A GOP congressman is now asserting that Todd Akin was partially correct several months ago in his assertion that traumatic, nonconsensual sex (i.e. “legitimate” rape) is less likely to result in pregnancy than consensual sex.
The claim (which Rep. Phil Gingrey is supporting) is that adrenalin can inhibit ovulation. (It is of course possible that a woman will have ovulated shortly before being raped, thus pregnancy, while being less likely, is still possible.)
Is there anything to this, or is Akin (and now Gingrey) completely and utterly wrong, and ovulation happens on schedule regardless of a woman’s acute stress level?
If adrenaline inhibited fertility our species would have died out a long, long time ago. So would most others, too, I bet. Wild rabbits spend most of their lives basically scared for their very life, and they breed like, well, rabbits. Chronic stress/anxiety is associated with ovulation problems, but that’s a whole 'nuther thing, and is probably more linked to eating/sleeping disturbances which then, in turn, affect hormones and ovulation.
f you’re looking for hard numbers, the study concludes that the national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (12—45), and that an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. Does 32,000 pregnancies per annum sound “rare” to you? It’s not.
Five percent may not sound like much, but the fact is that couples trying to have kids would be ecstatic over a five percent chance of pregnancy per sexual encounter; what’s more, a study published in 2003 in the journal Human Nature found that a single act of rape was more than twice as likely to result in pregnancy than an act of consensual sex:
“Our analysis suggests that per-incident rape-pregnancy rates exceed per-incident consensual pregnancy rates by a sizable margin,” write researchers Jon and Tiffani Gottschall, “even before adjusting for the use of relevant forms of birth control.” [emphasis mine]
Again, here are the numbers: the researchers examined data collected from 405 women between the ages of 12 and 45 who had suffered a single incidence of penile-vaginal rape, and found that 6.4 percent of these women became pregnant. This number leapt to almost 8% when the researchers accounted for women who’d been using birth control (according to New Scientist, US government statistics show that 20% of the women in the sample were likely to have been using the pill or an IUD). A separate study, conducted by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in 2001, found the per-incidence pregnancy rate for a single act of consensual sex to be just 3.1 percent.
He is wrong in the first part. If a girl lies, it is not rape at all, and “legitimate” has nothing to do with it. Isn’t giving false reports to the police illegal?
As for the second, well, holy crap. I’d love to see well-run studies saying relaxing is a cure for infertility. He also seems to be implying that ovulation occurs at the time of intercourse. Or are you supposed to drink the wine before?
Congressman Gingrey is misinformed. There is some association between chronic stress and infertility. Acute stress associated with rape is another matter.
*"A woman’s chances of becoming pregnant are the same after rape as they are after consensual sex, according to medical experts and published studies…
“What we know is that chronic stress can decrease fertility,” said Dr. Sharon Phelan, a fellow at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of New Mexico, in a telephone interview with CNN.
Phelan cites emotional, medical or nutritional stress as forms of chronic stress.
“The acute stress does not have the same impact,” she added, referring to the act of rape.
A 1996 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology estimated 32,101 pregnancies in the United States each year result from rape."*
Hopefully I will be permitted a side observation here that Republican physicians in Congress are commonly a source of medical misinformation.
Not only is this wrong factually, it is just wrong. Let’s just say that because of stress or trauma or some other medical reason a woman who is raped has less of a chance of conceiving. If so I suspect it is less than a 1% difference but let’s get crazy and say 50%. So now a woman only has 1/2 the chance of conceiving if it is “legitimate rape” as opposed to consensual sex. After the shitstorm the original comments brought, how can anyone try to justify it in any way? How would that fact in any way not stir up the contraversy again? How would a person making such a statement not be viewed by Americans at large as an ignorant fucktwat?
Without trying to make this a political debate, Colibri, I remember a time when opponents of abortion were even more vigorously debating an exception for rape in policy discussions than they are now. Many opponents were worried that if an unwanted pregnancy occurred from any intercourse, concensual or nonconsensual, the woman could claim “rape” and be allowed an abortion. Thus the policy stance was taken that there should be no “rape exception” in an anti-abortion law, in order to eliminate any incentive of such false characterizations. In my memory it is within that debate that the term “legitimate rape” arose. It described the non-consensual sexual act, as opposed to a consensual sexual act which was then falsely characterized as rape in order to be allowed an abortion. Within that debate, I don’t think it ever carried that connotation the some non-consensual sexual act is, was, or could be, permissible.
I had to rewrite that paragraph a number of times to make it clear, accurate, and unbiased (I hope), but it’s not hard to imagine how the shorthand “legitimate rape” came to be used in an internecine discussion among people who generally shared the same political goal. Obviously it is lousy shorthand, and has been, I think, wrongly interpreted by the general press and many in the public.
I think of this post as providing some historical insight rather than chiming in on one side or the other, as in Great Debates. I’m not a scientist, biologist, or doctor, so I’ve got no particular expertise to lend there.
Problem here (and I believe I brought this up in a thread during the initial brouha) is that sperm live for many days inside the body of a woman who is just about to ovulate. Even if that ovulation is delayed for a day or two due to stress (which has been known to happen, yes, absolutely, and it’s not even a controversial claim), the sperm are still there and viable on day three when the ovum is released, and the ovum fertilized.
So what we have is a true but meaningless statement. Yes, it’s true that acute stress can cause a delay in ovulation. It’s not true that the acute stress of a rape can prevent pregnancy.
And any OB/GYN who is still telling infertile couples that they just need to “relax and have a glass of wine” needs to be slapped with a copy of any reproductive journal written in the last 20 years. WTF.
I know you are just quoting the article, but those number are bullshit. Just extrapolating from their pregnancy number would result in the number of rapes per year being at least 3x higher than is found in reputable surveys, and around 7 times higher than FBI stats. Seems highly suspect.
i’m not an expert, Brickbacon, and thanks for being Sweet while pointing that out!
You very well may be correct. But, it at least SEEMS to be from a reputable, peer reviewed Journal :
the Author states:
The entire article, which is published in a 1996 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology is relevant to our analysis, but here’s the bit that Akin and his doctors really need to read:
Rape-related pregnancy occurs with significant frequency. It is a cause of many unwanted pregnancies and is closely linked with family and domestic violence. As we address the epidemic of unintended pregnancies in the United States, greater attention and effort should be aimed at preventing and identifying unwanted pregnancies that result from sexual victimization.
Chronic stress/anxiety is associated with ovulation problems, but that’s a whole 'nuther thing, and is probably more linked to eating/sleeping disturbances which then, in turn, affect hormones and ovulation.