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>This is one of those great falsehoods around. There's a meme that lots of men's lives are being ruined by false rape claims. In fact, unreported rapes are a much, much greater problem. False rape accusations are rare.
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>I agree that unreported rapes are a big problem. No question.
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>On false rape accusations - there are numbers that say it's as low as 2.5% and as high as 8%. The Duke Lacrosse players case is probably one of the more publicized ones. For over a year their lives were destroyed. But fortunately the truth came out, with men like Mike NiFong and even Al Sharpton exposed for what they really are.
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>What I was surprised to learn is that there's a separate statistic where a rape occurred, but the wrong person was accused - the 2.5 to 8% doesn't factor those in, it's a separate stat.

I'd love to see stats on that. Regardless, I do think it's important that we loudly fight the (not uncommon) idea that lots women make up rape claims to hurt a man they're angry at.

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>The numbers "are what they are". Tamar, I hate to say this, but your statement is a little too close for comfort to the "enemy" statement from Trent Franks that pregnancy from rape is rare, and we all know about the uproar over that statement.
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My point was that we shouldn't use the occasional false claim as a reason not to pursue rape claims. Far too many woman are actively dissuaded from pursuing cases by police who suggest that they're making it up or that it was their own fault or whatever.

Rape is the bigger problem here, and we should focus the bigger part of our resources on fighting. That doesn't mean that making false allegations of rape should be ignore, but it does mean that when a woman says she's been raped, our first instinct should be to believe her. For an awful lot of people, it's not.

>But I do realize that even if the stats aren't high, they do become a context in some circles for not pursuing future rape allegations - and that is extremely unfortunate.
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>I cannot find the link - if I find it, I will post it - a NY Congresswoman about 10 years ago said (in public) that women should lie and say they were raped in order to be able to terminate the pregnancy. I understand where that's coming from, but the bottom line is that state and national politicians have laws to uphold, and that certainly isn't a way to do it.

I also understand why, and agree that it's wrong. But if we're going to make it hard for women to get abortions, we should expect them to do whatever it takes. I don't know if it's true, but I heard this week that the abortion rate didn't actually change when abortion became legal. What changed was the death rate from abortion. (I believe the abortion rate has actually dropped considerably since then, as more and more women have access to birth control, and pregnancy outside of marriage has lost its stigma.)

Tamar