NYT Guest Essay: "I Was Raped by My Father. An Abortion Saved My Life."

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, commenter Tom Furgas at Joe.My.God.

Tom Furgas • 4 hours ago
Read it and weep.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/opinion/abortion-texas-mississippi-rape.html

berberine > Tom Furgas • 4 hours ago
I wanted to thank you for sharing such a story because so many people
still think women get abortions as a means of birth control or whatever
twisted logic they use to justify themselves. I'm not going to read the opinion piece there because I was in a similar situation, just replace father with cousin (over five years). If abortion wasn't legal in 1984, I would have committed suicide. What happened to me still affects me to this day, so I'm grateful that you linked the story for others to read and to the woman, who shared her story.

OPINION
GUEST ESSAY

I Was Raped by My Father. An Abortion Saved My Life.
Nov. 30, 2021

By Michele Goodwin
Ms. Goodwin is a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood.”

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi that provides no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. What’s at stake in this case matters to the countless girls and women who have been raped — including those who, like me, were raped by a father, an uncle or another family member.

It was the early morning of my 10th birthday the first time that I was raped by my father. It would not be the last. The shock was so severe that I temporarily went blind before I began the fifth grade a few weeks later. By the time the school year began, my father had taken me to see a battery of doctors — a medical explanation would paper over the fact that the trauma caused by his sexual violence had caused my body to shut down.

The physiological suffering that I endured included severe migraines, hair loss and even gray hair — at 10 years old. While other girls may have longed for puberty, I loathed the idea of it. My body became a vessel that was not mine. It had been taken from me. I lived in fear of the night, and the footsteps outside my bedroom door.

{snip}

No one ever wants to write about such experiences, exposing intimate aspects of their lives, revisiting traumatic aspects of childhood. That is probably a big reason survivors of incest do not come forward. Even as our society becomes more enlightened about sexual assaults and abuse, often survivors pay a cost. While in college, a prominent professor warned me to never speak or write of my experiences. He believed that I had a bright future ahead and that I could be personally and professionally harmed by sharing my story.

Yet, the lack of compassion and the hubris that underlies the Mississippi and Texas legislation deserves a response. ... With those laws, the state has in effect forced girls to carry the burden of its desires, forcing many of them to risk their health — and even risk death — by remaining pregnant. Like a military draft, the state has coercively conscripted rape and incest survivors to endure one more tremendous burden. To take another devastating physical and mental hit. To tie their lives to those of their rapists. This time it is state lawmakers who strong-arm their bodies into service.

{snip}

[bronxiteforever]

1. Kick.

[demigoddess]

2. every woman I have known in my life has a very similar story to tell. I heard the first one

when I was 12 years old from another 12 year old. Also, I was in day care briefly when I was 3 and a lot of raping of children was happening there. So much so that small boys were raping other children to figure out what had been done to them. This is not a rare activity in this country.

[BadgerMom]

3. Kick

[Wild blueberry]

4. K&R

Thank you.

[Hekate]

5. KnR

[erronis]

6. A very powerful essay by the author. Yet the supposed christians will ignore these issues.

The supposed christians in politics, the courts, the supposed christians in the religions.

This was not some poor girl - someone who supposedly lived a very nice life.

My father’s predations were hidden behind wealth, social status and his acting the part of a committed and attentive parent. I attended elite schools in New York City, studied ballet at a renowned academy and took private violin and tennis lessons. My father never missed a parent-teacher conference. However, that veneer of normalcy belied intimate family violence that began years before with his physical abuse of my mother. At times he was so violent that she was hospitalized.

At age 12, I was pregnant by my father, and I had an abortion. Before we got to the doctor’s office, I had no idea that I was pregnant. My father lied about my age and the circumstance of my pregnancy, informing the doctor that I was 15 and that I had been reckless with a boyfriend. My father shook his head, explaining to the doctor that he was doing all that he could as a single parent — my parents had divorced by this time — but that I was out of control. Both men seemed to convey contempt toward me. For many years, the shame of my father’s lie lingered with me — the stereotype embedded in the narrative of the risky, hypersexualized Black girl.

[onecaliberal]

7. The so called christians have hijacked the religion. Just like the taliban.

They ARE the American Taliban and they want to rule women just like the Taliban.

[BigmanPigman]

8. Those who support banning abortion are sadists.

The GQP is a sadistic group and becoming more so by the minute. They get off on hurting people any way they can.