Rape-Related Pregnancies in the 14 US States With Total Abortion Bans: 64.5 THOUSAND

[Maru Kitteh]

To estimate the contemporary incidence of vaginal rape nationally, we analyzed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) 2016 to 2017 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey (which used special methods to accurately ascertain reported and unreported rapes). We adjusted for the fraction of survivors who were female individuals aged 15 to 45 years using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) annual survey on criminal victimization (which is known to underestimate rapes5)3 and further adjusted for the percentage of rapes that are vaginal.1 We calculated 95% CIs using measures of uncertainty from the CDC survey. The CDC and BJS surveys do not include state-level data; thus, we apportioned the 2022 nationwide rape estimate among states based on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most recent Uniform Crime Reports, which include rapes reported to law enforcement in 2019.

To estimate rape-related pregnancies, we multiplied the state-level estimate of vaginal rapes by the fraction likely to result in pregnancy (eMethods in Supplement 1)6 and then adjusted for the number of months between July 1, 2022, and January 1, 2024, that a total abortion ban was in effect. We used Stata, version 16.1 (StataCorp), to analyze the BJS survey data and Microsoft Excel for other calculations.

Results
In the 14 states that implemented total abortion bans following the Dobbs decision, we estimated that 519 981 completed rapes were associated with 64 565 pregnancies during the 4 to 18 months that bans were in effect (Table 2). Of these, an estimated 5586 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: JAMA
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[bucolic_frolic]

1. Sadly many children to grow up in impoverished conditions and unhappiness

but Mike Johnson will have his workers

[betsuni]

2. K&R