Keep running your mouth on this one, Donald Trump

| 9:00 pm EST January 26, 2024
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At an Iowa town hall meeting earlier this month, Donald Trump boasted, “For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated. And I did it and I’m proud to have done it.” Following Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022, several states have enacted draconian laws barring a woman from making critical and informed decisions about her own body.

Newly published research now shows the extent to which the subject of Trump’s boast has led to unwanted pregnancies from rape. In a JAMA Internal Medicine study published on Wednesday, researchers analyzed federal surveys on crime and sexual violence. They found that an estimated 520,000 rapes led to 64,565 pregnancies in the time since abortion bans have been enacted in 14 states, over a period of 4-18 months ago,

The study notes that five of these 14 states allow exceptions for rape. However, this carveout comes with strict limits, such as a requirement that women report the rape to law enforcement, which happens only 21% of the time. Of the 64,565 rape-related pregnancies, roughly 58, 979 (91%) happened in states without a rape exception, while 5,586 (9%) of those pregnancies occurred in states with an exception. Nearly half of rape-related pregnancies, 26, 313 (45%), took place in Texas.

The study also cites recent research from the Society of Family Planning showing that no more than 10 legal abortions have happened monthly in each of the 14 states with bans. This statistic implies that most or all rape survivors did not have access to an abortion in their state, regardless of whether the ban includes a rape exception.

At the Iowa town hall, Trump also proclaimed that “If it weren’t for me, with Roe v. Wade, you wouldn’t even be talking about this stuff.” Trump and the GOP can brag all they want for creating this healthcare mess, inflicting pain and indignity on so many women and their families. This bluster will only help President Joe Biden and the Democrats win at the ballot box this November.