What if a woman has been raped?

Most people believe abortion should be allowed in the case of rape.

Rape is certainly a terrible crime against women. The victims need our support and sympathy. We should be doing a great deal more to protect and help them. But abortion, like rape, is by nature a destructive act.

Conception from rape is extremely rare. Many studies have found few or no pregnancies resulting from rape. There are several reasons for this. Many women are infertile at the time they are raped – they may be in the infertile phase of their monthly cycle, too old or too young to conceive, on the pill or other contraception, or have been sterilised.

Trauma from the rape may bring into play some natural defence mechanisms that reduce the likelihood of pregnancy, such as hormonal change and spasms of the fallopian tube as which inhibit ovulation or fertilisation.

Rape does not always involve a complete act of sexual intercourse.

The chance of conception resulting from a single act of unprotected intercourse has been estimated at only 2 to 4%.

South Australia is the only state in Australia where statistics of abortion are collated. These figures show that less than 0.1% of abortions are done for reasons of rape. Assuming the same percentage applies to the whole of Australia, out of the total 80,000 abortions per year there might be around 80 from rape.

To abort an unborn child conceived by rape is to respond to violence against one innocent victim (the woman) with violence against another innocent victim (the unborn child). Abortion always directly causes the loss of a human life.

Abortion will not necessarily help a woman deal with the trauma of her rape. As abortion itself can give rise to severe psychological disturbance, it may only compound her problems.

Society’s easy assumption that abortion is in the woman’s best interest may reflect an attitude that sees the rape victim as ‘unclean’ and abortion as necessary to ‘cleanse her’ of rape’s stain. Unfortunately, once the pregnancy is ‘fixed up’ by the abortion, the anger, guilt, fear and low self-esteem related to the rape may be ignored.

Women pregnant from rape don’t always want an abortion but the opinions, attitudes and beliefs of other people about the rape and pregnancy often make it difficult for the victim to choose any other option. Fear of being blamed or rejected by the family, friends or society may make a pregnant rape victim want to cover up what has happened by removing the visible evidence of it.

It is commonly held that women hate the children they bear from rape – early in the pregnancy there may be feelings of resentment and hostility towards the child. In her study of pregnant rape victims, it has been found that negative attitudes consistently changed to positive ones as the pregnancy progressed; the overwhelming majority of the women had a positive view towards the child by the time of delivery as well as much improved self images.

Rape is a great injustice to the woman and its consequences may be unjust. But an even greater injustice is done by killing the child, who is the other victim of rape.

The choice for childbirth is a choice to bring something good out of what seems so inherently evil. It reaches into her soul and contacts the strength in there. It is a choice to triumph over the rape. It is a choice that will allow her to remember her courage and generosity, rather than just her fear and shame. Counselling, warmth and understanding are the support mechanisms that will give her something to lean on, especially so if she bears a child from the incident.