"Scientists know that stress boosts levels of stress hormones - glucocorticoids such as cortisol - that inhibit the body's main sex hormone, gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), and subsequently suppresses sperm count, ovulation and sexual activity."
No help there for a woman who has already ovulated.
"In humans, chronic stress can lead to a drop in sex drive as well as a drop in fertility. [...] Kirby showed that acutely stressed rats showed increased RFRP levels for several hours, but that levels returned to normal by the next day. Chronically stressed rats, however, were left with longer-term elevations of RFRP levels in the dorsomedial hypothalamus area of the brain, and suppression of activity in the reproductive axis - the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal hormone cascade"
The stress due to rape is not chronic stress.
But the stress due to rape is acute stress, isn't it?
Read it again:
"In humans, chronic stress can lead to a drop in sex drive as well as a drop in fertility. [...] Kirby showed that acutely stressed rats showed increased RFRP levels for several hours, but that levels returned to normal by the next day. Chronically stressed rats, however, were left with longer-term elevations of RFRP levels in the dorsomedial hypothalamus area of the brain, and suppression of activity in the reproductive axis - the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal hormone cascade"
"It's very adaptive to not be wasting resources on reproduction during times of acute stress, to just shut down reproduction for 24 hours or so until the stress is gone," said co-author Daniela Kaufer, a UC Berkeley assistant professor of integrative biology who looks at how stress affects molecular processes in the brain."