Doctors appalled over Rep. Akin's comments that 'legitimate rape' prevents pregnancy

Source: NBC

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Physicians and rape experts say there’s no way the trauma of rape would prevent pregnancy from occurring.

“If a woman’s ovaries have already released an egg, she’s just as likely to get pregnant from a rape as she would be from a voluntary encounter,” Dr. Barbara Levy, vice president for health policy at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told NBC News. “From the biological standpoint, a woman is at risk for pregnancy if she’s at a vulnerable point in her menstrual cycle when the rape occurs.”

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“My first reaction was OMG,” said Dr. Amy Rosenman, an assistant clinical professor at the UCLA. “It’s unbelievable. Stuff like that is from the dark ages...there is no physiologic method that prevents pregnancy in the case of rape. If there is an egg available and there are sperm available and they meet, then pregnancy occurs. The ovary and the ovum cannot differentiate sperm from friend or foe.”

In fact, each year 32,000 pregancies result from rape each year, according to an article published in 1996 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Read more: http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/20/13378579-doctors-appalled-over-rep-akins-comments-that-legitimate-rape-prevents-pregnancy?lite