Todd Akin [rape does not result in pregnancy]

Factual Questions
21

There is also one Dr. Fred Mecklenburg:

In 1972, he authored a book chapter, “The Indications for Induced Abortion: A Physician’s Perspective”, which argued in part that pregnancy from rape “is extremely rare.”[13] The chapter appeared in a book titled Abortion and Social Justice, written in response to arguments before the Supreme Court regarding legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade. Mecklenburg added that a woman exposed to the trauma of rape “will not ovulate even if she is ‘scheduled’ to."[14] Mecklenburg said researchers in Nazi death camps observed this effect by “selecting women who were about to ovulate and sending them to the gas chambers, only to bring them back after their realistic mock-killing, to see what the effect this had on their ovulatory patterns. An extremely high percentage of these women did not ovulate.”[14] Journalist Blythe Bernhard stated, “That article has influenced two generations of anti-abortion activists with the hope to build a medical case to ban all abortions without any exception.”[15]

22

I think it was Victor Frankel (“Man’s Search For Meaning”) who describes the way the human mind worked, as not Freud’s “gotta get laid” but that we construct a “world view” of how we think our world is. We build on this framework, we stick things onto it; severe psychological trauma often results from being forced to face facts that contradict how we believe the world should work; people will often ignore obvious facts and evidence in order to keep ahold of a crumbling world view.

This it is with Akin. He has spent much of his life hanging around others who share his world view, and bolster each other with inaccuracies, bad statistics, and urban legends. Faced with accusations his beliefs do not reflect reality, he denies reality because altering his world view would be traumatic.

Keep in mind, he’s always believed this. This is not John McCain (or ROmney), an urban moderate “converting” to the anti-abortion camp for convenience to get the conservative vote. He refuses to admit he is wrong because he does not believe any “facts” that tell him he is wrong. If the facts disagree with his world view, then the facts must be wrong.

23

Yea, verily.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Akin also believes men have one fewer rib than women. Plenty of Christians do.

24

That is what I am asking though, it’s one thing for some old-fashioned dumb-ass yokel from Missouri to believe this; but are the doctors upon whose work these ‘true believers’ are basing their justifications/beliefs also ‘true believers’? Despite being medically trained? Despite being fucking doctors? The level of disconnect and denial necessary for such an existence is staggering just to imagine.

ETA: Or, are they so morally opposed to abortion that they cynically put forth these wacky theories in an attempt to medically justify such moral positions, knowing the fallacy of said positions the entire time?

25

Only about 1% of abortions cite rape as a cause.* Probably less. (I see some cites which take it down to 0.5%, though these are pro-life sites and might not be trustworthy.)

There are 6,053,840 pregnancies per year in the US, of which 1,200,000 end in termination (abortion).**

The incident of pregnancy from a single, unplanned sexual encounter seems to unclear,*** but I’m going to go with 5% because the majority of rape victims seem to be in their prime for fertility and that seems to be the top number.****

About 0.4 in 1000 people (including men, I presume) are raped each year.***** Presuming that nearly all of those are women and that women are about half the population, then that is about 62,000 women per year.

Of women who become pregnant due to rape, about 75% choose to have the child anyways.****** (Note that this is a pro-life site, so not necessarily trustworthy.)

From these statistics, we would expect that there are (62,000 * 5% =) 3,100 pregnancies caused by rape each year if rape does not increase nor decrease the chance of pregnancy from a single act of sex.

From the incidence of termination, however, we would expect that there are 12,000 abortions from rape victims (or 6,000 if you take the 0.5% number), and a total of 48,000 pregnancies since most women do keep the baby (or 24,000 at the 0.5% number). Since that would be nearly the full population of rape victims, I think we can safely say that the 0.5% number is more likely. Even still, 24,000 pregnancies among 62,000 women is far higher than the expected 3,100.

The statistics on NationMaster give the incidence of rape in the US as close to 90,000 victims per year.******* This still only works out to 4,500 expected pregnancies.

Rape is often said to be under-reported, and that is almost certainly one factor in the disparity here. Of course, the 0.5% number is also reliant on self-reporting of rape, so you would expect the same result there, and yet I don’t see any cites going lower than 0.5%. While I’d have been suspicious of the study which has been brought up that suggests that rape is twice as likely to end in pregnancy as consensual sex, I might have to say that the reality may well be pointing in that direction. I have no idea why. All I can suggest is that Mother Nature is an evil master.

26

I thought of one other underlying bit of truthiness.

Amenorrhea is not entirely uncommon in high performing athletes. Hormonal changes brought on by the stress of training is sometimes cited as the cause. When menstruation stops, so does ovulation. This is the result of an ongoing stress that is primarily physical in nature.

Could the Akin camp confound that sort of stress with the experience of a rape victim? Sort of mentally equating that if an athlete doesn’t menstruate due to stress then the stress of a rape must prevent a woman from ovulating and menstruating? Again it fails on causation but that doesn’t seem to be his concern.

27

Keep in mind that this appears to be the conclusion of a single medical doctor.

