Question on Pregnancy and Rape
 

A few years ago during a high school government class my teacher mentioned she was against abortion and that the chances of becoming impregnated from a rape were practically non-existent because the body prevents it during stressful experiences.

Does anyone know if there's any fact to this?

That's the most ignorant thing I've heard today.

Sperm + Egg = pregnancy

not much more to it than that.

Sounds like bullshit to me.

Now you must question your entire education.

What if everything you know is wrong?

"A single act of rape may be more than twice as likely to make a woman pregnant as a single act of consensual sex."

--http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn907

Well, there you go...

Cases of abortion due to rape that are reported are exceedingly low (.03%). That's about as close as I can come to what your idiot teacher said. The stress thing is massively ignorant to science. Maybe you should ignore science information from a government teacher. Our own government is practically convinced that stem cell research is a sin.

Well, the article is talking about procreative strategy on a sociological level, not really the odds of pregnancy in a single rape versus a single act of consensual intercourse.

Re the OP: That teacher is bringing her anti-abortion agenda into the classroom. It was most likely out of bounds for her to be talking about--especially citing such dangerously flawed "science".

Not to be flippant... but when/where do we let atheists decide what is a sin, again?

Just sayin'!

...

Yeah, I'm about as religious as Paris Hilton's labia... but I leave the voodoo to the witch doctors.

A few years after the fact once I started actually considering her opinion I felt like it was bullshit, knowing what I know now about biology. I just felt compelled to check to be sure in case maybe there was a shred of evidence, however it doesn't appear as though there is.

I agree and agree.

But in MY country we keep the witch doctors to their voodoo and don't give them the keys to the main office. :shakehead:

You know the part in a movie where the priest is asked if he ever did it and he goes... "I wasn't born a priest"?

I wasn't born an atheist.

Really? as soon as you shot out of the womb you were already mentally indoctrinated with a religous doctrine and culture?

Did your parents do that womb radio listening to classical musice except you got fire and brimstone sermons?

A stupid teacher in a US classroom?

Shocking.

I wonder if there is any correlation between when a woman gets raped and where she is in her fertility cycle? I would doubt it, but it would be something to study.

I don't know about rape but there is DEFINITELY a correlation between having an affair and fertility cycle. Genetically its the whole reason for an affair.

Its estimated, at least in England where the studies were done, that 20% of the children are not their listed fathers children. A study was done in an apartment block and this was found to be the case, so people said 'maybe its just this particular area' so they went nation wide and found the same trend.

I remember seeing that article about the 20% rate, and thought it was probably on the right track, but perhaps a little high. I would expect that if a study was done with rape victims, there might be some correlation between the rape and their fertility cycle, except that in the case of rape it becomes a case of blaming the victim, which is in very bad taste in this matter.

Well, it seems to be fairly common knowledge that high stress can be a cause things like irregular menstual cycles and even occasionally implicated as a cause for miscarraiges in women who are already pregnant. It seems rather clear to me that stress hormones can impact reproductive hormones to varying degrees in women. This is not to say that I believe your teacher was doing anything other than trying to push an agenda, but there may be something there that cannot simply be dismissed as ludicrous.

I had a professor that used to say there is a lot of 'slop' in biology, meaning there are always exceptions to the rule, if you are willing to look for them. So, my answer to this question is going to be a little less cut and dry than some others. It would greatly surprise me if not one women ever had her body reject a potential pregnancy because of a stressful experience (not that stressful even remotely defines rape), but it would be equally as shocking that this phenomenon applies to all women.

Of course all this is useless banter without naming names, so now I'm off to review some textbooks. /curses selling back that reproductive biology book

PS. As far as pregnancy is concerned - timing is everything, ask anyone who has ever had to put work into conception (not that anyone doesn't put work into it :thumbsup: ). There is actually a fairly short time window where a woman can become pregnant, I would imagine this accounts for the vast majority of rape cases that do not end in pregnancy.

If I remember correctly, rape related pregnancies are estimated at somewhere between 1 - 4.7% (Depending on the source you use), which is well below the consensual sex pregnancy rates. Anywho, I was able to find this on the internet without too much effort.

http://www.jfponline.com/Pages.asp?AID=4442#1

Therefore, I wouldn't instantly dismiss the OP's teacher as moronic, as there very well may be some truth to what (s)he said. Sure, she might have been trying to 'further her own agenda' or whatever you want to call it, but there's no denying that there is at least some information to back her claim up that stress tends to prevent pregnancies, albeit not to the point where it's 'nearly impossible'.

