Todd Akin says abortions are given to women who aren't pregnant

JEFFERSON CITY, MO. -- Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin once equated abortion providers to terrorists and suggested that it was "common practice" for them to be "giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant."

The Missouri congressman made the remarks in a 2008 speech on the House floor. They were being recirculated Wednesday on the Internet as Akin raised money in Washington for his campaign against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Critics sought to link the remarks to Akin's much-criticized comment in August that women have biological ways of avoiding pregnancy in cases of "legitimate rape" - a reason he offered for his opposition to abortion.

Akin has repeatedly apologized for his "legitimate rape" remark and has acknowledged he was wrong. There is no medical proof that women's bodies repeal pregnancies in rape.

But there have been past assertions that physicians performed abortion procedures on women who weren't actually pregnant. In 1979, Chicago physician Arnold Bickham had his state medical license suspended after he acknowledged defrauding the federal government. He had been accused by Illinois officials of preforming abortions on women who weren't pregnant and before anesthesia had fully taken effect...............