{"id":13693,"date":"2012-08-23T13:34:46","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T17:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=13693"},"modified":"2012-08-23T13:34:46","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T17:34:46","slug":"akin-rape-theory-rooted-in-nazi-death-camp-experiments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2012\/08\/akin-rape-theory-rooted-in-nazi-death-camp-experiments\/","title":{"rendered":"Akin rape theory rooted in Nazi death camp experiments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By David Edwards<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The theory behind Rep. Todd Akin\u2019s (R-MO) assertion earlier this week that women who are victims of \u201clegitimate\u201d rape would not get pregnant appears to be based on 1972 research that cites experiments done in Nazi concentration camps, a Missouri newspaper reported on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

During an<\/span> interview<\/span><\/a><\/strong> <\/span>with KTVI over the weekend, Akin had claimed that women were not likely to get pregnant because \u201cif it\u2019s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This reasoning, based on 1972 article by a University of Minnesota Medical School assistant professor, has been used for decades by anti-abortion activists to argue that no exceptions to abortion bans are necessary,<\/span> according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the article titled \u201cThe Indications for Induced Abortion: A Physician\u2019s Perspective,\u201d Dr. Fred Mecklenburg concluded that it \u201cis extremely rare\u201d for a rape to result in pregnancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mecklenburg cited a number of factors for his theory, including that not all rapes resulted in \u201ccompleted act of intercourse\u201d and that it was \u201cimprobable\u201d that a rape would occur within \u201cthe 1-2 days of the month in which the woman would be fertile.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But it was Mecklenburg\u2019s presumption that a traumatized rape victim \u201cwill not ovulate even if she is \u2018scheduled\u2019 to\u201d that appeared to be the basis of Akin\u2019s recent remarks.<\/span><\/p>\n

To support his conclusion, Mecklenburg cited studies that were allegedly done at extermination camps in Nazi Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nazis reportedly tested the theory \u201cby selecting women who were about to ovulate and sending them to the gas chambers, only to bring them back after their realistic mock-killing, to see what the effect this had on their ovulatory patterns. An extremely high percentage of these women did not ovulate,\u201d the article said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mecklenburg also speculated that \u201cfrequent masturbation\u201d was likely to make rapists infertile.<\/span><\/p>\n

More recent research, however, has debunked the ideas Mecklenburg\u2019s article.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a scientific standpoint, what\u2019s legitimate and fair to say is that a woman who is raped has the same chances of getting pregnant as a woman who engaged in consensual intercourse during the same time in her menstrual cycle,\u201d American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists\u2019 Dr. Barbara Levy told the Post-Dispatch.<\/span><\/p>\n

A 1992 study<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> by the Medical University of South Carolina determined that the \u201cnational rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.\u201d Many experts believe that number could be significantly higher<\/span> because an estimated 54 percent<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> of rapes are not reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

[Photo: Shutterstock.com]<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Edwards The theory behind Rep. Todd Akin\u2019s (R-MO) assertion earlier this week that women who are victims of \u201clegitimate\u201d rape would not get..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,166,172,18,21,187,84,97,106],"tags":[333,357,345,347,351],"class_list":["post-13693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-government","category-healthcare","category-history","category-international","category-science-tech","category-statements","category-us-news","category-women","tag-germany","tag-racism","tag-reactionary-watch","tag-workers-struggle","tag-world-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/shutterstock_82591516-1-615x345_13693_f1a34.jpg?fit=615%2C345&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}