Heather Gemmen Wilson's Story -- rape survivor who is raising her daughter who was conceived out of rape.  

She's the author of Startling Beauty: My Journey from Rape to Restoration and speaks internationally on the subject of hope and forgiveness.  Visit her website at www.heathergemmen.com.

My husband had gone to a meeting at church and my children were asleep down the hall when a stranger entered my bedroom, waking me from a deep sleep.  Through the dim light reflecting from the hallway, I saw his silhouette—and vaguely understood that a tall, black man with thick arms stood a few feet away.

I didn’t scream. For a few seconds, I didn’t really understand what was happening. “Who are you?” I asked.

I might have rolled over and disappeared back into my dreams, but the ugliness of his laugh shocked me into wakefulness. I sat up quickly, and he yanked a knife out of his

pocket.

“Oh, no,” I whispered, holding my hands up toward him as if sheer willpower would keep him away. “No. Don’t do this.”

Someone once told me that after she was raped she felt like she joined a secret club she never wanted to be part of. I cried when she said it, because it was true for me too. Suddenly I knew things in a profound way I didn’t want to know at all — things like shame, and doubt, and fear. And I knew how much ugliness there was

in this world.

It has been over a decade since the rape, and I’ve experienced many life changes since then. I gave birth to a precious baby girl, conceived that fateful night, and she is now my daily reminder of God’s restorative love. We adopted a little boy we knew from our inner-city neighborhood where we lived—and he now towers over me, a godly young man who brings much laughter to our family. Eight years after the rape, my husband, who had joined me in joyously welcoming our daughter and who still loves her today, suddenly abandoned the marriage—and I am now building a new home and blended family. I’ve moved from Michigan to Colorado to Indiana. I’ve experienced the death of loved ones and the birth of a grandchild. Yet through all those changes, one thing has remained constant in my life: God’s faithful love. And I see now how much more beauty exists in this world than ugliness, even when life is hard.

I don’t know what secret club you have joined, but I am confident that God is in it with you, loving you and drawing you to him. I pray that you too will be startled by beauty.

-- Heather Gemmen Wilson

Shauna R. Prewitt's website can be found at http://www.shaunaprewitt.com She lives in Illinois and is available for public speaking.  She can be reached via e-mail at: ShaunaPrewitt@hotmail.com

     Shauna R. Prewitt is an author, attorney, advocate, and public speaker.  While a student at the University of Chicago, Shauna had a bright future ahead of her until events in her final year of college changed the course of her life forever.  Finding herself the victim of sexual assault, Shauna soon thereafter learned that she was pregnant from her attack. Deciding to continue the pregnancy and raise her child, Shauna was shocked when, after her child's birth, her attacker sought custody of the baby girl.  Trapped in her own personal hell, Shauna was even more astonished when she learned that few legal protections exist to protect the women who mother through rape.  Without such laws, men who father through rape are able to assert the same custody rights over their rape-conceived children as other fathers enjoy.    

     Spurred by these events, Shauna made a commitment to do what she could to change the custody laws around the United States.  In August 2006, Shauna enrolled at Georgetown Law School and began the tedious and often frustrating task of examining the custody rights of men who father through rape.  Astonished to learn that only a handful of states had legal protections in place that restrict the parental rights of men who father through rape, Shauna set out to answer the question, "Why?"  The results of Shauna's years-long analysis culminated in the publication of the first and only scholarly piece examining the legal protections afforded to women who mother through rape and providing insight into why these protections are so limited.  Since its publication in March 2010, Shauna's piece has received much attention from legal scholars, state legislators, family court judges, attorneys, and advocacy groups.

 Giving Birth to a “Rapist’s Child”: A Discussion and Analysis of the Limited Legal Protections

Afforded to Women Who Become Mothers Through Rape can be viewed at http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/issues/pdf/98-3/Prewitt.PDF  

Irene van der Wende's Story -- aborted her baby conceived in rape, and later learned she had herself been conceived in rape. 

 Jennifer McCoy's Story -- Jennifer became pregnant out of statutory rape and had an abortion forced on her.  She's from  Wichita, Kansas and is available for speaking -- contact her at  prolife_10@att.net

I am writing this on the 21st anniversary of my abortion.  It is hard to believe that it's been that long.  Thanks to Project Rachel and some long chats with God, I am much better and have dealt with most parts.  When I was 15, in Michigan, I found myself involved with a high school teacher of mine who was more than twice my age and married.  He had children my age and taught catechism at church -- a retired marine.  At that age, I thought I was in love.  By the time I was 16, I got pregnant.  

My mom found out when the doctor's office called and gave her the results.  She set out to find out who it was by following me around.  When she discovered who he was, she threatened him with the loss of his job, his family, and his freedom.  She then informed me that I was getting an abortion.  I said "No!" and moved up the street to a family's house where I helped take care of their four kids and continued attending school.  

My mother apparently put the pressure on the father of my child, and they set up my first OB/Gyn appointment at Dr. Hodari's clinic in Southgate. Thinking I was going to a pre-natal appointment, I went and I filled out some papers -- not a consent form though, because I knew I didn't want an abortion.  I talked to a counselor there and told her the same thing.  She gave me information about birth control and nothing else. Then I was told I needed an ultrasound.  The screen was kept turned away from me and I was told I was 8 or 10 weeks pregnant.

The next part was supposed to be the exam -- which was routine -- I was told.  When this foreign man came into the room and I said I was ready for just an exam he grunted in acknowledgment.  All of a sudden, I was in excruciating pain and I heard a noise like a vacuum.  I tried to get up and he pushed me down.

 I was crying, and he said, "It will be over in five minutes and you can go on with your life.  If you move, you could die". I was terrified and all I could do at that point was cry.  I was afraid and alone that room.  I felt the very life of my soul being torn from inside me and there was nothing I could do.  The man who got me pregnant was in the waiting room.

I was so angry that no one had stopped this!  They knew in the clinic that this older man was responsible for getting me pregnant, but no one said a word. There was no one on the sidewalk -- no pro-lifers praying outside -- for in my heart, I know that had there been one person to alert me to the fact that this was an abortuary and not just an OB/Gyn's office, then I never would have gone inside.

