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EDIT: I'm finding it interesting how many prochoicers just don't want to believe this fact. If you believe the numbers are lying, take it out with the people who gathered them. They have contact information on their websites and at the ends of their papers. Comments regarding rape "rarely being reported," "inaccurate statistics," "faulty mathematics," etc., will not be deemed important enough for my attention. If you have a problem with the numbers, talk to the people who gathered them, instead of attacking the messenger like a coward. ALSO: Comments that claim that my sources are all unacceptable due to being prolife will also be ignored as the nonsense they are. My sources contain both prolife and prochoice links, so if my prolife links are unreliable, so are all your prochoice links. Not to mention that I also include several neutral links, and they coroborate the fact that rape and incest cases make up less than 1% of all abortions.
At only 1% of all abortions, rape is not the reason abortion is legal.
There is a common myth that says "abortion is legal because rape exists." Oddly enough, all the people who make this argument are from first world countries where rape is not very common, and they use this argument to push why abortion should be kept legal where they currently live. They're not worried about ending rape in other countries, they're just worried about keeping abortion legal for all reasons in their own countries.
Rape and incest (combined) contribute fewer than 1% of all abortions performed yearly. (The actual survey statistic is 0.3%, but as rape is sometimes unreported, it's safer to raise the number.) Only around 5% of all abortions are done to protect the mother's life. That means that 99% of abortions are done after consensual sex, and 93% - 94% are done for convenience alone. Also, only around 51% - 52% of all women who obtain abortions report using birth control during the month leading up to pregnancy.
On top of that, the balance of women impregnated by rape and/or incest choose not to abort. Over half of women who become pregnant due to rape or incest carry to term. (S. Makhorn, in Psychological Aspects of Abortion, Mall & Watts, Univ. Pub. 1979, Pg. 58) Of those women who have aborted after rape, more than 90 percent said they would discourage other victims of sexual violence from having an abortion. On the other hand, among the women who conceived due to rape or incest and carried to term, not one expressed regret about her choice. Clearly, abortion is not legal because rape exists.
This figure is easily found in multiple places and forms of sources when researched. A few such sources are these (please note that I have used a number of types of sources):
www.johnstonsarchive.net/polic…
www.operationrescue.org/about-…
www.abortionfacts.com/books/wh…
www.nytimes.com/1989/10/13/us/…
www.womenscenter.com/abortion_…
www.eiunewman.org/eiu_students…
www.abort73.com/abortion_facts…
www.rainn.org/get-information/…
www.chessatwork.com/board/show…
www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_ind…
www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrh…
www.mccl.org/us-abortion-stats…
www.whyprolife.com/abortion-fa…
The number of abortions after rape and incest is fewer than 1% of all abortions.
EDIT: I have been accused by the group Intersectional-911 that this message is hateful and discriminatory towards women and that it promotes rape and rape culture. I was even banned from that group because I submitted this and later blocked by its moderator when I tried to explain how this is simply a fact, nothing more. Just to clear any doubts, I want everyone to know that I hate rape in all its forms. I do not stand for rape. Rape has no excuse. A simple fact such as this is not meant to be demeaning or belittling towards anyone nor is this stamp an attempt to say that rape victims are in any way insignificant. I simply wish to dispel the commonly-held myth that abortion is legal because rape exists.
#IAmNotAChoice
Most sex is consensual