Judge Andrew Napolitano on Why Rape Does Not Justify Abortion

The criticisms of the recent absurd comments by Missouri Republican Congressman Todd Akin, who at this writing is his party's nominee to take on incumbent Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in November in a contest he had been expected to win, have focused on his clearly erroneous understanding of the human female anatomy. In a now infamous statement, in which he used the bizarre and unheard-of phrase "legitimate rape," the congressman gave the impression that some rapes of women are not mentally or seriously resisted. This is an antediluvian and misogynistic myth for which there is no basis in fact and which has been soundly and justly condemned.

Akin also stated that the female anatomy can resist unwanted impregnation. This, too, is absurd, offensive, and incorrect. Medical science has established conclusively that women cannot internally block an unwanted union of egg and sperm, no matter the relationship between male and female. Even schoolchildren understand that.

What has gone unmentioned, writes Judge Andrew Napolitano, in the cacophony of condemnation by Republicans and Democrats, is the implication in Akin's comments that rape is not a moral justification for abortion. In that, argues the Judge in his syndicated column for Creators, Akin is correct: It is not.