Todd Akin's not the only one claiming that pregnancy as a result of rape is rare

Earlier this week Republican politician Todd Akin came under fire for claiming that pregnancy occurring as a result of rape is ‘really rare’. In arguing for a ban on abortion without exceptions for pregnancies conceived through rape he stated the following:

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare... If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”

Akin’s claims have rightly been attacked by various pro-choice groups and media outlets in the States for having no basis in scientific fact. Indeed, research from the Journal of American Obstetrics and Gynecology suggests that rape-related pregnancy occurs with significant frequency, something to which many women themselves can attest. So huge was the outcry that even the President released a statement condemning the claim that “legitimate rape” is unlikely to end in pregnancy. President Obama used Akin’s disingenuous comments as an example of why "we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, the majority of whom are men, making healthcare decisions on behalf of women."
 
Unfortunately, this kind of thinking isn’t limited to one rogue politician in the States spouting misinformation in order to push a ban on abortion. The idea that it is impossible or very unlikely for pregnancy to occur as a result of rape has been spread by a number of anti-abortion groups, including those based in the UK. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) state the following in their ‘Exploring Abortion’ school resource:

“Pregnancy as a result of rape is extremely rare. A woman is only fertile for 3-7 days during her cycle and the extreme physical and psychological trauma of being raped makes it difficult for fertilisation or implantation to occur.”

Earlier this year, SPUC were criticised for giving young people misleading information about pregnancy and rape but we are yet to see the same public outcry Todd Akin’s comments have attracted in the States.

Young people here and abroad deserve to hear factual information about pregnancy and abortion, and we should certainly be concerned when damaging myths like this are allowed into our classrooms. EFC are currently working on a report into abortion education in the UK which will pull together the types of misinformation being given to young people in schools. If you have information you'd like to feed into the project please do contact us efc@brook.org.uk and keep an eye out for the launch of the report this autumn.

Consent - YES PLEASE!

In the lead up to the election, and since, there has been discussion about the role of consent in teenage sexual behaviour and sexual health outcomes. A recent research report was published suggesting a strong association between sexual coercion and teenage pregnancy. Meanwhile the Government seems committed to addressing consent issues:

'To help stop sexual violence before it occurs, we will ensure that the school curriculum includes teaching young people about sexual consent' – Conservative party election manifesto 2010

'...working with schools to teach young people about sexual consent and respect in relationships' – Theresa May at Womens Aid conference in 2010.

I welcome any educational initiatives that reinforce mutual respect and consent as the basis of sexual relationships. However, in case anyone thinks it is an opportunity to promote conservative messages about adolescent sexuality I would sound a cautionary note. Convenient as it would be to believe that sex amongst teenagers was just happening because of peer pressure, coercion and at worst violence, the fact is it isn’t. Sex is happening because it’s natural, it feels good physically and emotionally, because it is fun, because it is exciting and adventurous, because young people fall in love and for a whole load of other positive reasons as well as all the scary negative stuff. It is important that we acknowledge that as our starting point.

It is also vital that we consider what consent means in its broadest sense and once we have defined consent, what the implications of that are for educators and service providers.

We can probably take it for granted that everyone agrees both parties should ‘consent’ to sex, but I bet we’d find a very wide range of views of what constitutes consent amongst both policy makers, lawyers and sexually active people of all ages.

I think that these two things are essential pre-requisites of consent:

i) An absence of coercion: the real possibility of saying no if you want to, or saying yes to some things/activities and no to others, or yes now and no later...

ii) The capacity, education and skills to make an informed choice: to understand the risks (physical, emotional) that you are taking, to be able to predict a range of positive and negative outcomes and to be able to balance these and make a choice

Here are just some of the things that need to be in place in order to meet those pre-requisites so that consent is the norm in sexual relations amongst people of all ages:

• An understanding that coercion is a spectrum of behaviour from persuasion to persistence, to incentives to insistence, to threats, to force and even more shades of behaviour in between and that true informed consent is not possible in any of these scenarios

• An opportunity to explore the association between gender, age, wealth, power and sexual coercion

• An ability to recognise and decipher information presented on the internet and in the mainstream media in order to understand and critically evaluate messages, conventions and representations of sexual relationships

• An opportunity to consider the role of pornography in influencing people’s expectations of their own and their sexual partners desire, physique and performance

• A full understanding of all the possible consequences of having sex including the risks of contracting STIs with all the immediate and long-term health implications

• A full understanding of the risk of pregnancy, a consideration of all the decisions that can lead to and result from an unintended pregnancy and an understanding of all pregnancy options

• A full understanding of the positive reasons that people have sex, including the emotional and physical pleasure it can bring

• A full understanding of the range of sexualities and sexual preferences that exist and understanding that people of different sexualities have the same right to personal safety and bodily integrity

• An understanding that the onus is on the coercer to listen to and hear their partner and not just on the coercee to be assertive and confident enough to keep saying no

There’s a lot more, but this would be a start. Even with this brief list it looks pretty much like a comprehensive sex and relationships curriculum!

I am glad the Government is looking at consent issues. I hope they’ve learned the lessons of the past and they know that it’s not enough to teach us ‘just say no’.