Pregnancy from rape

Pregnancy is a potential result of rape. It has been studied in the context of war, particularly as a tool for genocide, as well as in other unrelated contexts, such as rape by a stranger, statutory rape, incest, and underage pregnancy. The scientific consensus is that rape is at least as likely to lead to pregnancy as consensual sexual intercourse, with some studies suggesting rape may actually result in higher rates of pregnancy than consensual intercourse.

Rape can cause difficulties during and after pregnancy, with potential negative consequences for both the victim and a resulting child. Medical treatment following a rape includes testing for, preventing, and managing pregnancy. A woman who becomes pregnant after a rape may face a decision about whether to have an abortion, to raise the child, or to make an adoption plan. In some countries where abortion is illegal after rape and incest, over 90% of pregnancies in girls age 15 and under are due to rape by family members.

The false belief that pregnancy can almost never result from rape was widespread for centuries. In Europe, from medieval times well into the 18th century, a man could use a woman's pregnancy as a legal defense to "prove" that he could not have raped her. A woman's pregnancy was thought to mean that she had enjoyed the sex and, therefore, consented to it. In recent decades, some anti-abortion organizations and politicians (such as Todd Akin) who oppose legal abortion in cases of rape have advanced claims that pregnancy very rarely arises from rape, and that the practical relevance of such exceptions to abortion law is therefore limited or non-existent.

Estimates of the numbers of pregnancies from rape vary widely. Recent estimates suggest that rape conception happens between 25,000 and 32,000 times each year in the U.S. In a 1996 three-year longitudinal study of more than 4,000 American women, physician Melisa Holmes estimated from data from her study that forced sexual intercourse causes over 32,000 pregnancies in the United States each year. Physician Felicia H. Stewart and economist James Trussell estimated that the 333,000 assaults and rapes reported in the US in 1998 caused about 25,000 pregnancies, and up to 22,000 of those pregnancies could have been prevented by prompt medical treatment, such as emergency contraception. Other analyses indicate a much lower rate. The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a charity based in Washington, D.C., reached a much lower figure calculated using estimates from the Justice Department's 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey. The network took that survey's annual average of 64,080 rapes committed in 2004 and 2005 and applies the 5 percent pregnancy rate to reach an estimate of 3,204 pregnancies a year from rape.

A 1996 study of 44 cases of rape-related pregnancy estimated that in the United States, the pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45). A 1987 study also found a 5% pregnancy rate from rape among 18- to 24-year-old college students in the US. A 2005 study placed the rape-related pregnancy rate at around 3–5%.

A study of Ethiopian adolescents who reported being raped found that 17% subsequently became pregnant, and rape crisis centres in Mexico reported the figure the rate of pregnancy from rape at 15–18%. Estimates of rape-related pregnancy rates may be inaccurate since the crime is under-reported, resulting in some pregnancies from rape not being recorded as such, or alternately, social pressure may mean some rapes are not reported if no pregnancy results.

Most studies suggest that conception rates are independent of whether insemination is due to rape or consensual sex.

Some analysts have suggested that the rate of conception may be higher from insemination due to rape. Psychologist Robert L. Smith states that some studies have reported "unusually high rates of conception following rape". He cites a paper by C.A. Fox and Beatrice Fox, reporting that biologist Alan Sterling Parkes had speculated in personal correspondence that "there is a high conception rate in rape, where hormonal release, due to fear or anger, could produce reflex ovulation". Smith also cites veterinary scientist Wolfgang Jöchle, who "proposed that rape may induce ovulation in human females". Literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall and economist Tiffani Gottschall argued in a 2003 Human Nature article that previous studies of rape-pregnancy statistics were not directly comparable to pregnancy rates from consensual intercourse, because the comparisons were largely uncorrected for such factors as the use of contraception. Adjusting for these factors, they estimated that rapes are about twice as likely to result in pregnancies (7.98%) as "consensual, unprotected penile-vaginal intercourse" (2–4%). They discuss a variety of possible explanations and advance the hypothesis that rapists tend to target victims with biological "cues of high fecundity" or subtle indications of ovulation.