By Deidre McPhillips | CNN
Tens of thousands of pregnancies have resulted from rape in states where abortion is not a legal option, researchers estimate in a new study.
In the study, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers from Planned Parenthood, Resound Research for Reproductive Health and academic institutions across the US used a combination of federal surveys on crime and sexual violence to estimate that there were about 520,000 rapes that led to 64,565 pregnancies in the time since abortion bans have been enacted in 14 states – ranging by state from four to 18 months ago.
Other research has found that there have been fewer than 10 abortions each month in states with bans, suggesting that most, if not all, victims were not able to get abortions in the states where they live, even those where the law allows exceptions for rape.
“Restricting abortion access to survivors of rape can have particularly devastating consequences,” the medical journal’s editors wrote in a note about the new research. “Whether these survivors of rape had illegal abortions, received medication abortion through the mail, traveled to other states, or carried the child to birth is unknown.”
About 1 in 5 adults in the US says that abortion should be legal in all cases, according to a 2022 survey from Pew Research Center. And a much larger majority – nearly 70% of adults – say abortion should be legal if pregnancy is the result of rape.
But experts say – and the new research suggests – that the realities of putting those exceptions into practice are challenging.
“Like many exceptions written into abortion bans, an exception for rape victims may appear to be a reasonable solution but in practice can create more trauma and danger for patients who have already experienced a traumatic event,” said Dr. Sami Heywood, an ob/gyn in Illinois and fellow with the advocacy group Physicians for Reproductive Health who was not involved in the…
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