After I posted a quick TikTok about new research that estimates that sexual assault caused over 64,000 pregnancies in states where abortion is completely banned, a man popped into the comments to downplay the findings. When he couldn’t get traction on his complaints, he made a crack about the fact that I color my hair purple. He seemed to have missed that I also color my hair blue and maroon, but I didn’t want to quibble with him about it while he was already stewing.
New research that estimates that sexual assault caused over 64,000 pregnancies in states where abortion is completely banned.
I keep thinking about that anti-abortion dude and connecting him to the research on sexual assault and pregnancy published by JAMA. It’s telling that something as banal as hair color can so easily rile these types of guys up, isn’t it? But it makes perfect sense that someone bothered by such a radical expression of bodily autonomy — that is, me dying my hair fun colors — would believe the government should be able to force people to stay pregnant against their will.
If I wanted people to believe that my investment in denying abortion access to tens of millions of people arose from a passion for preserving life and not, let’s say, an unmitigated sense of entitlement and rabid desire for control over other people’s bodies, then I’d probably have responded a little differently than this guy. At the very least, I might steer clear of language that serves to minimize the horrible consequences of sexual assault. But it’s getting harder for abortion opponents to mask their true aims: to preserve and perpetuate patriarchal power, and to punish and persecute pregnant people who are insufficiently compliant, obedient and subservient.
The researchers behind the JAMA estimates acknowledged that their numbers are simply that — estimates — due to the difficulty of obtaining accurate statistics on rape and sexual assault. The numbers are horrifying, but they are still less striking than what they tell us about abortion bans and their impacts: that, as the JAMA research reveals, “persons who have been raped and become pregnant cannot access legal abortions in their home state, even in states with rape exceptions.”
This is by design. Tens of thousands of people forced into pregnancy and compelled to carry pregnancies to term are not the unintended collateral damage of abortion bans. They’re among the the intended targets of abortion bans, because anti-abortion politics are the politics of abuse. Rapists and sexual predators and domestic and intimate partner abusers are motivated by the desire for control and domination. So, too, backers of abortion bans. The laws are working as intended — including by creating false dichotomies around “good” abortions and “bad” ones.
Reproductive justice advocates have been arguing against the idea of justified and unjustified abortions for years because conversations — especially political ones — around rape exceptions to abortion bans can easily lead to a conclusion that some people’s abortions might be more legitimate than others. So let’s be clear: These conversations are smoke screens, distractions from the simple fact that abortion is a basic human right, and no one should be forced into pregnancy or parenting. Indeed, the research in JAMA highlights the folly of the “good” and “bad” abortion binary. So-called exceptions to abortion bans are functionally meaningless. Rape and incest exceptions to abortion bans are rarely invoked because claiming the exception would likely involve retraumatizing survivors, many of whom have good reason not to want to be forced to involve law enforcement, as so many “exceptions” laws require. The research in JAMA highlights the folly of the “good” and “bad” abortion binary. So-called exceptions to abortion bans are functionally meaningless. However, it’s not just rape-related exceptions that are rarely used in real-life circumstances. The same is also true for those supposed exceptions for fetal anomalies and threats to the health of the pregnant person. Indeed, the Kaiser Family Foundation has called life- and health-related abortion ban exceptions “unworkable.” We saw the real-world implications of those supposed exceptions in the case of Kate Cox, the Texas woman who was caught in a terrible, and deliberately engineered, Catch-22 when she sought treatment for health-threatening pregnancy complications. This is the way of anti-abortion abuser politics. We’re likely to see even more escalations as abortion rights grow more popular and we secure even more wins at the state and local levels. There’d be no need to tie ourselves in knots carving out exceptions to abortion bans if we embrace the simple fact that abortion ought to be accessible any time to anyone who needs care — without caveats, obstacles and justifications — because it’s simply the moral, ethical and compassionate approach, whatever the circumstances of a person’s pregnancy. Standing firm in this truth is more important than ever as we head into the reproductive rights’ battles of 2024 — whether that’s at the ballot box or in a comments section.
Andrea Grimes
Andrea Grimes is a journalist and activist living in Austin, Texas. 