I took this man to court some weeks later and his attorney produced paperwork claiming my mother had signed necessary documents so he could obtain the abortion without my consent.  I felt completely betrayed by everyone, and the baby who I wanted so badly was torn form me.  I know it was a boy, so years later -- after years of not being able to function or even get out of bed -- I attended a Project Rachel retreat and named him Austin Christopher.  

My mom still lives in Michigan and today our relationship is okay. After the abortion, I had wanted to die.  I joined the service so I could get away from home. Then in 1994, I went to project Rachel and it was the first time I'd really dealt with my abortion, and how it held the broken relationships that I had -- my mom included.  Although we have completely different beliefs, she maintains she made the right decisions. We have agreed to disagree out of respect for my mother. She feels we have a good relationship, and I agree.  But it took years and project Rachel to get to it.

I started to go out to the abortion clinics in 1991. Since then, I have felt that God called me to be on the front lines where the girls need to be told that there is help -- people who care -- and that they don't have to have the abortions.  It's nothing that you want to live with.

My children -- 10 of them -- attend Catholic school here.  I found out that in the Catholic high school, one of the morality classes entailed three stories of girls who had abortions that were on the internet.  The students were to pick one and decide what to do to try to talk them out of it -- what would they want to say to the girl?  When the assignment was over, my daughter said that one was my story.  She is in the 10th grade.  We have gone out to the abortion clinics together for years.  When one of my daughters was eight years old, she went and talked a young woman out of an abortion

and that young woman named her baby after my daughter.  I'm so glad that my children "get it" and that they'll be spared the pain I endured.

I thank you for the opportunity to share this with you.  God bless and keep you.

-- Jennifer McCoy

Julie Savage's Story -- rape victim who became pregnant and is raising her child.  She also started a ministry for rape victims –

http://www.peacehopeandhealing.co.uk/

Julie is from the United Kingdom and is available for speaking jsavage641@btinternet.com

My story ultimately spans many years, but here I present some of the main points.  I was

 twenty-four years old.  I was happy, in a relationship, healthy and confident. It was what today would be called an ‘acquaintance rape’.  The man was old enough to be my father, a friend/employer of my own partner and father to a friend at work.  He was somewhat of the ‘big man’ of the village I lived in, the one who owned most land and whose family had dominated the place for generations.  But he was friendly enough and we had got on well over the two years that I had known him.  He was, however, a drinker and regularly got into fights with non locals due to his Welsh nationalist fervent beliefs.  He was a 'ladies man', but always with those of his own age and we had all heard the rumours of his use of prostitutes since his marriage had ended.  But he wasn’t alone in this.  Others in the community were similar -- it just seemed part of the way of life amongst this small insular village.  I thought he was alright.   He was always kind to me and my partner and accepted me, despite my ‘Englishness’, because my partner, also Welsh, had accepted me as part of the community.   

A group of us went out one night, not a group of drunken youngsters, but a group of people from the same village, including this man and a dear seventy year old.  We had a lot to drink and it resulted in my having a massive argument with my partner.  I walked out and began to walk back to the village with him threatening to take the lamb that I had hand-reared to the slaughter house with the  rest of his flock the following day.  Later that evening, I visited this  man who had always told both my partner and I that he would always  help us out -- he had even offered to pay for the wedding if we ‘just  got on with it and got married.’  And so, I went to see him.  He was kind and understanding.  He promised to sort things out with my partner and, if necessary, to buy the lamb and keep it at his farm until my partner had ‘calmed down.’  I had a cup of coffee and some soup.  I lost the next three days. 

The passage of time and place over those days is completely distorted, even to this day.  I remember times of joking and feeling fine and times of fear and physical pain; which came when I couldn’t  say.  I can recall him raping me at least four times and seemingly passing out throughout since I can still not recall the ‘end’ as it were.  I remember sometimes putting up a fight and getting hit and other times freezing with fear and just wanting it to end.  The first time I became truly lucid, I was sitting on a couch in front of a television and the news was on.  I felt sick, dizzy, and shocked.  But still, at that time, not really sure what had happened.  I didn’t even know what day it was.  He just looked over at me and said it was the best sex he had ever had.  My first thought was that he must be playing a joke, and so I just said, "Well I hope you took precautions."  No, he assumed I would be on the pill because of my being in a relationship.  I simply stood up and went home.   

When I got home, I went into the shower and only then did I see the  state of my body, the cuts, bruises and massive bite marks -- one of  which left a scar which took over five years to disappear -- and it  was only then that the internal pain hit me.  Flashbacks occurred over a period of a year.  He admitted what he had done to some. but said that it didn’t matter because ‘she was out of it.’  My partner still blamed me for going up there in the first place, and despite numerous attempts to restore our relationship, I eventually returned  to live in the town I was brought up in as a child. 

When I found out I was pregnant, my partner immediately suspected that it wasn’t his and so did I.  A scan at the hospital originally suggested that it could be my partner's.  So despite having moments when I felt I not only wanted, but needed an abortion, I decided not to abort.  However, when I became seriously ill with pre-eclampsia, which left me in a critical condition, a scan changed the original date making the baby very likely to be the man who raped me.  After three months in the hospital with a sick baby who I couldn't bond with, and after the trauma of a HIV test because of his past with prostitutes, I suffered from what they called a psychotic episode brought on by severe reactive depression.  I was considered a suicide risk and a threat to the life of my baby.  I was sectioned and locked up away from my baby. 

Eventually released, I was determined to crawl my way back.  Fourteen years on, I love my daughter and have recently sought a DNA test from the man who raped me who is now in his late 60's.  He refused.  I had thought of police action, but then I remembered the response of people.  Some didn’t believe.  Some thought little of it.  I wasn’t a virgin.  This wasn’t rape in a dark alley by a stranger.   Somehow it didn’t ‘fit the picture’ of the typical rape and yet, having had sexual partners, I was very aware of the difference between consent and rape.  The marks on my body testified to what my mind and heart knew and what my memory -- though distorted in many ways -- recalled. 

I spent eight years angry, struggling to bring up my child, and seeking the bloodiest of revenge, but ultimately always being too scared.  I spent eight years feeling ashamed and also so angry that I was not believed and that I was blamed in some way for what had happened.  I worked hard to get my life back, and whilst on the outside I seemed to do so successfully, inside the trauma of the rape, my serious pregnancy illness, baby’s birth, and being sectioned away, haunted me. 

