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Rape Pregnancies Are Rare
Christian Life Resources ^ | April 1999 | John C. Willke, M.D.

Posted on 08/22/2012 3:08:34 PM PDT by JediJones

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To: GilesB

Actually, so I’m not accused of twisting words, he wrote:

In this case, just like abortion, the woman makes the decision.

Then I asked, “So you would maintain that a miscarriage = abortion?”

Followed by, “Seriously?”

So I am asking the poster if he is equating a miscarriage with abortion. When someone says that someone makes the decision to do something, that implies a conscious or deliberate process.

Not twisting, not disingenuous, not dishonest.


41 posted on 08/22/2012 4:57:33 PM PDT by green pastures (Cynicism-- it's not just for breakfast anymore...)
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To: Randy Larsen

AMEN! And I am not defending the guy’s intellect here or his ability handle a hostile press question, but he pretty much votes the way I want him to, on everything.


42 posted on 08/22/2012 4:58:10 PM PDT by Reddon
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To: Rides_A_Red_Horse

You state the point nicely. The circumstances of conception do not determine the worth of the life - PERIOD.

This whole debate rages because we are too reluctant to face the fact that life is often ugly and hurtful - but this does not justify killing the innocent (which, ironically, only serves to make the world more ugly and hurtful).


43 posted on 08/22/2012 5:01:33 PM PDT by GilesB
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To: DallasSun
32,000 pregnancies as a result of rape per year do not constitute...”rare”.

You're right -- that is a lot.

But where does that 32,000 number come from??? It turns out that those are "self-reported" squishy numbers not hard numbers from police/hospital/medical reports.

Odds are most of that 32,000 came from abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood justifying their federal funding for Medicaid abortions. But since underage girls are the bread and butter of abortion clinics, odds are that those are mostly statutory rape pregnancies that should have been reported to the police as such but aren't.

44 posted on 08/22/2012 5:03:31 PM PDT by Uncle Chip
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To: JediJones
Even though it has happened many times throughout history, I'm sure that Dr. Willke, and Mr. Atkin are familiar with Germany after Ivan's sweep through there in 1945.

If not, ask the doctors, and women what happened 9 months and less after the Russians.

5.56mm

45 posted on 08/22/2012 5:03:44 PM PDT by M Kehoe
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To: Rides_A_Red_Horse

“Would you have me puncture her skull and suck her brains out with a wet vac? “

Only if she was inconvenient or you really, really didn’t want to keep her.


46 posted on 08/22/2012 5:03:57 PM PDT by GilesB
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To: GilesB
"Let me get this straight - when he makes a statement you don’t agree with, he is ignorant and stupid (I don’t know that you have ever posted that he is such - but your tone clearly implies it). But when he says something you agree with, he becomes an authority on the SAME subject. Hmmmmm, interesting.

No. What I think is ignorant and stupid is trying to defend Akin's comments by finding an outdated article-- which he probably read-- after he has come out and stated his comments were medically wrong. Even he's not trying to defend his comments anymore.

Regarding the current topic, please see #9 this thread.

47 posted on 08/22/2012 5:08:17 PM PDT by green pastures (Cynicism-- it's not just for breakfast anymore...)
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To: GilesB

Only if she was inconvenient or you really, really didn’t want to keep her.


Alternately, you could always round up the adult children of rape victims and rip them into pieces. I hear that is a popular “procedure.”

Amazing how things look when you put them in perspective...


48 posted on 08/22/2012 5:09:48 PM PDT by Rides_A_Red_Horse (If there is a war on women, the Kennedys are the Spec Ops troops.)
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To: xjcsa
IT HAS BEEN DEBUNKED.

Really? Where? If you're going to make such a strident claim (and in all caps, even), then please post some links.

You know, I keep hearing the word "DEBUNKED" applied to Romney ads that point out that Obama is weakening the work requirement for welfare.

Just because almost every media source is screaming "DEBUNKED" about Romney's welfare claims, does that mean I should believe they've really been "DEBUNKED"?

49 posted on 08/22/2012 5:14:58 PM PDT by shhrubbery! (NIH!)
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To: GilesB

“The circumstances of conception do not determine the worth of the life - PERIOD.”

Exactly!!! So why are the “merits of the current topic - which is: “Does the human body respond to forcible rape in a way that would decrease the probability of pregnancy?” being debated? It’s not relevant.


50 posted on 08/22/2012 5:17:32 PM PDT by green pastures (Cynicism-- it's not just for breakfast anymore...)
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To: green pastures
What I think is ignorant and stupid is trying to defend Akin's comments by finding an outdated article-- which he probably read-- after he has come out and stated his comments were medically wrong.

Harsh words for me. I do not think disseminating facts and information is stupid, even if the fact is simply the existence of this article. People are claiming that Akin is a "nut" or whatever, assuming he made up this theory on his own, I guess. This article proves that he was simply passing on information from an article he read, which is exactly what he said he was doing. And the article, being written in an intelligent and convincing way, shows that Akin is not an "idiot" for believing it, or misremembering it as proven science.

51 posted on 08/22/2012 5:18:17 PM PDT by JediJones (Too Hot for GOP TV: Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Allen West and Donald Trump)
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To: green pastures
Exactly!!! So why are the “merits of the current topic - which is: “Does the human body respond to forcible rape in a way that would decrease the probability of pregnancy?” being debated? It’s not relevant.