28

There is a wide-spread belief out there that “stress” interferes with pregnancy. Women dealing with infertility hear this all the time: “Just relax and let it happen. Quit stressing”. This is despite the fact that there’s any amount of evidence of highly stressed women getting pregnant–I mean, if stress stopped pregnancy, you’d never see babies less than 18 months apart, but that pacing isn’t uncommon at all. And how many women get pregnant at exactly the wrong time–failing marriage, just started law school, declared bankruptcy, new job? But the idea that a woman’s body is this delicate flower that must be coddled and nurtured to work right is out there. The whole “can’t get pregnant by rape” thing is an extension of that.

29

No, I thought the same thing and was informed otherwise.

30

Who knows what is going on in his mind.

Athletes generally stop menstruating because of low body fat. So do anorexics. Rape doesn’t cause low body fat.

Some women going through stress will have unpredictable periods, they may skip them, or delay them. This is due to ovulation not occurring. Since most pregnancy is the effect of sex that happens in days right around ovulation, immediate stress - like rape - isn’t going to have time to set off whatever hormones are already releasing - or have released! - the egg to fertilize.

31

I gave up on my last dentist when, after asking him what his neighbour’s “quantum healing” (I’m simplifying here. The words used were much more complicated than “quantum healing”) was about, I discovered he thought there might be something to it, and that he owned himself a (costly) machine that improved oxygen (apparently, he would spend half an hour each day breathing through this machine that somehow made the oxygen in the air better for your health).
So, yes, people who have received a medical education can still believe any kind of crap.

32

You are genuinely astonished that right wingers are lying? I am surprised when, occasionally, they tell the truth.

33

Problem is that there is some Truthiness here, but what nature has made a potential has been interpreted by Akin and others as a given. Let’s look back at Willke’s original published quote:

Ok, so the first sentence may or may not be true. I’m sure some sick twisted individuals could create a greater emotional trauma that could be experienced by a woman, probably involving causing her children harm while forcing her to watch, but…sure, okay, let’s go with it. For the duration of this post, I’m willing to accept that “There’s no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape.” Ok, fine.

I assume by “This” in the next sentence, he means “emotional trauma.” So the next sentence correctly edits to: “Emotional trauma can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy.”

I don’t actually have a problem with that sentence. We talked about it here on the Dope last week, in a thread where the topics of late menstrual periods came up. Sometimes, when under stress, a woman’s body will delay or supress ovulation. Yep, that’s true. “Emotional trauma ***can ***radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy.”

Can.

Not DOES.

See the difference?

And there’s no evidence that worse stress will suppress ovulation more than less stress. Some women have hormonal levels such that getting a cold (mild stress) will delay their period, while other women are cowering in war zones looking for tampons.

Dr. Willke used perfectly correct factual words to further his political agenda. Notice he’s not defending Akin’s twisting of them…although neither is he clarifying or correcting him publicly. He didn’t actually say anything contrary to what he learned (or could have learned) in medical school, he’s simply allowed a “sometimes” to be used as an “always” because it better suits his anti-choice stance, and that’s just evil.

34

They aren’t necessarily being dishonest, per se. A doctor might legitimately (though mistakenly) believe some “fact” by virtue of the fact that other doctors believe it. Unfortunately, of course, this is self-reinforcing: Dr. Bob will say “Dr. Jim says so; are you calling him a liar?”, while Dr. Jim will say “Dr. Bob says so; are you calling him a liar?”.

35

But the hormonal changes in athletes take place over weeks or months of intensive training. There is no evidence that such changes can happen in the seconds or few minutes that a rape is happening.

In fact, ovulation typically takes place 18-24 hours before fertilization. So a woman who becomes pregnant from a rape would have ovulated the day before. So how can the stress of the rape affect the ovulation that has already happened?

36

Of course. That is why I note that such logic would fail on causation. Correlation does not equal causation.

37

Ovulation takes place 12-24 hours before fertilization, but rarely from intercourse after ovulation. Ovulation triggers a change in the cervical mucus and uterine environment that’s actually hostile to sperm, acting as a natural spermicide; if they’re not already well past the cervix, they’re not likely to make it.

Most often, the egg is fertilized from sperm deposited in the 3-7 days *before *ovulation. They go into a resting state within the fallopian tube, hanging around waiting for the ova to put on her makeup, pack a light snack and check Mapquest for directions before leisurely making her way down.

So, yeah, it’s POSSIBLE for the trauma of a rape to delay ovulation after a rape but it’s still not contraception I’d count on. In fact, in some cases, it could actually make conception *more *likely. If you’re due to ovulate Monday but get raped on Monday and it delays your ovulation 'till Thursday (not a given, but a possibility), you’re actually more likely to get pregnant from the rape than if you had ovulated on schedule.

What can I say? Nature selects for aggressive males. :frowning:

38

This. Anecdote: After a two year battle with cancer, I lost my thyroid gland. My periods stopped after surgery, and after one year with no periods: I was diagnosed with early menopause. Lost my job while I was sick. I was 41. I became pregnant the first time I tried, and was terrified the entire 40 weeks and plagued with nightmares and doubt. Could I maintain a pregnancy without a thyroid and while under such stress? I had a normal pregnancy and a healthy baby. It is entirely possible to conceive and remain pregnant during incredible stress and sub-optimal health. The biological imperative is stronger than we are.

39

Of course; a damned lie can be made all the more damnable by pegging it to a single known fact, however insignificant or irrelevant.

40

Like Jane Roe says she did.

Regards,
Shodan