Ok, I'm back and this is what I found, to prove I wasn't just talking out of my ass. Most (almost all) of the links will direct you to wikipedia, not for wikipedia's reputation for accuracy :lol:, only because the information is offered fairly clearly there and it provides a convienient place to quote from.


The short version - stress causes cortisol levels to rise, causing inhibition of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) secretions. CRH stimulates the release of Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which is resposible for stimiluating the production of sex hormones, including Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), one of many precursors to estradiol, which is resposible via gonadatropin-releasing hormone(GNRH) for the stimulation and release of FSH and LH, two hormones absolutely essential for successful reproduction.

The longer version
Cortisol from the ACTH From the androgens page. DHEA An image of GNRH And finally for the curious the pages about LH and FSH .

Also some evididence from abnormality - Cushings Disease This presents a compelling although far from airtight case, and again the 'slop' comes into play. Notice on the Cushing's page that it says Cushing''s may lead to having irregular or stopped periods. There is a great deal of interplay and both positive/negative feedback loops all thoughout these pathways. Add to that, there is a great deal of variety between person to person what is considered normal and how strongly each individual pathway acts with each other. This can cause next to zero reproductive effects from stress in some, in can all but stop the ability to reproduce in others. So I'll say what I said before - It would greatly surprise me if not one women ever had her body reject a potential pregnancy because of a stressful experience, but it would be equally as shocking that this phenomenon applies equally to all women. I'm sorry if you were hoping for a simple yes or no.

Was your teacher ugly?

Long term stress can screw up ovulation.

Being happy and fine and then getting raped on the other hand means she may have already ovulated.

Pregnancy in rape will be only a small percentage of pregnancies only because rape isn't THAT common and the odds of getting pregnant is about 3-5% from NORMAL one time sex. To be clear if you have sex with a random woman of child bearing age without protection the odds of getting pregnant are 3-5% as she may not be ovulating, and even if she is it may not take.

You're supposed to end that with "But you should always wear a condom anyway. Or at least blow your wad in her hair."

Yeah I would say so. A woman can only get pregnant at a certain time in her cycle regardless of who is the sperm donor.

The simple answer is usually theee answer.

Your teacher is a pro birther. She has an agenda and that is outlawing the right to choice. Rape has often been cited as justification for abortion that causes even the pro birth crowd to rethink their position. As a result, the hard core pro birth crowd needs to find a solution to the rape / abortion arguement. Answer - oh, you can't get pregnant from rape.

Nice try.

When Berlin was conquored by the Russians in 1945, the Russian soldiers went on a rape spree. It is conservatively estimated that 2 million German women were raped by the Russian occupiers in a few months in 1945.

Guess what, abortion demands in Germany went through the roof.

If there were ever women that were stressed out, it would have been German women in 1945. Let's see, 5 years of daily bombings, millions killed, your city is reduced to rubble, starvation, disease, barbarism beyond comprehension, and now add to that millions of Russians occupying your city and raping you at will and HEY, GUESS WHAT, nature still works through all of that and millions of babies are conceived.

The simple answer is usually theee answer.

Your teacher is a pro birther. She has an agenda and that is outlawing the right to choice. Rape has often been cited as justification for abortion that causes even the pro birth crowd to rethink their position. As a result, the hard core pro birth crowd needs to find a solution to the rape / abortion arguement. Answer - oh, you can't get pregnant from rape.

Nice try.

When Berlin was conquored by the Russians in 1945, the Russian soldiers went on a rape spree. It is conservatively estimated that 2 million German women were raped by the Russian occupiers in a few months in 1945.

Guess what, abortion demands in Germany went through the roof.

If there were ever women that were stressed out, it would have been German women in 1945. Let's see, 5 years of daily bombings, millions killed, your city is reduced to rubble, starvation, disease, barbarism beyond comprehension, and now add to that millions of Russians occupying your city and raping you at will and HEY, GUESS WHAT, nature still works through all of that and millions of babies are conceived.

The question is if a woman is MORE likely to get raped while ovulating. In other words the male knows subconsciously that she is fertile and will then be more driven to rape her.

As far as I know a random rapist would have no way of knowing, perhaps with date rape but I've never seen any data on it.

I'd not be surprised if the chance was slightly less than in normal intercourse.

There are suggestions that pleasure responses in women does increase the chance of conception. However... you'd probably find that research on this is likely to be, err, quite uncommon. Really, this speculation is more about the how/why of female orgasm... and it is just speculation as far as I know. (It's not my field at all).

When it comes to a single case... we should be realistic. There seem to be many-many of pregnacies that have come about through rape. In global conflict zones for example.

IMHO, only a crude insensitive fool would raise fertility in this context, with kids.