If men could get pregnant from a rape, would they still prohibit abortions for rape victims? Two stories today bring home the inhumanity of men’s stands on pregnant rape victims.
Story #1 – A Brazilian 9-year-old was allegedly raped by her step-father (who is now in jail for this). Weighing only 80 pounds and 15 weeks pregnant, this little girl was pregnant with twins. Abortion is against the law in Brazil, but a judge can make an exception if the mother’s life is at risk. It was determined in this case that this child’s life was at risk. The abortion was carried out yesterday amidst protests from the Catholic Church.
Story #2 – According to an article by Human Rights Watch, officials in the Mexican state of Guanajuato are preventing rape victims from getting abortions even though the Mexican Supreme Court upheld a ruling that it is legal. The HRW article says this:
Guanajuato permits legal abortion only after rape. But over the past eight years, the state has denied every petition by a pregnant rape victim for abortion services. Over the same period, about 130 persons have been sentenced for seeking or providing illegal abortions. Hospital workers often report women suspected of having received abortions to the police, instead of focusing on the provision of safe and confidential medical care for women with post-abortion complications.
In Mexico City, women can have an abortion in their first trimester, no matter whether they were raped or not.
Feministing.com includes this unbelievable bit. Their comment about it is in bold type:
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Jerry W. Kilgore was quoted in 1997 as saying he opposes abortion, but “supports exceptions for rape and incest if the woman reports the crime to police within a week.” Cause really ladies, seven days is plenty of time to deal with your dad raping you.
In a different take on men’s appalling insensitivity to what it is like to be raped and impregnated by a rapist, I read a story about how a Japanese computer game was available on Amazon.com and eBay where players must rape women and force them to have an abortion. It was taken down off Amazon on 2/13/09.
Rape in itself is violent, intrusive, and forever changes and affects a woman or girl. I do not believe that abortion should be used as a form of birth control, but no woman or child should be forced to carry the child of a rapist. Lawmakers and churches who disregard not only the danger to a raped child’s life but also the emotional devastation of having to carry and give birth to a rapist’s child are not just or godly. And entrepreneurs profiting from glorifying rape and the men who buy this disgusting filth bear culpability in promoting a world where rape is seen as a means for men to take out their aggression and as entertainment.
Women who were raped had no choice in the matter and they did not choose to have a child by their attacker. They deserve a choice on whether to carry to carry and be a mother to a rapist’s child…especially when the unwlling mother-to-be is a child herself.
UPDATE: The Vatican has excommunicated the mother of the raped 9-year-old Brazilian girl who had the abortion and the doctors who performed the abortion. The step-father, who raped the girl, was not excommunicated. The regional archbishop said that even thought what he did was “… “a heinous crime … the abortion – the elimination of an innocent life – was more serious”. The girl said the step-father had been sexually abusing her since she was six years old. Police said the 23-year-old stepfather also allegedly sexually abused the girl’s physically handicapped 14-year-old sister. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
IT DAWNED ON ME 