It was my anger with what the Bible seemed to say about rape that was the means God used to open my eyes to the fact of His  existence through Jesus Christ.  The story of my conversion is below, but for now I want to share that only He has helped me to  understand and to be at peace.  He has taken my anger and grief and used it to show me things about who I am and about who He is.   I can still get upset to this day, though never as deep as before.  I can still get angry, but never as deep as before.  The deepness  hasn’t dissipated with the passage of time, since after eight years, it  was still as raw as that first lucid day. The deepness has dissipated since He has begun the healing process.   

I will never have justice in this world.  But I know that my God will avenge.  I also know, however, that He could save that man and forgive him.  I initially found solace in the former, but now am beginning to accept the latter. 

If you are a sexual abuse victim, then I’m sure that will make you  angry.  I cannot convince you of the reality of Christ and how peace and hope are possible.  I can only tell my story and pray that Christ  uses it as a means through which to whisper to you,  ‘I am here and  with me there is peace with God and hope and healing.’ 

Before I became a Christian, I would have been offended at being  associated with what I had considered to be a human construction,  sold as some ‘truth,’ taken up by those gutless enough not to live  according to their own sense of morality.  I was polite to Christians, but inside, they made me angry.  They promoted an absolute: God.   I didn’t believe in absolutes.  I equated that with the denial of true human freedom.  Christianity was simply an oppressive system of thought. and the sooner the world was free from its ‘taint,’ the  better.  If my criticism of Christianity had once been rooted in primarily academic thought, it also soon became one emotionally motivated by the personal experience of rape.  If I could find, or create, opportunities in my teaching position to undermine some of  its basic tenets, I would.  I took witchcraft as a symbolic contestation of the patriarchal content of Christianity; lesbianism in the same way.  I believed the personal to be political -- so I took the latter into my personal life.  I wanted to show Christianity as both ‘mad,’ but more importantly ‘bad,’ and to be rightfully challenged.  My Will, (despite having had occasion to confront my mortality and that of my  daughters’), stated the absolute need for me to have a humanist  burial.  I wanted to take my challenge even to the point of my death. 

What began as a range of hostile e-mails to various Christian anti-abortion groups, led to my participating on Christian discussion forums.  I enjoyed the challenge of this, often boasting to my students of my ‘victories’ in arguments.  I read the Bible in order to challenge it.  After some months, I began to be more than intellectually curious, and found I was battling against a heart which wanted to ask, ‘Are you there God?’  I was angry with myself for wanting to even ask this question.  As the curiosity grew, so did the conflict.  Partly in response to a challenge, and partly as an attempt to just end a journey that I had never imagined finding myself on, I decided to go to a church.  Apart from a couple of marriages and funerals, I had never been to a church service.  I sat for three weeks outside Grace.  I watched.  My pride hurt.  When I finally made it through the doors, on the way in and out ensuring that nobody I knew would see me, it was less with a truly seeking heart and more  with the hope of confirming my original criticism.  Then life would return to normal. 

For months I listened, and the conflict and frustration grew.  For some reason, I couldn’t just quit and ‘walk.’  I could only walk with the ammunition needed to justify my original position.  So I decided to create a situation (an argument) which could justify my leaving in a self-righteous manner.  The problem was that those involved were not playing the game the way I had hoped.  Not enough ammunition.  I tried to engage the visiting pastor.  He wasn’t having any of it either.  I was left very angry and frustrated -- and still needing an  excuse to quit and walk.  Whilst in the car driving home, God became a reality.  I knew He was there.  It was a simple knowingness -- as I know the reality of the air I breathe.  For over thirty hours, I struggled with God -- no sleep and no work.  I tried to ignore Him by desperately convincing myself that His reality was in fact just some psychological phenomenon.  If I ignored Him, stopped going to church, and stopped reading the Bible, I would soon recover. 

I went to bed early, quite at peace with this.  I had a strategy to deal with His seeming reality.  In fact, I was quite chuffed with myself.  I had a story to share: how Christianity had even half-indoctrinated me!  At one o’clock in the morning, I found myself wide awake.  I walked downstairs.  I just sat there.  Through what seemed like an eternity, a sense of nothingness just grew and grew -- beyond a mere negative emotion -- beyond depression.  Absolute nothingness.  And then I was made aware of the presence of Christ.  I did not see or hear anything, but my very being knew His reality and His presence.  And I knew what He was saying: "That’s enough now."  He was right.  It was enough.  During the moments that followed, I did not decide to adopt some man-made principles.  I did not reach out in human desperation to some therapeutic humanly constructed knowledge form.  I did not even become ‘all religious.’  I entered into a relationship with my God who had hung on a cross for me so that, at that moment, I could finally be made right with Him -- so that I could finally know  Him. On reflection, I believe that the nothingness I experienced during those early hours of the morning was but a tiny glimpse of  what it is to be separated from God.  It is only due to His grace that I will not face such a thing for eternity after my death.  That happened October 30th, 2002.  I was baptised seven months later.  Today, I remain convinced of the reality of Christ.  Through the many physical, spiritual and emotional trials that followed my conversion, I have known more than ever that October 30, 2002, was indeed no illusion.  With trials have come great blessings, the  greatest one being the constant affirmation of Christ as indeed real,  alive today, still calling people to know Him, and still remaining the  closest and wisest friend I will ever know who guides me daily  through this life and eventually into eternity.  I know I remain far from  what I should be.  But I know with absolute certainty that I am no longer what I was.  That is the power of the God that I had once declared ‘dead.’ 

Julie Savage -- jsavage641@btinternet.com

"Grace Hope"'s Story -- a rape victim who declined the Morning After Pill

In September 2009 I was raped.  It wasn’t at all how I expected to spend that weekend -- first in urgent care, and then at the hospital to have the rape kit performed.  I couldn't believe this was happening to me!  -- that I was lying on the hospital bed in the SART room as the SART nurse performed the rape kit on me.  How did I get here?  I was terrified and an emotional wreck.  I couldn't help but sob!  I felt so alone!

I've been Pro-Life all my life,but as the rape kit was performed on me the only thing that went through my mind was that I finally understood why some rape victims would decide to have an abortion!  And that thought saddened me . . .because there was no way I would want to be pregnant with the child of my rapist.  Just the SART nurse asking me the question, "Do you think you could be pregnant?" made me want to scream!!  I hated my rapist and wished he could experience the same pain I was going through, because the rape kit is very painful.

