Thank you for speaking up for people like me. Yes I was conceived when 8 men raped my mom. Her comment when I finally met her 3 yrs ago(at 48yrs old) was "I couldn't kill a kitten or a puppy, how could I kill an innocent baby?" She knew it wasn't my fault. She is my hero! And now responsible for 4 other humans living- my 2 sons, my grandson and now one other on the way! People shouldn't play God in that they determine who lives and who dies. Having forgiven those men my mother was able to live her life freely. There are many other "rape" stories but because the children are small these stories don't come out. Mothers want to protect themselves and their children. Or because of the stigma involved people fear rejection. I am secure in who I am. God chose a horrible situation to show how powerful He is to change things.I personally know one girl raped by her father and gave birth to a beautiful boy. She is actively involved in his life and the adopted parents are secure enough to agree. Now that's real life and freedom. (yes her father is in jail) I hope people rethink their thinking about life! My book Hostile Conception Living With Purpose can help at www.juda4praise.comThank you for commenting, Juda. I'm going to add your site to our blogrolls at AfterAbortion.blogspot.com and AbortionPundit.blogspot.com.
Juda wrote this to us in the combox of this post, in which another woman, "birthmom", a rape victim herself who kept her child, spoke up.
If anyone wants to tell us their story--of either not choosing abortion after rape, OR of being regretful that you did--BUT ANONYMOUSLY, you could email me, Annie B., and we would only publish what you wanted published, without names, or with changed names and other identifying details changed or omitted to protect your identity. OR we won't publish a thing, sometimes you just need to get it off your chest and tell someone even anonymously in an email with no names. We have a long track record of receiving and respecting such requests. [TO EMAIL ME, go to this page, then link to my main AfterAbortion blog, and the email is encrypted at the top right of AfterAbortion's sidebar.]
Sometimes it helps just to be heard, even if anonymously.
And any political, opinion-oriented, or inappropriate or snarky or remotely offbase comments to these "personal-story" posts will be deleted and the commenters banned immediately. If you do not have SOLELY a kind or compassionate word for such women who speak up against abortion after rape, you don't belong here and you certainly will not get a public forum here. Deal with it.
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I ALSO WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS ANY WOMEN WHO WERE RAPED WHO CHOSE ABORTION INSTEAD:
Publishing Juda's story or anyone's who chose to give birth instead of abortion does NOT mean that we condemn or hate those who chose abortion. We do not.
I am pained that publishing stories like this might seem to judge or condemn you. Please know that is not the case, and never will be.
We publish these stories, as told to us in emails, comboxes or personally, so that others who come after you and me may see that there REALLY IS ANOTHER CHOICE besides abortion, and that there are folks, many folks, willing and able to help and actually already helping women not only avoid the choice of abortion, but financially and physically survive without abortion.
No one was around then, perhaps, to tell you you had a viable, different choice. I wish I or one of my friends could have been there to at least offer that help.
I can't change the fact that none of us were there, then.
I can't change the fact that the pain and horror from your rape will never be erased, not even by an abortion.
I can only try to inform women (and men) that abortion isn't the only choice after rape, and many times, it isn't the best choice after rape.
I can only try to inform folks that the media, some medical establishment types, and the abortion industry and lobbyists have convinced far too many of us that abortion is the only compassionate case for women who were raped.
And that they are wrong to have done so, as the research about rape victims and the testimony of some rape victims shows.
And in so doing all this, I do run the risk of appearing insensitive or alienating to those who did abort after rape. I am deeply sorry if this is how it feels to you. It isn't intentional and I am not insensitive or alienating you. As I wrote, there is a greater good we are shooting for, here, to help others avoid the double victimization that you yourself may be feeling you went through. Perhaps you too will feel, in time, that that greater good is worth striving for.
Let me quote from someone who "got it" when it came to trying to be compassionate to those of us (including me) who chose abortion and maybe are wondering if we made the right choice after all:
"...[many people are] aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and [do] not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace ... You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child...With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life."
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LASTLY: If anyone wants to post stories of rape victims being fine after their abortions, this isn't the place for that. Why? Because Planned Parenthood, the media and most everyone you know has already publicized those stories, in spades. We won't do Planned Parenthood's or the abortion industry's job for them. Period. If you want to do that, start your own blog and post them there.
So if comments with opposing stories of being fine with abortion after rape are posted, they'll be removed. Please go post them elsewhere on an abortion-is-fine website. This is a pro-life blog for pro-life issues to get a fair airing.
Once again, dead silence from the pro-choice and pro-abortion folks...
Without a kind or compassionate word for these women, a person cannot call him or herself truly "pro-woman."
I will send in my story. Right now, I still am trying to figure it all out in my head a bit. It was like it happened so fast yet so slow too. I was just along for the ride and prayed the whole time that God would do the right thing for me and my baby. If we send in something, can it still be reproduced, like if I should ever write a book about my story? Just curious.
It's so hard to because you don't want to involve your daughter in any way or mess up the adoption legal aspects in any way. I use the name I alwasy called her instead of her real name now, but still I fear about that. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with that. Because I would write so much more on my blog and everywhere if I didn't feel I needed to censor myself for risk of hurting her. I odn't know if I want her to know she was conceived through rape...still not sure?
If you have aan afterabortion.blogspot, there should be a blog for birthmothers.blogspot (which I started, but not many use it) don't you think?
There are after abortion recovery groups at most church's, adoptive groups for adoptive parents too, but never a birth mothers group, and grief of losing a child that is still alive but cAN'T be seen or heard is not something many books are written on! (But dont steal my idea, my book's slowly coming together) haha
Just a suggestion.
final thought. It's like Satan tried to take one more on to his side by having a rapist rape me, but I love how it backfired and instead he got twochristians stronger than ever before from it. Me and my daughter, not to mention all the folks that watched the grace of God being done in front of them during all of this. That's the best payback to a rapist, I think!
nevermind. I just made an afteradoption.blogspot and a , beforeabortion.blogspot.com
Birthmom, I'm sorry I haven't responded to your questions, Been really super busy, but I do think it's ok to hold off on telling your story. I FULLY agree that you don't want anything public that might hurt your children. YOU control your story, you have every right not to divulge it or elements of it until it is safe for you and your family.
Same goes for anyone regretting their abortion. I wholeheartedly object to anyone, esp. a prolife person, insisting that all those who regret go public.
It's just wrong.
There may come a time when it's right, there may not.
It's God knowing how we regret, or what God knows in our hearts, that matters, birthmom. I'll try to talk more with you, even privately, but I've got a ton of work on my plate over the next 2-3 weeks. I will try...