Nearly 60,000 women became pregnant through rape in states where sexual assault is not considered a valid reason for abortion after the end of Roe v Wade, a study shows.
Researchers found that of the 519,981 rapes in 14 states with abortion restrictions, 64,000 pregnancies occurred between July 1, 2022 and January 1, 2024.
About 91 percent of these – or about 58,979 – occurred in states where rape is not an exception to abortion.
Montana abortion provider Dr. Samuel Dickman, lead author of the study, said he was “shocked” by the results.
“To be confronted with these estimates that are so high in states where there is no meaningful access to abortion? It’s hard to understand,” he said.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v Wade, fourteen states implemented near-total bans on abortion at any time during pregnancy.
More than 60,000 women became pregnant through rape after the end of Roe v Wade in states where sexual assault is not considered a valid reason for abortion, study shows
Following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade, fourteen states enacted near-total bans on abortion at any time during pregnancy
In the absence of recent, reliable state-level data on rape, researchers from Montana, Texas and New York analyzed multiple data sources to estimate reported and unreported rapes in states with total abortion bans.
They also estimated the number of resulting pregnancies based on findings from previous research on rape-related pregnancy rates.
To estimate the number of rapes nationally, the team looked at the CDC’s 2016 to 2017 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey, which estimated that there were no sexual assaults reported to police, and of sexual violence that went unreported.
They then used data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics on criminal victimization and FBI Uniform Crime Reports to assess the number of vaginal rapes of women between the ages of 15 and 45 that occurred in the 14th state while the abortion ban was in effect.
To measure the number of rape-related pregnancies, they multiplied the state-level estimate of vaginal rapes by the fraction likely to result in a pregnancy, and then adjusted for the number of months between July 1, 2022 and January 1, 2024 that a total abortion ban would last . was in force. The time period varies from state to state.
In the 14 states that have implemented total abortion bans, researchers estimate that 519,981 rapes occurred.
They calculated, based on CDC data, that 12.5 percent of attacks would lead to pregnancy.
This gave them a figure of 64,565 pregnancies during the four to eighteen months the bans were in place.
Of these, an estimated 5,586 (nine percent) of rape-related pregnancies occurred in states with rape exceptions, while 58,979 (91 percent) occurred in states without exceptions.
About 26,313 (45 percent) of these occurred in Texas alone.
Montana abortion provider Dr. Samuel Dickman, lead author of the study, said he was stunned by the team’s findings.
“I was shocked,” he said. ‘Sexual violence is incredibly common, I knew that in a general sense. But to be confronted with these estimates being so high in states where there is no meaningful access to abortion? It’s hard to understand.’
Dr. Dickman has patients who routinely tell him they became pregnant after a rape. But he knows there are many more.
“There are certainly many more rape survivors who become pregnant as a result and who — for completely understandable reasons — don’t want to reveal that fact to a medical provider they’ve just met,” he told NPR.
The research was published in the journal JAMA Network.
The 14 states that banned abortion after the overturning of Roe w Wade are: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
States with rape exceptions include Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, West Virginia and North Dakota.
The states without rape exceptions are Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
Not all people who become pregnant as a result of rape want an abortion, noted Dr. Rachel Perry, a professor of gynecology at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the study.
“We know that those who become pregnant after rape are more likely to choose abortion than to continue their pregnancy,” she said.
In 2022, a 10-year-old girl had to travel from her home in Ohio to Indiana to have an abortion after being raped.
The child was nearly six and a half weeks pregnant and could not legally have an abortion in Ohio because of the state’s “fetal heartbeat” law, which took effect after the court ruling.
Abortion rights advocates said the case was an example of how new abortion restrictions were harming the most vulnerable.