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.Dellorto, Danielle (22 August 2012). "Experts: Rape does not lower odds of pregnancy". CNN Health.Begley, Sharon; Heavey, Susan (20 August 2012). "Rape trauma as barrier to pregnancy has no scientific basis". Reuters. Archive version.
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.Brian Clowes, The Facts of Life: An Authoritative Guide to Life & Family Issues, Chapter 3: Exceptions for Abortion: The Frequency of Rape-Caused Pregnancies (Human Life International, 1997). .Garance Franke-Ruta, Analysis – A Canard That Will Not Die: 'Legitimate Rape' Doesn't Cause Pregnancy, National Journal (21 August 2012).
Rape-pregnancy incidence Estimates of the numbers of pregnancies from rape vary widely.Kim Geiger, Statistics on rape and pregnancy are complicated, Los Angeles Times, 23 August 2012. Retrieved 24 May 2014.Sue Owen, Surveys show wide disagreement on number of rape-related pregnancies per year, Politifact, Austin American Statesman, 15 August 2013. Retrieved 24 May 2014. 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. (abstract also available at NIH pubmed site Retrieved 24 May 2014.) 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.
Rate 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.
In contrast, psychologists Tara Chavanne and Gordon Gallup Jr., found that women in the ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle reduce risk-taking behaviors, which could theoretically reduce the likelihood of rape during fertile periods. Anthropologist Daniel Fessler disputed these findings, saying, "analysis of conception rates reveals that the probability of conception following rape does not differ from that following consensual coitus".
Sociobiological theories of rape pregnancy
Sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, a field often disputed and considered pseudoscientific in itself, have hypothesized that causing pregnancy by rape may be a mating strategy in humans, as a way for males to ensure the survival of their genes by passing them on to future generations. Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer are key popularizers of this hypothesis. They assert that most rape victims are women of childbearing age and that many cultures treat rape as a crime against the victim's husband. Rape-pregnancy rates are crucial in evaluating these theories, because a high or low pregnancy rate from rape would determine whether such adaptations are favored or disfavored by natural selection.
Statutory rape, incest and underage pregnancy
In 1995–1996, the journal Family Planning Perspectives published a study by the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual health research and policy organization, on statutory rape (sexual intercourse with a minor) and resulting pregnancies. It drew on other research to conclude that "at least half of all babies born to minor women are fathered by adult men", and that "although relatively small proportions of 13–14-year-olds have had intercourse, those who become sexually active at an early age are especially likely to have experienced coercive sex: Seventy-four percent of women who had intercourse before age 14 and 60% of those who had sex before age 15 report having had a forced sexual experience". Because of difficulties in bringing such cases to trial, however, "data from the period 1975–1978 ... indicate that, on average, only 413 men were arrested annually for statutory rape in California, even though 50,000 pregnancies occurred among underage women in 1976 alone".Michael M. v. Sonoma County Superior Court, 450 U.S. 464 (1981). In that state, it was found that two thirds of babies born to school-age mothers were fathered by adult men.
Sexual abuse early in life can lead young women to feel a lack of control over their sexual lives, decrease their future likelihood of using contraceptives such as condoms, and increase their chances of becoming pregnant or acquiring sexually transmitted infections. A 2007 paper by Child TrendsChildhood sexual abuse and teen pregnancy: a white paper – Logan et al., 2007 examined studies from 2000 to 2006 to identify links between sexual abuse and teenage pregnancy, starting with Blinn-Pike et al.'s 2002 metastudy of 15 studies since 1989. It found that childhood sexual abuse has a "significant association" with adolescent pregnancy. Direct connections have been demonstrated both by retrospective studies examining antecedents to reported pregnancies and prospective studies, which track the lives of sex abuse victims and "can be helpful for determining causality". The more severe forms of abuse, such as rape and incest, entail a greater risk of adolescent pregnancy. Although some researchers suggest that pregnancy could be a choice made to escape a "bad situation", it may also be "a direct result of unwanted intercourse", which one study found to be the case for about 13% of participants in a Texas parenting program.
In Nicaragua, between 2000 and 2010, around 172,500 births were recorded for girls under 14, representing around 13% of the 10.3 million births during that period. These were attributed to poverty, laws forbidding abortion for rape and incest, lack of access to justice, and beliefs held in the culture and legal system. A 1992 study in Peru found that 90% of babies delivered to mothers aged 12–16 were conceived through rape, typically by a father, stepfather, or other close relative. In 1991 in Costa Rica, the figure was similar, with 95% of adolescent mothers under 15 having become pregnant through rape.
Many of the youngest documented birth mothers in history experienced precocious puberty and were impregnated as a result of rape, including incest. The youngest, Peruvian Lina Medina, was impregnated when she was four and had a live birth in 1939, at age five.
Rape in war and conflict
Rape has been used as a weapon of psychological warfare for centuries, to terrorize, humiliate, and undermine the morale of the enemy. Rape was also used as an act of ethnic cleansing to produce babies that share the perpetrators' ethnicity. Forced pregnancy has been noted in places including Bangladesh, Darfur, and Bosnia. More broadly, pregnancy commonly results from wartime rape that was perpetrated without the intention of impregnating the enemy, as has been found in conflicts in East Timor, Liberia, Kosovo, and Rwanda. Gita Sahgal of Amnesty International commented that, rather than being primarily about "spoils of war" or sexual gratification, rape is often used in ethnic conflicts as a way for attackers to perpetuate social control and redraw ethnic boundaries. Children may be born to women and girls forced to "marry" abductors and occupiers; this happened in the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and in the Lord's Resistance Army's conflict in Uganda.
Rape during war is recognized under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820 as a war crime and a crime against humanity. "Forced pregnancy" is specifically enumerated as a war crime and crime against humanity in the Rome Statute, which was the "first international criminal tribunal ever officially to criminalize forced pregnancy".2012 law-review paper.