Resources for Survivors of Assault
I am going to frankly discuss sexual assault in this chapter. Please take care of yourself and read with caution.
If you need to talk to someone about your assault, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-HOPE (4673). You can also find more resources at https://www.rainn.org/resources
This chapter will almost certainly grow as the wording of abortion bans in different states gets ironed out. Currently, several states have exceptions for rape and incest in their abortion bans. While this seems like a reasonable exception, practically it is looking like it will still be pretty difficult to access an abortion, even if you report a rape that resulted in a pregnancy.
Many of these bans are written with very vague language, so in states where abortion is broadly illegal, it might be very difficult to find a provider that is willing to risk a lawsuit or criminal charges in order to perform the procedure for an "exception". There also might be multiple hoops to jump through to "prove" that you were raped, including reporting the incident to the police and having paperwork filed by your doctor confirming that they saw the police report (by design, this process might take up to several months).
Based on the information that I am currently seeing, I would recommend following the steps outlined in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 if you are seeking an abortion after a sexual assault and you live in a state where abortion is illegal (even if there are exceptions for rape or incest.) I will update this chapter with more state-specific information as the situation becomes more clear.
If you would like to read more about this topic, I found my information here (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/27/abortion-exceptions-doctor-shortage-00042373) and here (https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2022/06/28/utahs-abortion-ban-erase-rape-victims-options)
Last edited July 7th, 2022.