Nearly 65,000 U.S. rape victims were unable to get an abortion in their state, analysis shows

Nearly 65,000 rape-related pregnancies likely occurred in the 14 U.S. states that imposed near-total abortion bans after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs ruling. Yet only 10 legal abortions are available. carried out on average monthly in these states, researchers found in a new analysis.

The data shows that abortion bans likely make it impossible for most rape victims to get abortions in their own countries, even the minority of people who live in states with rape exemptions, researchers said.

The figures come as rape exemptions have fallen out of favor among anti-abortion activists and politicians, despite the fact that most Americans, including Republicansbelieve that victims of abuse should have access to abortion, and that most Americans believe that abortion “morally acceptable”.

“The large number of estimated rape-related pregnancies in states where abortion is prohibited, compared to the 10 or fewer legal abortions per month that occur in each of those states, indicates that persons who have been raped and become pregnant do not have access to legal abortions in their home states, even in states with rape exceptions,” researchers wrote in a research letter in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

While the observational nature of the study could draw criticism, it is part of an important and growing body of analysis documenting the impact of abortion bans on women’s lives, health and fertility. This growing body of evidence crosses disciplines, with contributions from doctors, economists and researchers.

In July 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a nearly 50-year-old precedent that provided a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, in a case called Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization (or simply “Dobbs”).

The decision caused a massive change in reproductive rights in the US – states were suddenly allowed to ban the procedure. Fourteen planned to do so immediately and almost completely, with five of them granting exemptions to rape victims. There are now twenty-five million women of childbearing age live in states that ban the procedure.

In JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers estimate the number of women likely to be victims of “completed” vaginal rape — forced and/or drug/alcohol-facilitated vaginal penetration — based on estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of intimate partner violence. Then, using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, they determined the fraction likely to be of childbearing age (15-45), arriving at a total of roughly 520,000 rapes. (Importantly, as noted by JAMA, BJS’s data underestimates the number of rapes.) Finally, they broke down the attacks among the 14 U.S. states that ban abortion, based on the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ uniform crime statistics, which include rapes reported to police in 2019.

The estimate found that the vast majority of rape-related pregnancies, 58,979, likely occurred in states without exceptions to their abortion bans. Texas alone accounted for a whopping 45% of that number (26,313) due to its large population and total ban with no exceptions.

An estimated 5,586 rape-related pregnancies occurred in states, excluding rape victims. While not all women who become pregnant through rape want an abortion, those who do are likely faced with the reality that their state does not provide access to abortion. Researchers found that even states with exemptions are unlikely to provide any meaningful option to end a pregnancy, given the low number of legal abortions per month in these states.

Researchers suspect this is at least partly driven by the requirement that victims report rape to police, something few feel comfortable doing. This would likely be exacerbated by the near-total lack of health care providers willing to perform an abortion in a state that carries severe criminal and professional penalties.

The analysis does not go beyond estimating the number of women who might have been forced to continue a pregnancy as a result of rape. Abortion remains legal in most cases in 30 US states, and nearly three-quarters of women seeking an abortion have demonstrated an willingness to travel to states where abortion is legal, according to recent research.