But I realized how wrong I was to even think about abortion when every life is a gift . . . no matter how that life comes packaged to us!  I was embarrassed for thinking about destroying an innocent life just because my pain was too difficult for me to endure.  How selfish of me to think my needs were more important than the "Life” of another human being!  I immediately repented to God and asked His forgiveness for even thinking of murdering another by thinking of aborting my unborn baby.  And no unborn child deserves capital punishment for the sins of his/her father.

So I knew as I sobbed and as they took the most graphic pictures of my injuries that I could never take a life that wasn't mine to take!  Only GOD is the Author and Creator of Life, and Life should be revered as a gift from conception until natural death.  So when I was presented with the Morning After Pill I told the SART nurse, “No," that I wouldn’t take it "because I’m pro-Life!”

I knew the purpose of the pill is to “terminate a pregnancy” to ultimately “destroy" the "life of another human being.”  There are three ways the Morning After Pill operates: 1) If you have not yet ovulated, it prevents ovulation. 2) If you have ovulated, but have not yet conceived, it prevents conception. 3) If you have conceived a child, it prevents the unborn child from implanting in the uterine wall (referred to as "blastocyst" by the time the unborn child would be ready to implant), by creating a hostile environment, thereby killing that unborn child because you've cut off his or her ability to receive the nutrients he or she needs to continue developing.  The SART team will tell you that the pill won't "terminate a pregnancy."  But the SART team would be deceiving you because the "Morning After Pill" does "terminate a pregnancy."

Fortunately, I wasn't pregnant, but if I had been, I know I can say without any reservations that I would have chosen "LIFE" for my baby!  Because that child would have been my baby ~ my gift from GOD!

Since my rape, I have forgiven my rapist and have recently started a Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/pages/A-Victims-Journey-to-Finding-Peace-Healing-Hope-and-Forgiveness/233835134423?ref=ts#/pages/A-Victims-Journey-to-Finding-Peace-Healing-Hope-and-Forgiveness/233835134423?ref=mf

to help other’s heal.

Yours for Life,

"Grace Hope"

This is a poem called "You" by Heather Peterson-Grech who was attacked and
raped by a stranger, and then became pregnant and chose life for her daughter
-- a decision she does not regret.

"You"

You…
how dare you…
Who do you think I am? Not a person?
I do not have feelings? Yes I feel, I feel anger,
Hate and long to see you hurt
I want to push your face into the ground
I want to make you feel fear so strong
That you cannot make a sound
I want you to cry and plead, and then tell you to shut-up!
I want you to feel even the smallest amount of pain I feel
To push, and pull, to make you throw up…
On the ground, I will watch you lie, helpless and afraid
I want to say to you all of the things you said to me
To make you fear the night and hate the day
I want to walk away with a laugh, feeling oh so proud of myself
While you lie naked, cold, and helpless on the ground
Pleading, screaming, with no sound…
For help that never comes around…
I want you to feel dirty, so dirty no water
Can ever make you clean, scrub and scrub
No matter what, the filth you leave is mean
I want you to know that you did not win,
I will never let this take me
For what came to be from that night, you will never see
You will never see her smile, or hold her in your arms
You will never watch her take a step, or protect her from any harm
You will never hear the words “I love you", you will never hold her on your lap
You will never see a paper with a gold star; you will never see that graduation cap
You will never hear wedding bells, or the cry of her newborn babe,
You are not her father, out of love this child was made
For this little girl is a gift from God, oh how blessed am I
That he chose me to be her Mother, while on that cold dark ground I did lie
He saw that she would need me and I her, and you were just a vessel
Get on your knees, pray very hard, while on your way to meet the Devil
I cannot forgive you yet for the pain, you caused me on that freezing night,
One day it will come, one day soon enough,
Until then, I hope I will be all right………

-- Heather Peterson-Grech, New Mexico
mytenzie@aol.com

  Angelina Steenstra's Story -- rape survivor who regrets aborting her child conceived by rape.  Angelina is the President and Co-founder of Second Chance Post Abortion Healing, and is also the National Coordinator of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign Canada.  She is from the Toronto area and is available for speaking -- Asteenstra@sympatico.ca 905-430-7990, 647-330-9749 (cell)

I had an abortion to erase a date rape and I regret it to this day!  

I was driven by fear.  I was told abortion was no big deal -- that it would solve my problem. Finally, I caved into my fears and made the phone call that would end the life of my child and begin a lifetime of suffering and regret.

The saleswoman on the other end of the phone skillfully confirmed all my fears -- the fear of being ridiculed, rejected, a bad example to my siblings, of losing the love of my immediate and extended family, of being a single mother, of my inability to care for another, of not finishing school.  She told me to find some friends to lend me $250 and to drive me to the abortuary.

Deeply conflicted, I went to Buffalo NY and underwent a surgical abortion.  I was awake for the procedure.  During the abortion, I felt panic, disbelief, and shame as I placed my feet in the metal stirrups.  I felt the icy cold instruments enter my body.  I felt the intense physical pain of the baby being scraped from the wall of my womb.  I heard the sound of a high pitched vacuum cleaner that vacuumed out her remains.  I saw the bottle next to my right foot fill up with the bloody remains of my child.  I felt the horror of “What have I done?”I was filled with helplessness, shock and instant regret before it was even over.  I began to cry uncontrollably -- it all happened so fast.  There was no turning back, no reversing the contents of the bottle.  It was such a horrible reality -- so very final!

Instantly, I knew what I had done was wrong.  I knew it deep inside.  I had been an accomplice in death.  I had broken the law to not kill another human person.  I knew that I could never again be the person I was before going into the abortion centre!  I was changed forever!  The realization was so devastating -- I wanted to die.  I remember thinking, "I hate you. You will never be able to fix this!"

I was given a sedative to make me sleep.  I hoped I would never wake up.On the way home while crying, I lied to the women next to me when asked if I was okay.  

As time went on I changed my name, my job, my address, friends and behavior all in an effort to start over.  But I could not get away from myself, and the all pervading sense of guilt and shame.  The secret was always there.  I lived in a prison of self-rejection, self-hatred, and self-condemnation.  It didn’t matter what anyone said to justify abortion -- it could not undo the truth of what I saw, heard and felt on the day of the abortion.

