How do you respond to abortion and rape/abuse?

[FreciaMarie]

As Jesus taught us, the best response is love. Be comforting and gentle as you speak with her. Counsel her to the best of your ability. Show her your love for her unborn child. Appeal to her own love for her unborn child. One way to do this is to talk about the endless possibilities for her child. He or she could be the next great scientist or doctor or even a saint. Now that she loves her child, the next business would be dealing with those around her that don’t want the child. There probably is not much you can do here, but a commitment you can make to her is to be there every step of the way. By this I mean be ready to counsel her at any time, so she can get over all of her fears and worries. Finally, pray for her because only she can make this big decision.

There is so much that is true, in the above. I hate the feeling that all I do is air dirty, sad laundry of my past life, on these forums, but when I was one of these women, about 25 years ago, the best and kindest and truest thing anyone could’ve done is synopsized, up there.

25 years ago, I couldn’t hear the arguments- I could only hear fear, fear, fear, fetus, clump of cells, fear, fetus, can’t do it alone, unfair, scary, fear, fear, fetus. I had no voices of love, BABY, love, help, BABY, BABY, child, future, baby, love, love, love.

From my perspective- my past perspective as one of these women- your best effort is in loving these damaged women, praying and continually loving (and talking about) their babies as BABIES. Children. Little boys, little girls, babies. (NO ONE talked about my baby as an actual baby. No one. My baby was referred to as “pregnancy” and “fetus”, by EVERYONE. That’s deliberate.)

And listen. Really listen. I think you ARE listening and that’s why you’re posting, but listen without any apparent agenda, outside of love…and if these women choose to kill their babies (like I, to my everlasting sorrow and sickness and sadness, chose to do), be the first place of comfort and healing and Truth that they turn.

Speaking for myself, I might have made a different decision, had I been afforded options or even just a different perspective from a place of gentle love…and even if not, I might have turned from sin and pain, faster, had I even seen a tiny glimpse of Jesus, in those around me. It took me 20 additional years to return to Jesus and His church, and by that time, my sins and pain had compounded to a point that I was almost completely strangled in death and hurt. I’m not blaming anyone other than myself, but I do sometimes wonder how differently those 20 years would have been spent, had I had anyone to guide me and love me.

God bless you for caring and for understanding that the truth cannot always be heard, in such a cut-and-dry manner, by those who are operating under extreme fear and lies. There are definitely those who can be persuaded in that way, but others, like myself, are just too damaged and scared to think behind surviving- whether emotionally, physically or both.

 

[SusansChoice]

I know I mentioned this before, but…

The horror of rape and abuse is in the violation of autonomy. It’s not the sexual nature - it’s about having one person behave in a way that says “your body is for me to use how I wish, no matter what you want or choose.” Addressing abortion in that context is difficult.

The child is innocent. But there is a real sense in which its presence is an ongoing violation, something a woman is forced to bear within her body despite neither willing it nor taking any act aimed to cause it. And it seems like the current dialogue has no place to acknowledge and handle that.

I was having a similar discussion with someone who told me about a study that had been done on rape victims who had gotten pregnant. I don’t know specifics, so I have no way to verify the truth of what she told me, but, as I thought about it the conclusion of the study made perfect sense:

The women who gave birth to their babies recovered more fully than the ones who aborted. No matter how a woman justifies a “termination”, the truth of what she has done will forever scar her soul. The conclusion being that the rapist has victimized her not once, but twice.

 

[Eruvande]

I think, in terms of the ‘bodily autonomy’ issue, there is some strength in saying ‘This situation has been out of my control until now - I can now bless another being with life’.

 

[livingwordunity]

Some things to consider are: Two wrongs don’t make a right. Why give the child the death penalty for the rape when the child is innocent of the crime? An abortion can never undo a rape. Once a woman gets pregnant that’s her baby forever spiritually and physically whether the baby lives or dies. (See the following article: Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains)