Mississippi’s U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnelee is reviving the specter of former Rep. Todd Akin, a fellow Republican from Missouri.
Readers may remember Akin and the now-infamous comment he made last year when a reporter asked if abortion could be justified if pregnancy resulted from rape. “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare,” he said. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”
That comment began a furor that may well have cost Akin his bid for Sen. Claire McCaskill’s seat in November.
On Jan. 22, Nunnelee’s office sent out a press release announcing that the Mississippi congressman had introduced pro-life legislation in the U.S. House. His bill, H.R. 346, Stop Abortion Funding in Multi-State Exchange Plans Act, aka the SAFE Act, is identical to a bill Akin proposed last year, H.R. 4971.
On the premise that the federal government is prohibited from funding abortions, the bills propose that multi-state health-insurance plans sold on state exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obama-care, cannot cover abortions except for cases of rape or incest, or where pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.
H.R. 4971 died in committee.
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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.
