Senator Scott Brown called on Missouri Representative Todd Akin this morning to withdraw from the US Senate race in his state, a rare intra-party rebuke.
“As a husband and father of two young women, I found Todd Akin’s comments about women and rape outrageous, inappropriate and wrong,” Brown, a fellow Republican, said in a statement. “There is no place in our public discourse for this type of offensive thinking. Not only should he apologize, but I believe Rep. Akin’s statement was so far out of bounds that he should resign the nomination for US Senate in Missouri.”
Brown may be the first prominent Republican to call for Akin’s resignation from the race.
Both Brown and Warren had earlier today condemned Akin’s comments that pregnancy among rape victims is “really rare.”
“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin, a Republican running for Senate in Missouri, told a local television station Sunday, according to the Washington Post. Akin was arguing against legalized abortion in almost cases. He later said he misspoke.