During a House Judiciary Committee hearing debate over an abortion bill authored by Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., the congressman from Arizona said that the number of rapes that result in pregnancy is "very low," according to the Washington Post.
The measure that was being debated would ban abortions after 20 weeks in all fifty states; currently abortions are legal up until 24 weeks under federal law while a handful of states have a ban at 20 weeks. A Democratic amendment was attached to make an exception for rape and incest which was being debated by Franks when he made the comment.
"Before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject - because, you know, the incidences of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low," Franks said. "But when you make that exception, there's usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours. And in this case that's impossible because this is in the sixth month of gestation. And that's what completely negates and vitiates the purpose for such an amendment."
The comments are similar to the ones made last year by former Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., that eventually derailed his Senate campaign. During an interview with KTVI Akin said that pregnancy rarely occurs after rape because the human body shuts it down.
"If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," Akin said.
Franks' assertion that rapes rarely end in pregnancy has been proven by studies to be false. A study conducted in 2003 by professors at St. Lawrence University showed that not only are pregnancies from rape common but that the pregnancy occurs after rape more than twice as often as it does after consensual sex, according to the Washington Post.
One of the Democrats on the committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., was outraged by Franks' comment.
"I just find it astonishing to hear a phrase repeated that the incidence of pregnancy from rape is low," Lofgren told the Washington Post. "There's no scientific basis for that. And the idea that the Republican men on this committee can tell the women of America that they have to carry to term the product of a rape is outrageous."
Lofgren suggested that her colleagues don't understand the mind of a traumatized woman and why they may not be able to make the decision to abort until many weeks after the incident, according to the Huffington Post.
