Gov. Abbott Thinks He Can “Eliminate Rape.” He’s Wrong.
Last month, Texas outlawed abortions after six weeks with no exemption for instances of rape or incest. Following the implementation of this controversial law, Texas Governor Greg Abbott was asked by a reporter, “Why force a rape or incest victim to carry a pregnancy to term?”
After initially alleging that the question contained false information, Abbott quickly pivoted his response. What came pouring out of his mouth next was nothing short of egregious.
Abbott stated, “Let’s make something very clear: rape is a crime. And Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out, arresting them, prosecuting them, and getting them off the streets. So goal number one in the state of Texas is to eliminate rape so that no woman, no person will be a victim of rape.”
By unpacking Abbott’s response line by line, I underscore why eliminating rape is nearly impossible, why Abbott’s approach is deeply flawed, and why his response doesn’t even answer the question at all.
So, let’s begin.
Sentence one: “Let’s make something very clear: rape is a crime.”
I’m pleased to hear that Abbott knows rape is a crime. I’m glad we can agree on something. Although I’m being facetious, what we think of as rape now was not always considered a crime.
Rape was, relatively speaking, a non-issue for millennia; it was a socially acceptable, rampant male act. Recently, some of this ideology began to change in America.
A prime example of this change is marital rape:
Marital rape was only criminalized across the United States in 1993, twenty-eight years ago. Meaning, Abbott was 35-years-old when it became a crime for a man to rape his wife, and vice versa, in all 50 states.
For almost half of Abbott’s life, marital rape wasn’t a crime at all, but today, approximately 10–14% of married women are raped by their husbands.
Even though definitions of rape may change over time, the data suggests that rape is overwhelmingly a male perpetrated issue.
The 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that over 90% of sexual violence against women is at the hands of men, and 93% of male survivors of sexual violence reported that their abuser was a man.
So, not only is rape a crime, but it is both a relatively new crime and an ancient male practice.
Sentence two: “And Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out, arresting them, prosecuting them, and getting them off the streets.”
Despite Abbott’s excitement to eliminate rapists, let’s face the facts: removing all rapists has never been done before…like ever. So the audacity of Abbott to think he can end all rape is equal parts astonishing and ignorant.
Abbott’s leading strategy for eradicating rape is through criminalization, which is a reactive method and not a proactive method. Therefore, logic suggests that one cannot eliminate something if one only catches it after the fact.
The strategy put forth by Abbott to police rapists disproportionately places the onus to report rape on female survivors because 90% of adult rape victims are women.
Abbott’s approach is unsound for both solving the problem after it has occurred and for placing the onus on the rape survivor to self-report. Moreover, this approach only aims to stop repeat offenders, and, even then, it wouldn’t work at all because most reported rapes do not result in criminal justice.
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) estimates that less than ⅓ of rapes are reported to the police. Additionally, less than 6% of rapes result in an arrest, and around .5% result in incarceration.
The rate of reporting is even lower in Abbott’s state of Texas. For example, the School of Domestic Violence & Sexual assault in Austin, Texas, reports that 9.2% of sexual harassment and rape victims report their crime. This means that more than 90% of sexual harassment and rape go unreported in Texas.
These numbers highlight that there are systems at play that inadvertently protect rapists while simultaneously ignoring the claims made by women.
The data is clear: relatively few survivors of rape come forward, and when they do, they are disregarded in droves.
For Abbott’s plan to make any sense, he must first get rid of the patriarchal structures that both discourage women from coming forward and disregard the testimony of women who are brave enough to come forward.
Not only is solving the male problem of rape not a woman’s responsibility, but it is insulting to suggest that the reason rape still exists is because not enough women come forward.
Rape exists because rapists rape, not because rape victims don’t come forward.
Sentence 3: “So goal number one in the state of Texas is to eliminate rape so that no woman, no person will be a victim of rape.”
While a long-term goal of eliminating rape is aspirational, what are we doing for the survivors of rape between now and then?
Even if eradicating rape is possible, eliminating rape in the long-term does nothing to help today’s women and pregnant people who are forced to carry their pregnancies to term.
How is Abbott’s answer at all a justification as to why a raped person cannot abort a pregnancy after six weeks? Can’t people like Abbott work to criminalize rapists while pregnant individuals still have the agency to make decisions over their own bodies? Not only can these things co-exist, but they should exist together.
Policing rapists seems to be a new item on Abbott’s agenda, right?
Abbott’s timing in caring about the prevalence of rape in our society, which primarily affects women, raises the question of whether men only care about eliminating rapists when forced to decide between continuing rape or outlawing abortions.
The sudden interest in policing rape suggests that men, or at least Abbott, only have an interest in eradicating rape in the context of eliminating abortions.
Abbott’s disdain for rape seems more like a justification for controlling women rather than an interest in protecting women. After all, both rape and abortion bans are about controlling women and exerting power.
Although Abbott’s answer was ludicrous and nonsensical, I’ve used this opportunity to propose what I believe is the only way to, one day, eliminate rape to the best of our society’s ability.
I argue that the only way to decrease rape rates is to enforce unparalleled re-socialization to eliminate male forms of entitlement.
Since men are the leading perpetrator of sexual violence, to stop rape, you must first stop male entitlement, both entitlement to bodies and entitlement to power.
It is not enough to condemn and criminalize those that rape — that is merely the first step. We as a society need men to be the exact opposites of rapists: consent enthusiasts.
If you do not feel comfortable publicly labeling yourself as a consent enthusiast, you are a part of the problem.
The male collective must unlearn all the ideology that breeds rapists, and in so doing, learn what it means to be anti-rape and for consent.
If you believe that an individual has the autonomy of choice over their body in sexual acts, then you should also believe that an individual has the autonomy of choice over their body for reproductive health.
After all, to be for consent is to be pro-choice.
