JAMA Intern Med

Nearly 65,000 pregnancies from rape have occurred in states with abortion bans

January 31, 2024

Data from this cross-sectional study estimates there may have been more than 64,500 pregnancies resulting from rape in the 14 states that have enacted near-total abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. The largest percentage of these rape-related pregnancies, or 45%, were in the state of Texas.

Because thousands of girls and women in states that banned abortion experienced rape-related pregnancy, but few (if any) obtained in-state abortions legally, study authors note that rape "exceptions" likely fail to provide reasonable access to abortion for survivors.

Survivors of rape who become pregnant in states with abortion bans may seek a self-managed abortion or try to travel often hundreds of miles to a state where abortion is legal, leaving many without a practical alternative to carrying the pregnancy to term.

• Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (Dobbs) decision overturning Roe v. Wade, 14 states have outlawed abortion at any gestational duration.
• Although 5 of these states allow exceptions for rape-related pregnancies, stringent gestational duration limits apply, and survivors must report the rape to law enforcement, a requirement likely to disqualify most survivors of rape, of whom only 21% report their rape to police.
• Researchers combined several surveys and reports, including CDC estimates on the frequency of rapes nationwide, the fraction of rape survivors of child-bearing age from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and state-level data on the number of rapes from the FBI's most recent uniform crime report.
• To estimate rape-related pregnancies, researchers multiplied the state-level estimate of vaginal rapes by the fraction likely to result in pregnancy and then adjusted for the number of months between July 1, 2022, and January 1, 2024, that a total abortion ban was in effect.
• In the 14 states that implemented total abortion bans following the Dobbs decision, researchers estimated that 519, 981 completed rapes were associated with 64,565 pregnancies during the 4 to 18 months that bans were in effect.
• Of these, an estimated 5,586 rape-related pregnancies (9%) occurred in states with rape exceptions, and 58,979 (91%) in states with no exception, with 26,313 (45%) in Texas.

Source:

Dickman S, et al. (2024, January 24). JAMA Intern Med. Rape-Related Pregnancies in the 14 US States With Total Abortion Bans. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38265790/