Just finished reading Michelle Alexander’s piece "My Rapist Apologized" in the New York Times. She writes about her own experience in response to her 12 year old daughter’s questioning-
My 12-year-old daughter recently asked me what I think about abortion. She walked into the kitchen, poked around the refrigerator, then spun around and blurted it out: “I can’t decide what I think about abortion. I want to know what you think.”
At some length, she tells her story and the resulting struggle-
But now everything was falling apart. I was devastated, emotionally wrecked, not only because I had been raped but because I was pregnant with my rapist’s child. I wondered aloud whether I should just quit law school and give birth to the baby that had been forced inside me.
In telling her own story she points to the realities and risks woman of color face-health, mortality, economic. But one point i don’t often see discussed, at least to the extent and personal way she shared it -
During my second year in law school, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case, Rust v. Sullivan, that many worried might overturn the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade. I recall some male law students arguing that abortion bans wouldn’t be so bad, so long as there were exceptions made in cases of rape. I wondered how a “rape exception” to an abortion ban could possibly help women, like me, who did not want to report a rape to the police and who could not possibly prove that a rape occurred if the man denied it. Criminal cases take months, even years, to be resolved. Would abortions be allowed based on mere allegations of rape without any proof? If not, what would a woman have to prove in a matter of days or weeks to get an abortion in the first trimester? How could she overcome the inevitable denial? What man would admit to rape knowing that he’d face a likely prison sentence?
...I know many women who’ve been raped; not one has called the cops.
The “rape and incest” exception is not reality. It’s meaningless b.s. As obvious as that is and as much discussion as I’ve heard over the years, I really hadn’t focused on that. It’s not a protection or some semblance of empathy or caring. It’s a phony cover.
Ms. Alexander covers so much in this piece, I can’t do it justice and I recommend you read it.
She concludes-
I said to my daughter, as a young woman, you will be faced with many difficult choices in your life and I cannot protect you from all that may come your way. You will have to decide for yourself what you think about abortion and everything else. I will always respect the careful decisions you make. But since you asked me, I will tell you: If we want to continue to have the rights and freedoms that were won in the generations that came before us, if we want gender and racial equality, and if we want the right to control our own bodies and destinies, we are going to have to stand up, speak out and fight for our right to choose.