After the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion in 2022, many states that banned the procedure did so with the promise that it would still be legal in some circumstances, including in the event of rape. One study estimates that over 64,000 pregnancies have occurred due to rape in the years since the ruling in states where abortion is banned. But many people on the frontlines of this issue say getting an abortion in these states after an assault is difficult or – in some cases – impossible.
There is no central database that measures abortions performed because of rape. For this story, NPR looked at state records and talked with researchers, advocates and doctors in seven of the 11 states where abortion is banned but legal in the case of rape. Taken together, these accounts show a patchwork of laws governing rape exceptions, confusion over who qualifies for an exemption and law enforcement’s role in that process, and widespread fear from doctors about performing abortions for assault victims.
Many victims aren’t capable of immediately reporting their rapes It’s all but impossible to know exactly how many abortions are performed because of rape exemptions. When they report the procedure, doctors aren’t required to include a reason. And an abortion could fall under a different exemption – such as a fetal anomaly or life of the mother.
Existing annual data suggests that in many states, the numbers of known abortions performed due to rape are in the s.
