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A child wants to know their father. they don't know their background, they don't know their history. i don't know about their illnesses or anything. but i would be forced to carry that baby. that's not -- that's not common -- that's not even common sense. >> randi kaye joins us now. randi, this is so important and so timely. why are all these rape kits still on the shelf untested? >> reporter: a couple of reasons, john. one of those reasons is manpower. the state representative told me they just don't have enough forensic analysts here in the state of texas. also if you look at the law enforce...

Control. we lost our power. and now, you are continuing to strip us by saying by six weeks, if you don't get rid of that baby, you have to keep it. no, sir. that's -- that's ludicrous. >> reporter: she knows if she had gotten pregnant and that law had been in place, she would have had to carry and deliver her rapist's child at 13. >> i didn't know who he was. and that child wants to know their father. they don't know their background. they don't know their history. i don't know about the illnesses or anything. but i would be forced to carry that baby. that's not -- that's not -- that's not eve...

That no woman, no person will be a victim of rape. >> he will have his work cut out for him. there have been as many as 18,000 rapes in a single year in texas. and right now there's a backlog of at least 5,000 rape kits in the state, meaning many rapists have not been caught. cnn's randi kaye has been investigating the backlog for several years and is in dallas with the latest. >> that would be a beautiful thing to see but it's not going to happen. it's not realistic. >> reporter: lavinia masters isn't buying it. she has little hope texas governor greg abbott can deliver on his promise to elim...

>> house bill 8 is now law. >> reporter: when texas governor greg abbott signed into law the lavinia masters act in 2019, she was there. the act was designed to audit untested rape kits across the state and set strict testing requirements. the texas department of public safety tells cnn as of august there are still 5,298 untested rape kits. but we've learned that number doesn't include the untested rape kits from 231 law enforcement agencies who did not report their numbers to the state. so the number could be much higher, which means thousands of rapists could be on the run possibly raping ot...

All rapists from the streets of texas. how can the governor of texas eliminate all rapists from the street when the governor and the state hasn't even been able to eliminate the backlog of rape kits? >> exactly. that is the biggest question. when you say things like that, it is outlandish to say things in that manner. >> house bill 8 is now law. >> reporter: when governor abbott signed into law the act in 2019, she was there. the act was designed to audit untested rape kits across the state and set strict testing requirements. the texas department of public safety tells cnn as of august, there...