Tens of thousands of rape victims became pregnant in states with abortion bans, study estimates

Researchers estimated 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, according to a research letter recently published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Other research has found the number of abortions fell to nearly zero in states with the strictest bans, which indicates people who were raped and became pregnant couldn't access abortions in their home state, even when there is an exception for rape, according to the study done by researchers from Planned Parenthood of Montana, Hunter College in New York, Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts and the University of California, San Francisco.

"These are people who have really experienced a very traumatic event," said study co-author Kari White, executive and scientific director for Renowned Research for Reproductive Health in Texas. "Not only have they lost their own reproductive autonomy as a result, but that's now being further undermined by the policies in place in their state that are really now making it difficult for them to make their own personal decisions about and determine the trajectory of their lives following this event."

Study:Abortions in US rose slightly after post-Roe restrictions were put in place

How did researchers develop this estimate?

To generate this estimate, researchers combined several surveys and reports, White said, including estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 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.

Using other peer-reviewed studies to determine how often rape results in pregnancy, White said the group found 64,565 rape-related pregnancies occurred in the four to 18 months bans were in effect in the 14 states with strict abortion bans.

Lack of data made study difficult, researcher says

White said getting accurate and reliable data on both rape and pregnancies that result from rape is difficult in part because it is such a sensitive topic. A 2018 study by CDC researchers estimated about 2.9 million women in the U.S. experienced a rape-related pregnancy during their lifetime.

White acknowledged the estimate reached in the study is not definitive.

"Even some of those estimates provided by the CDC report are considered to be underestimates, so the incidence of rape may be more common than what we estimated in our study," White said.

Still, she added, "anybody who experiences this is one person too many."

Alison Norris, a professor at The Ohio State University who studies sexual and reproductive health and was not involved in the study, said despite the limitations of the data, the research is "extremely, thoughtfully executed."

"I'm impressed at the ways in which the authors have compiled the available data to give us a quantitative answer to an important problem that otherwise we haven't been able to get our arms around the scope of people who are impacted," she said.

More:Five critical steps survivors of sexual assault should take after the crime

Even with exceptions, barriers to abortion for rape survivors exist

The study does not estimate how many rape survivors are likely to seek an abortion, and White said there is not good data on how often this happens. An analysis of survey data from 2004 and 1987 by the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports abortion rights, found 1% of women reported that being raped contributed to their decision to get an abortion. 

But more than 90% of the thousands of estimated rape-related pregnancies occurred in states that don't include an exception for rape in their abortion bans, including 26,313 in Texas, which White said can force people who do want an abortion to travel out of state. The proportion of patients traveling out of state to get an abortion has risen from 1 in 10 in 2020 to nearly 1 in 5 in the first half of 2023, according to a December study from the Guttmacher Institute.

Even in states that do have exceptions, White said the law may require people to report the rape to law enforcement in order to qualify for an exception, which survivors may not be willing or able to do. Only 21% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Norris said the paper demonstrates not everyone who could qualify for an exception gets an abortion.

"Those exceptions are a false promise because of how hard it is for victims of rape to be granted an exception," said Norris. "So the exception makes people feel better about the law, but it doesn't actually make the law anymore suitable to taking care of people who have been raped."

Contributing: Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY

Rape, incest account for few abortionsWhy are they now a focus?