Jack Willke
| John C. Willke | |
|---|---|
| Born |
John Charles Willke April 5, 1925 Maria Stein, Ohio, United States |
| Died | February 20, 2015 (aged 89) Cincinnati, Ohio, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Pro-life activist and former President of the National Right to Life Committee |
| Spouse(s) | Barbara Jean Willke (c. 1923 – 2013) (m. c. 1948 – 2013) her death |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | physician |
John Charles Willke (April 5, 1925 – February 20, 2015) was an American author, physician, and anti-abortion activist. Along with his wife Barbara, he authored a number of books on abortion and human sexuality. Willke was an obstetrician in Cincinnati, Ohio, but ceased practicing medicine in 1988 in order to devote himself full-time to the anti-abortion movement. He was president of National Right to Life from 1984 through 1991. He co-founded the Life Issues Institute in 1991. Willke was a proponent of the concept that women's bodies can resist pregnancy resulting from sexual assault, a position which the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated in 2012 is false.
Willke was born in Maria Stein, Ohio, the son of Marie Margaret (Wuennemann) and Gerald Thomas Willke. He was a son and grandson of doctors. He attended Roger Bacon High School (1942) in Cincinnati and earned his M.D. from the University of Cincinnati in 1948.
Willke practiced as a family practitioner for much of his medical career (1950 – 1988). He was on the senior attending staff of the formerly named Providence and Good Samaritan hospitals (affiliated with The University of Toledo among many institutions).
Willke was a proponent of the concept that female rape victims have physiologic defenses against pregnancy, and thus that women rarely become pregnant after a sexual assault. Willke wrote in Christian Life Resources in 1999: "There's no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy". Willke claimed that for what he called "forcible rape" or "assault rape" (which Willke defined as separate from statutory rape) pregnancy is rare, resulting in only approximately four pregnancies per state per year. Research published in the Journal of American Obstetrics and Gynecology concluded rape “is a cause of many unwanted pregnancies". A separate study of 405 female rape victims of reproductive age found 6.4% became pregnant.
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