I turned to alcohol, drugs and sexual affairs to numb the pain.  I fell away from friends and family.  My life spun out of control and I became suicidal.I went to a therapist for help hoping he would tell me what I knew deep down -- that the abortion was wrong and that it was at the root of my depression and self-destructive behavior.  But I found no help, only denial.  

I turned away from suicide when a help line validated the truth that I knew deep inside -- abortion is wrong because it took the life of another human person.  I experienced so much relief that I thought the abortion was behind me.

Shortly thereafter, I married.  The abortion again took front and centre while standing at the altar on my wedding day.  As I said "yes" to accepting children, I found myself saying secretly to myself, "in five years."  Fear was driving me.  Pregnancy, babies, doctors all made me afraid.  It wasn’t long before I found myself becoming a workaholic to avoid going home, to avoid the marital embrace, to avoid pregnancy.  I could not let myself think about having a baby, about being a mother.

I starved myself as punishment for the abortion.  I smoked two packages of cigarettes a day all in an effort to swallow the pain.  By the third year of marriage, I had a physical and emotional breakdown, which led to a leave of absence from my job.  I could not cope.

I was in a "catch 22" -- I wanted to want to have children, but I was so afraid. And not being able to conceive only added to my distress.  Was I being punished for the abortion?  My mental anguish was acute.  Abortion connectors were everywhere.  The sound of vacuum cleaners could drive me to extreme anger.  I avoided the dentist because of the sound of the drill.  I remembered every

Anniversary date of the abortion.

Finally, another side effect of abortion -- ectopic pregnancy -- broke down the walls of lies and deceit that had kept me a prisoner.  Rushed to Emergency with internal bleeding that had gone on for three days, I was told that I was 9 to 10 weeks pregnant.  The baby was growing in the fallopian tube which had ruptured.  I was in danger of losing my life.

After much resistance, I agreed to the surgery to save my life and remove the baby.   How was this different from abortion?

And thus began my healing from the abortion of 14 years earlier.  As I accepted the death of our son Joseph Michael Steenstra, I grieved his loss, as did those around me.  As I grieved Joseph, I questioned myself -- was not the abortion also a loss that needed to be grieved? And what did I need to grieve?

One day, I found the courage to face the truth of abortion by looking at an image of a developing child who died through abortion.  I faced the ugliness of abortion.  I wept for what I had allowed to happen to my first child.  I wept for the loss of her life, for the loss of her geneology.  The truth brought tears of healing and freedom.  I researched the topic of post abortion aftermath.  I read about other people’s experiences, which helped me to name and own my experience.  

I personalized my child, and named her Sarah Elizabeth.  I acknowledged that I needed to be forgiven for saying "yes" to her death.  The hardest thing to do was to imagine her in front of me, looking me in the eye while I asked, ”Would you please forgive Mommy for allowing you to be killed by abortion?”  As hard as that was, it was the most liberating step I ever took.  I know I am forgiven by my children.  I have forgiven myself and have been forgiven by those around me who were also affected by my decision.  I have integrated the experience into my life and through it, have helped many others to pick up the pieces of their lives after abortion.

I will be silent no more because abortion took the lives of my children -- Sarah through surgical abortion, and Joseph through an ectopic pregnancy caused by an STD contracted in the years while acting out my self-hatred.  Abortion did not erase the date rape, and it did not liberate me.  Abortion impoverished me and those around me by eliminating many lives.  To this day, I regret my abortion!

 Angelina Steenstra

 Lizzy Brew's Story  -- Lizzy became pregnant out of rape and had her child removed from her and placed for adoption without her consent.  Her website is gift-not-choice.tripod.com.  She is from Australia and is available for speaking --  brewhome@bigpond.net.au

As a fifteen-year-old virgin in 1975, my life changed forever when I was raped after entering the vehicle of a man from whom I had innocently accepted a lift home.  After he was finished with me, I started on my journey in the darkness of that three-kilometer walk – alone with my trauma.  I had trusted him and he had shattered that trust, much as I had trusted those who assured me that adoption would be an option for the son I had thereby conceived.

The removal of my son was a foregone conclusion as I was funneled into Saint Anthony's Home for Unmarried Mothers –          

a place from where the healthy unborn children of unmarried mothers were systematically marked for removal at birth on behalf of childless married couples.  All within the space of nine months, I had lost my sense of innocence as well as the son who had helped to restore it.  

The trauma and aftermath of the rape of my virginity paled into insignificance beside the trauma and aftermath of the rape of my womb.  My memories of his day of birth do not include giving him birth but having him removed from my body for the benefit of strangers.  

My Social record notes my response to the question, "Relationship with the natural father?" as "holiday romance".  Though those words were the only ones directly quoted as mine, they were among those suggested to me by the Social worker herself as I struggled for words to answer that question.  It was no doubt expedient for her to concur with my affirmative nod, as she maintained that my child needed a father and, as we both knew, my son's was not going to qualify.

Subsequently, in encountering those 'moderate' words: "I am opposed to abortion except in cases of rape," a stark contradiction lived side-by-side with the healing I had received through my baby son conceived in rape.  The six hourly periods I was permitted to hold him in fact gave purpose to the pain of the violation that had brought him into existence.  

In a day and age when abortion is so readily available, it must be no small recompense for a child conceived through rape, to know the purity of a love that far exceeds the conditional whim of an imaginary choice.  A heart open to the possibility of the given child is the exposition of human value and a bastion against ubiquitous, pro-choice rape propaganda.

Lizzy Brew

Australia

Sister Lucy Vertrusc's Story, told in a letter written to her mother superior. Sister Vertrusc became pregnant after she was raped in 1995 during the war in the former Yugoslavia. The letter appeared in an Italian newspaper at the behest of her Mother Superior.

"I am Lucy, one of the young nuns raped by the Serbian soldiers. I am writing to you, Mother, after what happened to my sisters Tatiana, Sandria, and me.

Allow me not to go into the details of the act. There are some experiences in life so atrocious that you cannot tell them to anyone but God, in whose service I had consecrated my life nearly a year ago.

My drama is not so much the humiliation that I suffered as a woman, not the incurable offense committed against my vocation as a religious, but the difficulty of having to incorporate into my faith an event that certainly forms part of the mysterious will of Him whom I have always considered my Divine Spouse.

