FOR a few months, it looked as if the 2012 general election might mark a pause in the culture wars that have roiled so many previous American political contests. Though evangelical Christians and other “values voters” remain a potent force, November’s ballot seemed likely to turn mainly on questions of economics and the role of government. Then Todd Akin—a six-term congressman and Republican Senate nominee for Missouri—set off a verbal grenade with an assertion on August 19th that women subjected to “legitimate rape” very rarely became pregnant, because their bodies had “ways to try to shut that whole thing down”.

His claim—a pseudo-scientific fiction that has long been advanced by some pro-life activists who want to outlaw abortion for rape victims—was denounced by the Republican establishment. Senate leaders and the party’s presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, urged Mr Akin to abandon his Senate bid: a step he was resisting as The Economist went to press, despite warnings that he would be starved of funding and assistance. But damage had already been done, on several fronts.

Republicans need to take four seats to control the Senate, and Missouri was near the top of their target list. Mr Akin was never the choice of Republican bosses for this vital task. Unusually, he won his fiercely contested primary for the Senate seat with help from the state’s incumbent Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill, who ran television advertisements calculated to boost Mr Akin among local conservatives, in what appeared to be a pick-your-own opponent gambit. The first opinion poll after the controversy showed Mr Akin’s 11-point lead over Ms McCaskill all but vanishing.

The reverberations will be felt beyond Missouri. Mr Akin (who says that he “misspoke” but that his critics are overreacting) used extreme language. But his general hostility to abortion even in cases of rape and incest is shared by many Republicans in Congress. As Obama campaign aides were quick to point out, that includes the vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, who last year co-sponsored a bill in the House of Representatives seeking unsuccessfully to tighten rules so that federally funded abortions would be available only for victims of what was termed “forcible rape”.

More broadly still, Mr Akin’s defiance is a further testament to the insurgent mood sweeping the modern Republican Party, leaving party leaders struggling to control their own foot soldiers. Though Mr Romney says that, as president, he would support abortion in cases of rape or incest, his party’s platform at the Republican National Convention, to be held in Tampa from August 27th-30th, will uphold a strict pro-life policy countenancing no such exceptions.

Even before this latest skirmish in the culture wars, Mr Romney lagged behind Barack Obama by several points among women voters. Mr Obama was careful to acknowledge this week that Mr Romney and Mr Ryan had distanced themselves from Mr Akin’s comments. But the president went on to criticise, more generally, male politicians who seek to take medical decisions on behalf of women. As an attack on his Republican rivals, it was more a stiletto thrust than a grenade. But it may prove wounding, for all that.