Good question! Please ask Romney and the RNC why they are making a big deal out of an irrelevant discussion by Akin that has no relevance to any party policies or political issues.

52 posted on 08/22/2012 5:24:05 PM PDT by JediJones (Too Hot for GOP TV: Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Allen West and Donald Trump)
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To: green pastures
Then a grammar lesson is in order:
“In this case, just like abortion, the woman makes the decision...” Can also be written “In this case the woman makes the decision just like (with an) abortion”

The “just like” OBVIOUSLY refers to the decision - not the event. You didn't twist the words, you twisted (and are still twisting) the meaning.

There is no way any reasonable person reads that sentence and honestly believes that the writer is equating abortion and miscarriage. You use the straw-man fallacy - which is dishonest argument: Changing the meaning of a statement to one more easily refuted, and refuting the alternate statement. Or metaphorically switching a straw-man (or a scarecrow) for your opponent, beating the living snot out of him and claiming victory.

Some more tutoring - refrain from picking certain words and phrases and attacking them. Look for the meaning and intent in the full context of the statement. Had you done so, you could not have posed your question in honest debate.

And in context, it is obvious that the poster is referring to the decision to “not want” the pregnancy - to which the body responds...or so the argument goes.

Spend your time refuting THAT (because that is the argument), not singling out some tiny phrase by which to recoil in horror. Whoopee!!! You won the argument! In today's world abortion and miscarriage mean different things!!!! But it is a hollow victory, because that argument was completely in your own mind. The poster was making a different point ENTIRELY - which you never touched...and he wins by default.

See - I'm helping you debate more effectively!

53 posted on 08/22/2012 5:26:30 PM PDT by GilesB
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To: JediJones

It also means it wasn’t a relevant point for Akin to use to try to support his pro-life stance in the first place.


54 posted on 08/22/2012 5:29:24 PM PDT by green pastures (Cynicism-- it's not just for breakfast anymore...)
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To: bigdaddy45

“Why are we even discussing this??? “

Because some have a fear of success.

Tommy Boy explains how he kills his sale here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1EyN9xTK94


55 posted on 08/22/2012 5:33:14 PM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (Encourage all of your Democrat friends to get out and vote on November 7th, the stakes are high.)
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To: bigdaddy45

“Why are we even discussing this??? “

Because some have a fear of success.

Tommy Boy explains how he kills his sale here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1EyN9xTK94


56 posted on 08/22/2012 5:33:40 PM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (Encourage all of your Democrat friends to get out and vote on November 7th, the stakes are high.)
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To: green pastures

It is irrelevant if you are debating when abortion is acceptable (a side topic of this particular thread - but the main topic of the gotcha moment that brought this thread to life).

So - if we are arguing whether or not Akin was smart politically to say what he said, then it is irrelevant. But that is not what this thread was about.

If we are arguing if what Akin said is true, then it is relevant. And that has been the gist of this thread, and what I have argued - with the quick, but very important, detour to underline the value of life regardless of the circumstances that created the miracle.


57 posted on 08/22/2012 5:37:02 PM PDT by GilesB
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To: DallasSun
32,000 pregnancies as a result of rape per year do not constitute...”rare”.

Even if that's the actual number (and it is actually an estimate from a single study; I'll post some of the abstract from it below), that is still only 1 out of every 187 pregnancies (32,000/6,000,000 annual pregnancies in the US per year = 0.53%, or 1/187). That seems pretty rare to me.

Now, the abstract excerpt: RESULTS: The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. Among 34 cases of rape-related pregnancy, the majority occurred among adolescents and resulted from assault by a known, often related perpetrator. Only 11.7% of these victims received immediate medical attention after the assault, and 47.1% received no medical attention related to the rape. A total 32.4% of these victims did not discover they were pregnant until they had already entered the second trimester; 32.2% opted to keep the infant whereas 50% underwent abortion and 5.9% placed the infant for adoption; an additional 11.8% had spontaneous abortion. .

This study suffers from a number of flaws. It is based on telephonic surveys, not medical or police records. The n of 34 is an extremely small sample size on which to be basing any kind of conclusions. The description that most of the victims were adolescents who knew their attackers suggests to me that many of them were involved in statutory rape (in which case it may have been consensual, but was rape under legal definition) or incestuous (which could explain the unusually high abortion rate of this group as compared to rape victims overall; abortion is often used to hide incest from outsiders, allowing the abuse to continue). There are other flaws in this study which I won't bother to go into; the bottom line is that I wouldn't use the "32,000" figure without having a more solid factual basis for it than that study. (And yes, that one flawed study is the only source for that number.)

58 posted on 08/22/2012 6:00:23 PM PDT by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: Sherman Logan
OTOH, the 30,000 number for annual rape pregnancies commonly reported is also likely to be seriously flawed.

It is quite flawed, and is based on a single very flawed study which is referenced often. I discussed that study in my post #58, this thread.

59 posted on 08/22/2012 6:07:28 PM PDT by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: Uncle Chip
But where does that 32,000 number come from??? It turns out that those are "self-reported" squishy numbers not hard numbers from police/hospital/medical reports.

A single flawed study, widely referenced, is the source of that number. It is based on a telephone survey. Anyway, I deconstructed the study in my post #58, this thread.

60 posted on 08/22/2012 6:14:23 PM PDT by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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