Only a few days before, I had read "Dialogues of Carmelites" and spontaneously I asked our Lord to grant me the grace of joining the ranks of those who died a martyr of Him. God took me at my word, but in such a horrid way! Now I find myself lost in the anguish of internal darkness. He has destroyed the plans of my life, which I considered definitive and uplifting for me, and He has set me all of a sudden in this design of His that I feel incapable of grasping.

When I was a teenager, I wrote in my Diary: Nothing is mine, I belong to no one, and no one belongs to me. Someone, instead grabbed me one night, a night I wish never to remember, tore me off from myself, and tried to make me his own.

. .

It was already daytime when I awoke and my first thought was the agony of Christ in the Garden. Inside of me a terrible battle unleashed. I asked myself why God had permitted me to be rent, destroyed precisely in what had been the meaning of my life, but also I asked to what new vocation He was calling me.

I strained to get up, and helped by Sister Josefina, I managed to straighten myself out. Then the sound of the bell of the Augustinian convent, which was right next to ours, reached my ears. It was time for nine o'clock matins.

I made the sign of the cross and began reciting in my head the liturgical hymn. At this hour upon Golgotha's heights,/ Christ, the true Pascal Lamb,/ paid the price of our salvation.

What is my suffering, Mother, and the offense I received compared to the suffering and the offense of the One for whom I had a thousand times sworn to give my life. I spoke these words slowly, very slowly: May your will be done, above all now that 1 have no where to go and that I can only be sure of one thing: You are with me.

Mother, I am writing not in search of consolation, but so that you can help me give thanks to God for having associated me with the thousands of my fellow compatriots whose honor has been violated, and who are compelled to accept a maternity not wanted. My humiliation is added to theirs, and since I have nothing else to offer in expiation for the sin committed by those unnamed violators and for the reconciliation of the two embittered peoples, I accept this dishonor that I suffered and I entrust it to the mercy of God.

Do not be surprised, Mother, when I ask you to share with me my "thank you" that can seem absurd.

In these last months I have been crying a sea of tears for my two brothers who were assassinated by the same aggressors who go around terrorizing our towns, and I was thinking that it was not possible for me to suffer anything worse, so far from my imagination had been what was about to take place.

Every day hundreds of hungering creatures used to knock at the doors of our convent, shivering from the cold, with despair in their eyes. Some weeks ago, a young boy about eighteen years old said to me: How lucky you are to have chosen a refuge where no evil can reach you. The boy carried in his hands a rosary of praises for the Prophet. Then he added: You will never know what it means to be dishonored.

I pondered his words at length and convinced myself that there had been a hidden element to the sufferings of my people that had escaped me as I was almost ashamed to be so excluded. Now I am one of them, one of the many unknown women of my people, whose bodies have been devastated and hearts seared. The Lord had admitted me into his mystery of shame. What is more, for me, a religious, He has accorded me the privilege of being acquainted with evil in the depths of its diabolical force.

I know that from now on the words of encouragement and consolation that I can offer from my poor heart will be all the more credible, because my story is their story, and my resignation, sustained in faith, at least a reference, if not example for their moral and emotional responses.

All it takes is a sign, a little voice, a fraternal gesture to set in motion the hopes of so many undiscovered creatures.

God has chosen me-may He forgive my presumption-to guide the most humble of my people towards the dawn of redemption and freedom. They can no longer doubt the sincerity of my words, because I come, as they do, from the outskirts of revilement and profanation.

I remember the time when I used to attend the university at Rome in order to get my masters in Literature, an ancient Slavic woman, the professor of Literature, used to recite to me these verses from the poet Alexej Mislovic: You must not die/because you have been chosen/ to be a part of the day.

That night, in which I was terrorized by the Serbs for hours and hours, I repeated to myself these verses, which I felt as balm for my soul, nearly mad with despair.

And now, with everything having passed and looking back, I get the impression of having been made to swallow a terrible pill.

Everything has passed, Mother, but everything begins. In your telephone call, after your words of encouragement, for which I am grateful with all my life, you posed me a very direct question: What will you do with the life that has been forced into your womb? I heard your voice tremble as you asked me the question, a question I felt needed no immediate response; not because I had not yet considered the road I would have to follow, but so as not to disturb the plans you would eventually have to unveil before me. I had already decided. I will be a mother. The child will be mine and no one else's. I know that I could entrust him to other people, but he-though I neither asked for him nor expected him-he has a right to my love as his mother. A plant should never be torn from its roots. The grain of wheat fallen in the furrow has to grow there, where the mysterious, though iniquitous sower threw it.

I will fulfill my religious vocation in another way. I will ask nothing of my congregation, which has already given me everything. I am very grateful for the fraternal solidarity of the Sisters, who in these times have treated me with the utmost delicacy and kindness, especially for never having asked any uncareful questions.

I will go with my child. I do not know where, but God, who broke all of a sudden my greatest joy, will indicate the path I must tread in order to do His will.

I will be poor again, I will return to the old aprons and the wooden shoes that the women in the country use for working, and I will accompany my mother into the forest to collect the resin from the slits in the trees.

Someone has to begin to break the chain of hatred that has always destroyed our countries. And so, I will teach my child only one thing: love. This child, born of violence, will be a witness along with me that the only greatness that gives honor to a human being is forgiveness.

 Through the Kingdom of Christ for the Glory of God."

 Ashley Boyer's Story -- raising her son who was conceived out of rape when

she'd been abducted for days and raped.  Ashley resides in Michigan and is

available for speaking -- abproliferapesurvivor@gmail.com

Well it all started with me making some poor decisions in my life, and I basically became homeless with nowhere to go. So in a effort to better myself, I reached out to an old friend in New York who agreed to help me, and off to New York I went. At first,everything was great.  I was working every day and things were going great. Then my friend and I started to not get along so great.  Since I had a job, I decided to rent a room -- something I had done in the past living in New York, and it was through someone I knew and who I’d met when I’d lived out there before. So I moved in and was there for about three days when things started to change and I knew something wasn’t right.

