities of an infertility diagnosis,” she said. “This comment belittles the science and the causes of infertility and places the blame on the woman for their condition.”

David Nather and Kathryn Smith contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:58 p.m. on Jan. 11, 2013.