A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine estimates that 519,980 reproductive-aged girls and women have been raped since their home state banned all abortions, with 64,570 becoming pregnant as a result. The largest number of estimated pregnancies resulting from rape—26,310—occurred in Texas. State-level estimates were based on the number of months abortion was banned in each state after Roe v. Wade was overturned, July 1, 2022 through January 1, 2024. Abortion was banned for 16 months in Texas during that time.
During the study period, few abortions were recorded in the 14 states with a total abortion ban– including the 5 states with “rape exceptions.” This indicates that even in states that have abortion exceptions, those survivors who do access abortion care are not obtaining it in their home state. Texas, the state with the largest population that bans abortion care in nearly all cases, does not include an exception for rape or incest.
Other states with abortion bans and large estimated numbers of pregnancies resulting from rape included Missouri (5,830), Tennessee (4,990), Arkansas (4,660), Oklahoma (4,530), Louisiana (4,290) and Alabama (4,130).
“Politicians use the idea of abortion exceptions to provide political cover, but those so-called exceptions don’t actually help pregnant survivors get the care they need,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Samuel Dickman, a researcher at the City University of New York’s Research Foundation and the Chief Medical Officer at Planned Parenthood of Montana. “Rape survivors who become pregnant deserve to make informed, personal decisions about their pregnancy, and state-level abortion bans–even those with exceptions–don’t allow them to do that.”
The authors note that while some pregnant survivors of rape who need abortion care may be able to travel to states where abortion remains legal or manage an abortion at home with abortion pills, abortion bans leave many survivors without a practical alternative to carrying the pregnancy to term.
“Sexual assault is unfortunately a common experience, and many survivors have also endured intimate partner or family violence—circumstances that create additional barriers complying with the legal reporting requirements for an in-state exception or obtaining out-of-state care,” said Dr. Kari White, executive director of Resound Research for Reproductive Health. “Survivors who need abortion care should not have their reproductive autonomy further undermined by state policy.”
The study was carried out by researchers at The City University of New York’s Hunter College, Harvard Medical School, Resound Research for Reproductive Health, and The University of California, San Francisco. The authors analyzed survey and crime report data from the CDC, the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics to estimate the numbers of girls and women 15-45 who had survived rape that could result in pregnancy in each state since the state’s abortion ban took effect. They then applied estimates of the pregnancy rate from rape to estimate the number of resulting pregnancies.
