Regardless of anyone's politics, I would think publicly advocating that 'legitimate rape victims can't get pregnant' would either require room temperature IQ or a horrible human being. I'm willing to hear any third explanations that are legitimate.
Which is the defense that is applicable? Stupid, evil or other? And why defend him for that?
Firstly, the Republican Party is less likely to defend their people, since the media friendly to them doesn't have anything like the influence of the Democrat Party media (i.e., the mainstream media). So I'm not sure Akin could have been saved. Claire can go on about her career, and may never hear of this again. Were she Republican, the establishment press would hang this around her neck, and make her talk her way around it every time she appeared on the screen.
The first of Akin's sins was that he used the word "legitimate" to mean "actual," or "authentic." No reasonable person would assume this meant that he approved of some rapes, of course, but that didn't matter. Again; their media is bigger than our media.
His second sin was in failing to be current on the scientific literature surrounding rape and pregnancy. I don't know if it was the media's work, or if it was just our need to feel intelligent, but no one wanted to be the one to point out (I don't think I did, at the time) that Akin wasn't being unreasonable, or particularly stupid on that point. At least, not if he had been led to believe it by
doctors, as he claimed to have been. Given that we hear every other day about some new study that tells us stress has some horrible new effect on the body, it's not unreasonable for a lay-man to buy into the notion that the stress of violent rape would make women unlikely to conceive. Obviously, if that was a legislator's only reason to oppose abortion, it would be more objectionable. But Akin didn't need that, as a reason. Also, the 2012 election was a referendum on Obamacare. Let it be remembered that Akin is one of those politicians who
wasn't saying he should play gynecologist to his constituents.