Though my childhood was abusive, I knownow that I was pretty sheltered in that small community from much of the horrors of this world. Of course I’d heard of such a thing as sex trafficking, but had no idea that it was a part of America, and could not fathom that I’d ever be targeted.  So I was utterly confused when I was attacked while heading to a subway in Manhattan, abducted, and taken to a place only to find that the abductors already had all of my belongings there.  I was then told that I’d been “sold” to this man who called himself a pimp.  I’d never heard of such a form of slavery in the modern U.S., but it’s real and I lived through it – beaten and threatened with death for refusing to submit to his sinister plan. On one occasion, in order to try to prove to me that my situation was hopeless, he took me into the city during the day and cut me with a razor in front of people in a busy train station.  No one stopped – no one said a thing!  He laughed and said, "Don't you get it? No one cares about you! No one cares what happens to you.”

Eventually I escaped with the help of a bus driver who did care, only to be found at a train station by a friend of his who held me captive as well, saying he would hurt me in ways I could never prove because he wouldn’t leave marks. And then he raped me.  Later that night, I got a hold of his phone and called a friend who was able to get help for me to be rescued.  I remember being told, “Don't worry, you’re safe now.”

Immediately, I went to a hospital to get tested.  I waited for my results and was so relieved when they said I was clean -- I thought, “I can move on with my life” and I left New York.  Experiencing some pain, and wanting to be absolutely

certain I was clean, I returned to a hospital a month later to make sure AIDS or other STDs that don't show up right away had not surfaced. I was clean, but the doctor said she believed the trauma caused some other issues which were causing some of my pain, and that I was infertile.  At that point, I was happy to be safe and STD-free, so I just tried to move on with my life from there.

A month later, I became really depressed and thought the random crying spells were just delayed emotions from the traumatic events that had just happened.  But then I grew nauseous, among other things. I explained to my cousin how I felt and what the doctor had said and she insisted that I get a second opinion since she suspected I was pregnant.  Hearing her suggest this, I couldn't wait for a doctor’s appointment, and so I went to the dollar store and bought a test. I was so scared! I went in the bathroom and my cousin stood there with me.  Even before I was done, it turned positive and it was quite clear then why I had had the physical symptoms of pregnancy -- I was indeed pregnant.  I went to the hospital that night to be sure and to see how far along I was.  They told me I was 12 weeks and 6 days -- quite far along.  I was in shock and enraged: “How did this happen?!  How was this missed?  Why me?!  How?!  No -- this can't be!”  I had tried to have a child with a previous boyfriend for two years which resulted in our break up.  “How could I be pregnant from this one time by this disgusting person? This must be a dream -- this cannot be real!”  

As soon as they let my cousin back in, I told her, “This is not a option -- I cannot, I CANNOT have this baby!  No!  I want it out!”  But once I calmed down, I realized that I was blessed with a life after I’d been told I would never have children. This was a sign from God and I never really believed in abortion.  Abortion is murder and I'm not a murderer!  At that point, I chose to keep my baby.  Adoption was not a option for me either.  I could not just give him away and I’ve always known that he was given to me for a purpose.

Today, I'm happy to say I have a healthy baby boy! He is the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I truly believe that God gave me this child to save my life.  If I wouldn't have had him, I know I would have continued on a destructive path of poor choices, and would most likely be dead right now.  Now that it’s no longer just me,  but I have this awesome child to look after, I’m making much better decisions in my life – who I’m friends with, where I live, and what I do with my time. I struggle everyday knowing how he came in this world, but I don't love him any less or plan to treat him any type of way because of it.  It is not his fault how he was created, nor did he ask to be created, but he was created for a reason and he has changed my life in the most positive way!  Now I take my son to pray outside of abortion clinics with me so that we can save his little baby friends together!

Kellie Sonnier's Story -- Kellie is raising her daughter who was

conceived out of a date-rape.  Her story also appears on her blog

and is reposted here with permission.

I made a promise to tell this story. If it helps someone, then it will be worth the potential fall out that may come from posting it. If it offends you, then that's okay too.

More than a few years ago, after my divorce, I had a one night stand that I don't even remember really.  Some may call it date rape. I prefer to think that I had too much to drink and literally blacked out. I was in the wrong place, trying to find love in the wrong ways, looking to the wrong people to provide it.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was in shock and denial. When it finally sank in, fear encapsulated me. I was 35 years old. I had kids already. I was divorced, and on my own. My kids meant everything to me, but I could not dream of having one more. It felt like I was in mortal combat with a force greater than myself, despite my reasoning and rationale. The inevitable circles of my mind were on endless replay.

How would I take care of another baby alone? How would I give him/her all that they would need? How would I tell my kids? What would I tell my kids? I cannot do this! I don't want to do this!!  

Fear and pride won, and I pulled the short straw for an abortion. Making the appointment was easy. Driving to the clinic was a numbing experience. Walking in and sitting down to fill out paper work felt cold. Following through was a bitch though and I couldn't do it. I left the clinic that afternoon still pregnant, tears streaming with a combo punch of feeling humiliated yet relieved. Believe it or not, this same scene happened two more times.

By the third time I entered that clinic, they were prepared for me. Every worker seemed so nice; the atmosphere less cold. A woman actually put her arm around me this time and assured me I was doing the right thing. For the circumstance in which the pregnancy occurred, I could hardly disagree. I did not want to be pregnant. Hell, I didn't even remember the act of sex that brought this nightmare to reality. I had talked myself into believing that I was indeed making the right choice. I was scared before, but a new determination rose up within me. I covered my emotions, and marched forward to end the misery I was in. Then came the dreaded ultrasound.

I got dressed and left that clinic, taking my emotional baggage with me instead of leaving it there as I had planned. I was still depressed, weighted, and clueless how to proceed. The choice I made that day will play itself out for the rest of my life . . . and hers.

This is Rachael. We will be celebrating her 4th birthday in just a few weeks.

Was she a choice?  In today's world people will say letting her survive was my right...my right to choose. So I guess you can say she was a choice. While I sit here and watch her play though, I don't know how I could've reasonably assumed that I had any choice. She is a force of being that says "I have a right to live" without ever saying the words.

Although I was scared to death, I have  never regretted leaving that clinic.

When she was invisible to the world in the form of a tiny person known only to me and a handful of clinicians, she was still a person. She was still her. There are moments that grip my heart with despair knowing that I was one step away from taking her life in order to restore mine to it's prior stability. Other moments are joy unexplained when I look back, knowing that I was one step away from extinguishing this little girl from existence...but I made the choice for her. Do I still face hardship? Yes and I still do it alone.

