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“When a woman is raped, it is the RAPE that is the tragedy. Being able to have an abortion and not be forced to bear her rapists child is a liberating thing! There is nothing to be ashamed or sad about when it comes to abortion. It is a very liberating thing.”—
Sunsara Taylor
Sunsara Taylor might actually want to talk to rape victims before assuming what they want. This information was taken from
http://www.boundless.org/regulars/kaufman/a0000848.html
For example, it is commonly assumed that rape victims who become pregnant would naturally want abortions. But in the only major study of pregnant rape victims ever done, Dr. Sandra Makhorn found that 75 to 85 percent chose against abortion. This evidence alone should cause people to pause and reflect on the presumption that abortion is wanted or even best for sexual assault victims.
Several reasons are given for not aborting. First, approximately 70 percent of all women believe abortion is immoral, even though many feel it should be a legal choice for others. Approximately the same percentage believe abortion would be just another act of violence against their bodies and their children.
Second, some believe that their child’s life may have some intrinsic meaning or purpose which they do not yet understand. This child was brought into their lives by a horrible, repulsive act. But perhaps God, or fate, will use the child for some greater purpose. Good can come from evil.
Third, victims of assault often become introspective. Their sense of the value of life and respect for others is heightened. They have been victimized, and the thought that they in turn might victimize their own innocent child through abortion is repulsive.
Fourth, at least a subconscious level, the victim may sense that if she can get through the pregnancy, she will have conquered the rape. By giving birth, she can reclaim some of her lost self-esteem. Giving birth, especially when conception was not desired, is a totally selfless act, a generous act, a display of courage, strength and honor. It is proof that she is better than the rapist. While he was selfish, she can be generous. While he was destroying, she can be nurturing.
By contrast, Reardon notes, women who go through with abortion find that abortion itself is the real revictimization.
“Many women report that their abortions felt like a degrading and brutal form of medical rape,” he writes — involving “a painful examination of a woman’s sexual organs by a masked stranger who is invading her body … while she lies there, tense and helpess, the life hidden within her is literally sucked out of her womb. The difference? In a sexual rape, a woman is robbed of her purity; in this medical rape she is robbed of her maternity.”
Moreover, “after any abortion, it is common for women to experience guilt, depression, feelings of being ‘dirty,’ resentment of men, and lowered self-esteem … these feelings are identical to what women typically feel after rape. Abortion, then, only adds to and accentuates the traumatic feelings associated with sexual assault.”
If anything, Reardon suggests, the people most eager for abortion aren’t liable to be those who’ve been raped so often as those who haven’t been — people who are uncomfortable with the thought of dealing with the victims, who see abortion as a way to avoid or ease the process of dealing with the woman’s true needs. I suspect that in this, as in other matters, he’s quite right. Not that the woman might not end up choosing abortion anyway. But her “choice” often will be the result of pressures, subtle or otherwise — made after her friends and family have signalled (without explicitly stating it, or perhaps even consciously meaning to convey it) their strong unease with the entire situation, and their desire to get it over with as quickly as possible.
(Source: ustream.tv)
