Disputed sources underlie Rep. Akin’s rape remarks

“The question of rape always stirs the emotions whenever it is introduced into the abortion debate,” wrote Dr. Fred Mecklenburg in 1972. “Unfortunately, the emotional impact of rape often clouds the real issues and the real facts.”

Mecklenburg—an assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Minnesota Medical School at that time—could not have known how prescient his words would seem 40 years later.

While Rep. Todd Akin (R., Mo.) cited only “doctors” as his source of information about the rarity of pregnancy resulting from rape, it is two pages, from Mecklenburg’s 1972 article “The Indications for Induced Abortion: A Physician’s Perspective,” that have influenced two generations of antiabortion activists hoping to build a medical case to ban all abortions without exception.