It’s obviously an estimate, but “no sign” seems a little bit of an undersell.
Because to our knowledge no recent reliable state-level data on completed vaginal rapes (forced and/or drug/alcohol–facilitated vaginal penetration) are available, we analyzed multiple data sources to estimate reported and unreported rapes in states with total abortion bans (Table 15). We also estimated the number of resulting pregnancies based on findings from prior research on rape-related pregnancy rates (eMethods in Supplement 1). This study followed the relevant sections of the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) reporting guideline. The institutional review boards of our institutions did not consider analyses of publicly available data human participants research.
To estimate the contemporary incidence of vaginal rape nationally, we analyzed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) 2016 to 2017 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey (which used special methods to accurately ascertain reported and unreported rapes). We adjusted for the fraction of survivors who were female individuals aged 15 to 45 years using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) annual survey on criminal victimization (which is known to underestimate rapes5)3 and further adjusted for the percentage of rapes that are vaginal.1 We calculated 95% CIs using measures of uncertainty from the CDC survey. The CDC and BJS surveys do not include state-level data; thus, we apportioned the 2022 nationwide rape estimate among states based on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most recent Uniform Crime Reports, which include rapes reported to law enforcement in 2019.
To estimate rape-related pregnancies, we multiplied the state-level estimate of vaginal rapes by the fraction likely to result in pregnancy (eMethods in Supplement 1)6 and then adjusted for the number of months between July 1, 2022, and January 1, 2024, that a total abortion ban was in effect. We used Stata, version 16.1 (StataCorp), to analyze the BJS survey data and Microsoft Excel for other calculations.
You’re totally right, my simplified viewer didn’t make see the link!
However it really is an estimation based on previous years mad stuff… and while I’d have no problem in accepting a similar math in a less important case, I somehow am not keen to accept them as possibly valid (again, I hope so)
No sign of how they came up with that number… Even for how messy that state is, that number seems quite made up and too high (and I sincerely hope so)
It’s obviously an estimate, but “no sign” seems a little bit of an undersell.
You’re totally right, my simplified viewer didn’t make see the link!
However it really is an estimation based on previous years mad stuff… and while I’d have no problem in accepting a similar math in a less important case, I somehow am not keen to accept them as possibly valid (again, I hope so)