The crisis of pregnancy I faced was minuscule compared to this beauty of life named Rachael. She's a gift no matter how she was conceived; no matter how bad the timing;  Her life is priceless.

 It's 2009, and we all talk about abortion, we argue over abortion, we petition, and we debate. The one thing it rarely carries in the heat of

 Analyn Megison -- a rape survivor who is raising her child who was conceived

in rape.

     I am a law school graduate.  After earning my juris doctorate degree, I had the honor of being appointed by the Governor of Louisiana as Special Assistant to the Governor on Women's Policy.  What a blessing and unique opportunity to serve this pro-life governor and the people of the great state of Louisiana!  I was appointed at the sunset of the governor's administration, and had a tremendous amount of research to do, along with numerous public speaking engagements.

     I continued to attend and participate at Mass, as well as attend the weekly prayer breakfasts at the governor's mansion. As it became abundantly clear to those citizens in the state who were opposed to my stance in support of unborn children, and that I did not waiver in my conviction that abortion was a violence against women -- often forced upon them as a way of covering the evidence of abuse and violence that specifically targeted women, I developed new friends and certain enemies.

     My Catholic faith teaches that life begins at conception.  I am grateful that this foundation was not something I doubted, and I had also seen much concrete scientific research and evidence on this subject since my youth.  Thus, I had continued to question the varied ambiguities and conflicts in the laws of Louisiana and other jurisdictions, including international treaties of which I learned while a visiting law student at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C..  I disagreed with rape and other exceptions for abortion, and implored lawmakers in both the state and federal realms to consider being in line with the Church teachings that life begins at conception across the board, and to nurture and value that life.  With my strong convictions, I was a horror to many degreed women, particularly others I encountered from a legal education environment.  But I was blessed to have good professors beside me who were Catholic priests and, of course, many others who considered life and the legal rights of a human to be paramount.  

     When challenged as to whether I would have a child if I became pregnant due to rape, I said “Yes.”  This foundation is a blessing because abortion was not something I would have considered for myself.  Where is the logic in doing further violence to a woman who has been violated by rape?  The consequences for a female victim are just not going to be the same for a male victim of sexual assault because of biology:  men just do not get pregnant. Then, the insult to me was "would I impose a rape baby on some other rape victim?"  A high ranking woman attorney in Louisiana asked me that!  Women can be very vicious toward one another, unfortunately.

     Then, I became that victim -- I was raped.  I thought that I had fought off my rapist successfully, though there was so much blood and I was in pain. Afterward, I learned that I was pregnant from this attack.  I could not believe it!  I had a baby growing inside of me and I was going to be a mother from rape.  Still in a lot of pain and very physically sick from this pregnancy, I endeavored to pray with my unborn baby, who I knew with certainty had a soul.  My rapist learned that I was pregnant and attacked me again, pointing a gun at my belly, threatening to "kill it too" if I did not drop the cases against him with the District Attorney.  I would pray, “Please, Jesus, spare my child's life!”

        Many people pressured me to have an abortion because I was raped. And many of them called themselves pro-life and attended churches!  There was a lot to suffer as an unwed mother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  I was told not to follow my doctor's orders or to fall down some stairs because “a miscarriage will get rid of it, which is not a sin!"  I’d pray even more:  “Lord Jesus Christ, God our Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thank you for this precious life. Please knock these Pharisees down with a lightning bolt, and protect us, and make these fools stop calling my child ‘it’!”

        God has walked with me and my child since conception, and continues to carry us in His arms.  Throughout this experience, my fellow Vincentians from our Society of St. Vincent de Paul defended and walked beside me and my child who was yet to be born.  So did my parish priest and nuns in Baton Rouge.  The Missionaries of Charity -- Mother Theresa's nuns, were there and prayed for me and my child, even allowing us to join with them in prayer for adoration.  

        The rapist violated the injunction for protection, and continued to assault me -- I even had to climb out onto the roof of my home through a window one time when he burglarized my home while I was pregnant with my child.  Nevertheless, I continued to refuse to seek an abortion, nor did I want to give my child up for adoption.  I wanted to raise my child and love my child.  I consecrated my unborn child to the Infant Jesus of Prague, whose shrine I visited while studying international law in the Czech Republic.  I had to be on bed-rest in my pregnancy so that I would not lose my child, which was scoffed at by many because I was trying to protect and nurture my unborn child conceived when I was brutally raped.  “Why not just stop taking the progesterone?” -- which helped nurture my pregnancy -- “and call it ‘God's will’?”  How sick is this, Lord Jesus?! At least people I knew who called themselves pro-choice supported my decision to continue my pregnancy and raise this child as a single mother.  My parish priest did not abandon me, and even when a well-meaning lay person wanted me to marry a gay man she knew so that I would not be "unwed."  Some people were not only misguided, but also downright cruel.

     “Lord Jesus -- God, you are a father to the fatherless.  God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit carry my child and me through this!”  I had to fight so hard with other allegedly pro-life people about how this is not my child's crime, that my child is not a rapist or inhuman "product" and that I was clear that I was going to raise my child.  I had called maternity homes and was horrified that they would only help if you were a pregnant minor child, or often they were unable to help provide lodging for a pregnant woman who already had other children.  Or, they would only help the pregnant mother if she signed an adoption contract.  It seemed cruel on so many levels.  I grew concerned about forced adoption contracts in a situation of duress and/or if the mother who was pregnant was herself a minor child, because it was clear to me that this is taking place, along with forced abortions.  I was not going to be bullied into giving my baby up for adoption, nor starved into submission.  

     Finally, I called the Diocese of Baton Rouge, and was free to enter their home for pregnant mothers that did not require an adoption contract.  As the abused women's shelter was often full to capacity and could not accommodate my medical issues that arose due to the pregnancy and the stress of repeated retaliation stalking and violence from my rapist, this option worked best. This was only the beginning of the sacrifices to be made.  Yet, I can declare that my child is so worth every moment of these things which I have shared.  My child makes none of the ugliness or ignorance matter!  I have walked through fire gladly, and will continue to do so, whenever and wherever in life.

     I am a rape survivor.  I am a mother.  

     I am a beloved daughter of the King of Kings.  I am blessed!

-- Analyn Megison