Abortion ban endangers women at risk of abuse

You may have been shocked to learn that an estimated 26,313 rape-related pregnancies happened in Texas during the 16 months after the state outlawed all abortions.

The number is staggering, but given how many rapes go unreported, we shouldn’t be surprised.

Here’s something else I bet you didn’t know: Women in domestic violence situations likely experience sexual abuse, too, and once they become pregnant and have no access to reproductive options, such as an abortion, they are often trapped in an abusive situation that escalates, sometimes ending in death.

Add that to the growing list of outcomes of Texas’ abortion ban, which makes no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.

The rollbacks in women’s reproductive rights not only are disproportionately impacting women of color, but also women in domestic violence relationships, says Emilee Whitehurst, president and CEO of the Houston Area Women’s Center.

“We’re seeing a rise for the first time in years of teen pregnancy, and Hispanic fertility rates are also going up. We are also seeing an alarming rise in domestic homicides. Since these abortion restrictions have been in place, I want people to recognize that this reality is absolutely connected to what they see on the news — a mother and children assaulted or shot.”

The center, which has helped countless women, children and families affected by domestic and sexual violence since it opened in 1977, receives about 50,000 calls a year to its hotline. It works collaboratively with law enforcement and health care providers to help support survivors and guides them through the legal process, should they pursue that. It also safely houses more than 1,200 women, children and families each year.

“When people call our hotline and we do a lethality assessment, we ask, ‘Are you pregnant?’ because we know that if somebody is pregnant, that increases their likelihood of being a victim of severe violence. That’s horrifying to know,

but it’s true,” Whitehurst said.

The issue of pregnancy-rapes related to the abortion ban is layered in a toxic culture that often minimizes sexual assault and perpetuates the delusion that assaults are mostly perpetrated by strangers. One in four women, including myself, have experienced completed or attempted rape in their lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s one in 26 for men.

The perpetrator is usually a friend, an intimate partner, co-worker, neighbor or family member.

Another reality is that sexual assaults and the lack of reproductive health care are intrinsically connected. Rape-related pregnancies often involve girls and women who don’t have economic independence or access to support services that they need to care for themselves or existing children. They have no way out.

Some years ago, a journalist friend and rape survivor, Lori S. Robinson, published “I Will Survive: The African-American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and Abuse,” to provide the support for survivors she wished she had received herself. I hosted a book talk for her in Houston with about 30 professional, ethnically diverse women. Robinson asked if any woman in the group had ever been raped or experienced an attempted rape. Nearly every woman raised her hand. They shared stories of their assaults that occurred on college campuses, in dating situations and in abusive relationships.

Robinson later co-founded the nonprofit organization VidaAfroLatina, an international women’s fund that helps provide resources and healing for sexual violence survivors of Black and Afro-descendent in Latin America.

The solution isn’t solely about locking up predators to “eliminate rapists from the streets of Texas,” as Gov. Greg Abbott promised in 2021 after the state’s six-week abortion ban went into effect. So much more education needs to happen to understand that our culture of rape continues to flourish by shaming victims and protecting rapists.

We need to educate our children. Boys, for example, should understand that they can be men without needing to sexually and physically control, coerce or dominate a partner, Whitehurst said. Both girls and boys should know what healthy relationships look like, so that they don’t mistake coercive, controlling behavior for love. Too many don’t understand that.

“It wasn’t all that long ago, when the Women’s Center was founded, that people did not

even consider these behaviors to be wrong, or certainly not worthy of criminal prosecution or accountability. So we are making great strides that people in leadership recognize that assault is assault and that the perpetrator is the person who ought to be held accountable. That’s real progress,” she said.

We also need to make sure women have access to the full range of reproductive health so that if they are suffering a raperelated pregnancy, they have agency.

Unfortunately, in Texas, lawmakers have no interest in addressing, or even acknowledging, the harm that their abortion ban is doing and that more women may die.