this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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Researchers calculated the number of pregnancies resulting from rape in states where abortion was banned throughout pregnancy after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, total abortion bans went into effect in 14 states. Nine of these have no exceptions for rape. Now researchers have attempted to quantify the number of pregnancies that have resulted from rapes in states with a total ban—and the numbers they came up with are staggering.

A new study estimates that more than 64,000 pregnancies resulted from rape between July 1, 2022, and January 1, 2024, in states where abortion has been banned throughout pregnancy in all or most cases. Of these, just more than 5,500 are estimated to have occurred in states with rape exceptions—and nearly 59,000 are estimated for states without exceptions. The authors calculate that more than 26,000 rape-caused pregnancies may have taken place in Texas alone. The findings were published on Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“Highly stigmatized life events are hard to measure. And many survivors of sexual violence do not want to disclose that they went through this incredibly stigmatizing traumatic life event,” says Samuel Dickman, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of Montana, who led the study. “We will never know the true number of survivors of rape and sexual assault in the U.S.”

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[–] breakingcups@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

That's just an insane number to me.

[–] Rincewindnz@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

That's a lot of rape... Humans have such a fascination with some types of "moral problems" yet seem to care nothing for others.

[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how a loosing party force fabricates electors that can be manipulated due to an unstable family and potential low income.

[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago

I'd love to see the statistics for prosecutions (never mind convictions) to go along with these 64,000 pregnancies caused by rape..

(this is, of course, rhetorical, most survivors don't bother even reporting rape since they know how those who do get treated, and of the few brave that do, almost none get any justice, pregnancy as proof or otherwise..)

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The article doesn't seem to say if there's any data on how many there were before the ban?

Obviously abortion bans (and rape, for that matter) are bad, but a raw number without context seems like bad scientific communication.

[–] TSG_Asmodeus@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago

I'm not sure that's the point, so much as "there will be 64,000 forced births from rapes".

[–] Zorque@kbin.social 5 points 9 months ago

I don't think they're looking at whether or not abortion bans reduce rape (was that ever considered to be a realistic reason to ban it?) Just that there's a shocking amount of rape-related pregnancies in places where people can't get an abortion.

It doesn't appear to be a comparison, it's showing statistics.

[–] badbytes@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Seems like this will be costly to tax payers, and not just financially.

[–] Nariom@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago