Congressman Trent Franks came under fire yesterday for a comment regarding rape and pregnancy.

Franks clarified his position via an exchange with Talking Points Memo:

“Pregnancies from rape that result in abortion after the beginning of the sixth month are very rare,” Franks said in a statement sent to TPM. “This bill does not address unborn children in earlier gestations. Indeed, the bill does nothing to restrict abortions performed before the beginning of the 6th month.”

Franks made his controversial remark at a Judiciary Committee meeting on his legislation to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, while urging colleagues to reject a Democratic amendment making an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

“The incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low,” the congressman said. “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 of such an amendment.”

Franks’ spokesman clarified to TPM what he was trying to say.

“The intention was to comment on the number of abortions that occur at the 6th month and beyond (when the bill would take effect) as a result of rape, NOT the incidence of pregnancy from rape,” said Ben Carnes, “though I know that’s what’s being reported.”

Franks has other defenders. Here’s New York’s Jonathan Chait:

But Franks didn’t say the “rate” of pregnancy from rape is low. He said the “incidence” is low. He didn’t say it’s hard to get pregnant when you’re raped. He said rape-induced pregnancy doesn’t happen very often.

Is that claim, which is different than Akin’s, true? Well, there are about 30,000 pregnancies from rape a year. I’d say that’s a lot. I suppose that if you’re comparing it to the total number of abortions, a figure that’s 20 to 30 times larger, you could argue it isn’t so many. From Franks’s starting point, in which which abortion is murder, the United States allows massive murder of human beings on an unthinkable scale, next to which 30,000 annual pregnancies looms small. If (like me) you don’t share his view of abortion, that 30,000 pregnancies looms large.

In any case, Franks was not relying on pseudoscientific nuttery about the lady-parts shutting down pregnancy in the case of rape. He was saying something different.

And here’s Dave Weigel at Slate:

But this is a little pat. Not every comment about rape and abortion is a “Todd Akin” comment. In 2012 Todd Akin said something uniquely stupid, with roots in anti-abortion psuedoscience—that a “legitimate,” violent rape, being so stressful to the woman, was unlikely to cause pregnancy. That wasn’t what Richard Mourdock said in a debate for Indiana’s U.S. Senate seat; he said a child resulting from a rape was part of God’s design. It also wasn’t what Franks said here. He referred to “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy,” not the question of whether rape can cause pregnancy. “Incidence,” as Jonathan Chait pointed out before I could, means the rate of something occuring. Franks was chiding Democrats for making every abortion debate about the most controversial aspect of abortion rights, arguing that 1) it was an outlier and 2) his bill wouldn’t affect that.

So, that’s where the pummelling of Franks goes wrong. He’s still making a lousy case for his bill. He seems to be assuming that women would realize they’re pregnant around the time they report rapes. That’s a reach. He’s sticking with the classic “forcible/violent” definition of rape, implicitly nixing date rape from the definition. He’s also saying that a trauma occuring merely 30,000 times every year—pregnancy caused by rape—is a distraction. That’s ironic, because the gas in the engine for this push is the trial of Kermit Gosnell, who was performing illegal and fraudulent partial-birth abortions. Pro-lifers aim to prove that Gosnell wasn’t an outlier, that every late-term abortion is just as gruesome. If his crimes horrify you, if the worst-case scenarios make you think again, you should want to ban abortion altogether. I don’t think Franks sees the symmetry between that position and the honest positions of the pro-choicers.

This article appears in Jun 13-19, 2013.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

7 replies on “Defending Congressman Trent Franks’ Comments About Rape and Pregnancy”

  2. If abortion was treated like tubal ligation or vasectomy i.e. a medical procedure between a patient and physician, the “Gosnell situation” would have never existed. Defending anti-choice politicians, who keep moving the goalposts for a safe, legal medical procedure, isn’t a good look on you Tucson Weekly.

  3. Thanks for posting this compilation of efforts, Jim. I also looked at Rep. Franks’ comment from many angles yesterday and today. In fact, I posted the video of the entire Judiciary Committee meeting yesterday (bit.ly/AZp545), and then re-visited it today and found (and posted) the transcript of the hearing (bit.ly/AZ547). I tried to post lots of context with little editorial content.

    I think besides your discussion of “incidence” (or “incidents”), you need to look at the other part of Franks’ comments and explanation – his attempts to explain the (most-desired) timing of reporting a rape vs. the timing of abortions which would be prohibited by this bill, and to try to get in a dig at Democrats for focusing on the rape and incest exceptions (to his bills). (If you want to dig really deep, add in that Chabot had brought up the pregnancy-by-rape issue in the subcommittee the week before, and that Franks might have been trying to distill that into his ripostes.)

    Taking all that into account, as Weigel sort of stated above, it would seem that Franks was not making a very cohesive argument for his case. The Democrats are attempting to blow it out of proportion, and his inability to articulate a coherent and plausible explanation makes it easier for people to accept the Democrats’ hyperbole. (I did a Fact Check on the Franks vs. EMILYs List claims on this bill a couple of weeks ago, and it is still playing out: bit.ly/AZp524.)

  5. @ Glenna Norlin

    I didn’t read Jim’s article as indicating that he or the Weekly were “Defending anti-choice politicians”. I did see the presentation of a couple of people in the media that seemed to be doing the defending -by finding merit in Trent Frank’s utterances. I personally appreciated being able to read their remarks ~know your enemy, I always say.

    I do have to say that reading anything about those self-appointed priests of the modern inquisition is an unpleasant experience. Individually, they give me the creeps, and collectively they make my blood boil.

  7. @ Corduval
    You are correct. The Weekly writer, Mr. Nintzel, contributed approximately four sentences of original writing to accompany the multiple quoted paragraphs from other sources.
    So I suppose that means I should have ignored this gem of an “article” from a supposedly progressive publication that states in the TITLE(which I saw on Twitter because I follow The Weekly and have read it for more than a decade) “Defending Trent Franks’ Comments…”
    I wish I could interpret the title as tongue in cheek. Unfortunately, the writer does not actually write enough for me to get a good grasp on the article’s actual views/biases so I do have to infer a lot from the title.
    Yes gentlemen, let’s debate the semantics of rate vs. incidence. Because that’s of real importance when you are discussing real life and real forced birth situations.
    I guess the main question always has been and always will be: “Are women people? Do women have the same right as people do to bodily autonomy and privacy?”
    I don’t care if a rape victim or incest victim or ANY woman vacillates back and forth(because such decisions are not always easy and can be full of pain especially because of fear of social stigma) until the 39th week of a 40 week pregnancy. It is a safe medical procedure that has benefits/risks that are best decided by the patient and the physician in a bullshit-regulation free environment.

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