Mary Headrick, from left, Chuck FleischmannNASHVILLE – U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann strongly disagrees with recent comments made by a Missouri colleague over the improbability of rape victims getting pregnant, but the Chattanooga Republican remains a staunch abortion opponent, according to a spokesman.
“Chuck believes the comment made by Congressman [Todd] Akin was flat-out wrong and not factual,” Fleischmann spokesman Jordan Powell said in an email Thursday.
However, Powell said, Fleischmann “voted to prevent taxpayer funds from being used for abortion-related costs, and will continue to stand for the sanctity of human life every time he has the chance.”
Akin, a Missouri congressman running for the U.S. Senate, triggered a national uproar when he told a local television reporter he understood from doctors that pregnancy arising from rape “is really rare. If it is a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
He later apologized, saying on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s radio program this week that he meant to say “forcible rape” and that “I also know that people do become pregnant from rape.”