Pregnancy and Rape

This post is mostly to preserve the related information. See also The GOP Cassandra and the August 2012 Of Pregnancy and Rape.

Exhibit 1 (August 1980, Linacre Quarterly, p. 200 ff)

One major impediment to rational discussion has been the tendency to exaggerate the frequency of pregnancy resulting from a single act of forcible rape. In a very comprehensive study, Pearl reported that a single random act of intercourse among consenting adults would be likely to result inpregnancy 0.3% of the time.2 Even this incidence of 3 pregnancies per thousand acts of intercourse, however, may be too high when estimating the expectation of pregnancy resulting from forcible rape. 

In a retrospective study, the state’s attorney from Cook County, Illinois (including Chicago), reported no pregnancies during a nine- year period of prosecutions for rape.3 Similar retrospective studies done by law enforcement agencies in Cuyahoga County, Ohio and Erie County, New York reported not a single prosecution involving pregnancy following rape over a period of 10 years in Ohio and 30 years in New York.

While not all rapes are reported to law enforcement authorities, there is no reason to believe that pregnancy is more common after unreported rape than after reported rape. In a recent prospective study of 4,000 rapes in Minnesota. no pregnancies were reported. 4 Recent studies have helped to shed light on this lower-than- expected incidence of post-rape pregnancy.

1.There is a high rate of sexual dysfunction related to sexual assault. Groth and Burgess reported that 57% of 101 rapists had erective or ejaculatory dysfunction.5 The incidence of retarded ejaculation was 180 times higher among rapists than that reported in the general population. 

2.Rape is defined legally as penetration even without ejaculation. A series of studies 6 has reported the recovery of spermatozoa from only about half of rape victims including even victims of gang rape. 7 

3.No pregnancies were reported among a group of 100 women not given anti-implantation medication after rape. Of them, over 70% were at reduced or absent risk of pregnancy because they were on oral contraceptives, had an IUD in place, were already pregnant, had had a hysterectomy, were post-menopausal, or had not yet reached menarche. 8 

4. Among fertile women raped on the day of ovulation only 10% became pregnant.9 

5. There is evidence that the acute stress reaction related to rape may affect fertility through a variety of mechanisms affecting reproductive function.

References in the original article, not currently available online.

Exhibit 2. See here also

Registrar General”Statistical Review of England and Wales for 1969.London: 1971, H.M.S.O. Cited in R.Gardner, Abortion, the Personal Dilemma(Eerdmans, 1972), p. 169.    80 pregnancies out of 54,000 rapes. 

Study cited in Jack and Barbara Willke. Handbook on Abortion. Hayes Publishing Company, 1979, p. 40. 22 pregnancies out of 86,000 rapes. C.R. Hayman, W.F. Stewart, F.R. Lewis, and M. Rant. 

Rape in the District of Columbia. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1972; 113:91(c)97. 21 pregnancies out of 914 rapes. 

R. Everett and G. Jimerson. The Rape Victim: A Review of 117 Consecutive Cases. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1977; 50:88(c)90. Zero pregnancies in 117 rapes. 

H. Fujita and W. Wagner. Referendum 20 Abortion Reform in Washington State. In J.Osofsky and D. Osofsky. The Abortion Experience: Psychological and Medical Impacts. Harper & Row, 1973. Three pregnancies in 524 rapes. 

Exhibit 3: The Louisiana Experience

The state of Louisiana requires the most comprehensive reporting on abortions in the country. Therefore, its records are the best source for determining how frequent (or infrequent) abortions for rape really are. 

In Louisiana, the abortionist must fill out a form entitled “Report of Induced Termination of Pregnancy” (Form #PHS 16-ab) for every abortion he commits. The form notes at the top that “Failure to complete and file this form is a crime.”
Item 9d on this form is entitled “Reason for Pregnancy Termination.” 

The Office of Public Health of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals compiles these statistics. Over the 14-year period 1975 to 1988, 202,135 abortions were performed in Louisiana. Of these, the reasons were listed for 115,243 of them. 

The reasons for these abortions are listed below;
JUSTIFICATION FOR LOUISIANA ABORTIONS
Mother’s mental health 114,231 (99.12%)
Mother’s physical health 863 (0.75%)
Fetal deformity 103 (0.09%)
Rape or incest 46 (0.04%)
This means that, in Louisiana, 1 out of every 2,483 abortions is performed for rape or incest. This number, which is statistically very reliable due to the large sample population, almost precisely confirms the results of the calculations described earlier in this chapter. 

The state of Missouri has noted similar ratios. In 1980, the state operated under court and Executive Orders to pay for rape and incest abortions for poor women. Not a single claim under these headings was submitted during the entire year.[7]

Exhibit 4

When a Model Penal Code abortion law was passed in Colorado in 1967, 18% of abortions performed in the first year under the semi-restrictive law were performed for the indication of pregnancy due to forcible rape. 

There was no evidence, however, that the alleged rapes had been reported or that any rapists had been prosecuted. The number of abortions performed for rape in Colorado as contrasted with the number performed under the permissive law in Czechoslovakia would lead to the dubious conclusion that, on a per-capita basis, rape was 300 times more common in Colorado than in Czechoslovakia. 

Pregnancy due to rape, in other words, became a pretext for abortion to be alleged by the cynical all out of proportion to its true occurrence. 

Keep in mind that this was exactly the fabricated case that led to Roe v. Wade.  Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" of the case, falsely alleged she had been raped in order to obtain an abortion.