Update: Todd Akin will not attend social conservative conference in D.C.

See update at the bottom of this post.

Missouri Republican Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin will speak at a reception at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., later this week, conference organizers said Wednesday.

"He will be there participating in one of our events and will be speaking at, I believe, our political action committee reception Friday afternoon," said Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, the organization hosting the event.

In August, Akin came under fire, and resisted calls from Republicans to end his Senate campaign, after he suggested during an interview that women who are raped cannot become pregnant. Akin later said that he "misspoke."

Perkins was one of the few voices in social conservative circles who backed Akin after the National Republican Senatorial Committee and conservative political action committee groups announced they would pull financial support from his candidacy.

"I did not agree with the characterization of his comments, or how he communicated the issue a month or so ago, but that does not cause me to back away from my support of Todd Akin," Perkins said Wednesday. "I'm disappointed with some in the political establishment who are quick to cut and run. ... I'm not going to abandon my friend."

Update: Todd Akin's campaign says he will not attend the conference.

"Akin was going to speak at the FRC Action PAC reception at VVS but decided to stay in Missouri to speak at in-state events," FRC spokesperson Darin Miller told Talking Points Memo. "Tony [Perkins] wasn't aware of the change—it was a recent change that he hadn't heard of yet."