Remember Todd Akin? Remember his weak apology for his comments on abortion and "legitimate rape," and how "the female body has ways to try to shut [conception] down?" Here's a refresher:

Well, Akin has a new book out, and Politico's Anna Palmer and Tarini Parti read it so you don't have to. In the book, Akin retracts his apology and doubles down on his comments about rape:

Akin systematically defends every phrase in his response to whether abortion in the case of rape should be legal. “Taking my comments in order: When a woman claims to have been raped, the police determine if the evidence supports the legal definition of ‘rape.’ Is it a legitimate claim of rape or an excuse to avoid an unwanted pregnancy?”

“My comment about a woman’s body shutting the pregnancy down was directed to the impact of stress on fertilization. This is something fertility doctors debate and discuss. Doubt me? Google ‘stress and infertility,’ and you will find a library of research on the subject.” ...Akin later says during his time as a state legislator, he wished he could have done more to “end this evil,” referring to abortion, which in his view “easily trumps slavery as the greatest moral evil in American history.”

The Republican Party abandoned Akin in 2012 when he made those comments, and the timing of this book must signal at least a little bit of payback on Akin's part: Republicans don't want to remind voters about their War on Women with a midterm election coming up. Akin's book is going to make it very hard for Republican candidates to avoid questions about rape, abortion, and contraception in the weeks ahead.