I am 100% pro-life, so I do not support rape and incest exceptions or exceptions for the life of the mother. Please allow me to explain and to tell my birth story so that it will become apparent why it is that I believe this.
I was conceived as the result of rape. My birthmother was married with two young children. Her husband was overseas in the military. She went out with a friend one evening and they struck up a conversation with a young man who was in the Air Force. It was only a casual conversation. They did not even learn his name.
Upon her return home, my birthmother put her children to bed. When she returned to the living room, the man she had spoken with earlier in the evening was standing in her doorway. He had followed her home, then entered her home unannounced, without her permission. She tried to talk to him, but he made it clear what he wanted. When she resisted, he hit her, pushed her down, and raped her. By the time she was able to get up, he was gone. She did not report it.
Four months later, she began to realize that she might be pregnant, so she went to the doctor. When the doctor confirmed that she was pregnant, she became panic stricken because she knew the pregnancy was due to the rape that she had gone through four months earlier. When her husband was deployed to Vietnam, he’d told her he wasn’t going to come back to her upon his return.
This was December, 1966, in California when I was conceived and then Missouri where she returned to her family during the pregnancy, where abortion was not legal at the time, so I was protected. I’m sure that she could’ve found a way to get one if she had wanted to, and she probably would’ve been advised to do just that. After all, here she was pregnant from rape with two young children, a husband who already said he was leaving her, and who was going to be absolutely certain that the child she was carrying was not his as he had been overseas. She hadn’t reported the rape and didn’t know the name of the man who raped her. There were no witnesses to the rape. Would her husband believe that she was pregnant by rape or would he just think she had been unfaithful to him in his absence? It must have been a horrible dilemma. But she was raised Catholic and the law shapes people’s views as well.
Abortion would have appeared to have been the easiest way out. She wouldn’t have to carry “her rapist’s child” as they say, and she wouldn’t have to explain anything to her husband. She wouldn’t have to take the risk of being believed to be unfaithful and the possibility that he would try to take her children away from her. All of that could have been avoided by terminating this pregnancy, terminating me, her unborn daughter.
My birthmother did not choose abortion and I am eternally grateful to her for that. I never got to meet her, but her family assured me that she loved me despite the circumstances of my conception. She chose life for me.
She told her mother what had happened and her mother told her that she would not give her any kind of help anymore if she chose to raise me. Her mother told her that she should place me for adoption. My oldest sister was born with a heart defect and was going to require surgery out of state in a couple of years. While my birthmother was out of state with my oldest sister, my other sister went to live with our grandmother who was elderly and had health issues. I’m sure that was part of the reason why my grandmother wanted her to place me for adoption. My grandmother was going to be the full time caretaker for my 5 year old sister. She probably didn’t think she’d be able to be a full time caretaker for a 2 year old toddler also. And if my birthmother had chosen to raise me, then she might need more financial help from my grandmother because she’d be supporting three children instead of two.
When my birthmother’s husband returned home from Vietnam, she told him what happened to her, and he also agreed that she should place me for adoption. They got divorced the month before I was born. She didn’t actually want to place me for adoption. She loved me despite the circumstances of my conception and wanted to raise me. However, she realized that she would not be able to raise me due to her circumstances at the time.
When I was born, the nurse laid me on my birthmother’s tummy and left me there for twenty minutes. Then they came and took me away and she never saw me again. She grieved for me for the rest of her life, wondering what happened to me, wondering if I looked like her, which I most certainly do. I’m the spitting image of her. She worried that I would hate her. Of course, I don’t. I love her deeply.
Two years after my adoptive father died and one year after my adoptive mother died, I found my birth family in 2013, but my birthmother had passed away in 2005. My birth family told me all about her, so I feel like I knew her. They answered all of my questions and told me everything they could think of about my family. My oldest sister passed away at age 15 in 1977 due to a heart attack that occurred due to her congenital heart defect. My other sister passed away in 2018 of lung cancer. She and I were very close. We had an instant connection when we met. Her death devastated me and I miss her every day. She had four children, so I have two nieces and two nephews. They are all grown and have their own kids. Between the four of them, they have nine kids, so I have two great-nieces and seven great-nephews. They are the joy of my life. I also have a younger brother.
My birth family instantly accepted me into the family and loved me from the very beginning. When I found them, I lived in Texas. I was born and adopted in Missouri, but I moved to Texas with my adoptive parents when I was two years old to be near my adoptive father’s family. I lived most of my life in Texas, but four months after I met my birth family, my husband and I moved to Missouri to be near the only family I had left.
I was born with a club foot which had to be corrected before the agency would release me for adoption. So I lived with a foster family for the first year of my life. I had a foster mother, foster father, foster brother, and foster sister. They all loved me dearly and were heartbroken when the agency placed me with my adoptive parents because they had wanted to adopt me themselves. My foster mother took me back and forth to the doctor and did the exercises the doctor said to do with me to help correct my club foot. I owe my ability to walk and to run, skip, hop, jump, and climb as a child to my foster mother. I did get to meet them a few years ago and it is plain to see that they love me deeply even to this day.
My adoptive parents couldn’t have biological children, so they adopted me. I grew up as an only child and was the center of their world. They loved me deeply. I had a wonderful life with them. They weren’t wealthy, but they were financially stable. I was able to go to a private, college prep school from 6th-12th grades. I also graduated from college. While in college, I was able to spend a semester studying in Rome and had opportunities to travel to other countries as well.
When my adoptive parents adopted me, they were overjoyed. They took me to meet extended family on both sides of the family. Both sides of my adoptive family were thrilled at the news that my adoptive parents had finally gotten a baby. They all loved me very much.
As an adult, I worked for six years for the State of Texas as an eligibility caseworker for Food Stamps, TANF, and Medicaid for poor families. Then I transferred to another department where I worked as an eligibility caseworker for Medicaid and related programs for the elderly and disabled. I worked there for seven years. After that, I was a substitute teacher for two years working in mostly high poverty schools. Then I became a full time bilingual English/Spanish and English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher.
I taught bilingual for three years, Dual Language English for one year and ESL for 2 years for a total of six years. I taught grades K-2 in high poverty schools. Now I am disabled, so I no longer work.
My life has had a positive impact on many people which wouldn’t have happened if I’d been aborted. Every child ever conceived has a purpose, but if they’re aborted, they never get to fulfill that purpose.
I could have been an abortion statistic because I was conceived in rape, and thankfully, I am not, but no baby deserves to be an abortion statistic.
My birthmother gave me the greatest gift, the gift of life. She gave my adoptive parents the gift of a child. For this, neither they nor I can possibly thank her enough. For, you see, she was not carrying “her rapist’s child”. She was carrying HER child. I do not belong to a rapist. I never did. He had no intent to give me life and never did anything to deserve to be called my father. He doesn’t even know that I exist. My birthmother, on the other hand, absolutely deserves to be called my mother. Although she suffered greatly in order to give me life, she still chose to do so. Love is a choice to sacrifice oneself for the sake of the beloved. My birthmother, then, loved me beyond measure. Would that every child conceived could say the same about their mothers, but they still deserve love and life!
Abortion in cases of rape or incest is giving the death penalty to the innocent child because of his or her biological father’s crime. Punish the rapist, support the mother, and let the child live. A child of rape is not a monster and is not predisposed to violence. We are not damaged, evil or “less than” anyone else.
Aborting a baby who was conceived in rape just adds one tragic, violent act on top of another. The mother has to live the rest of her life knowing that she killed her own child. Statistics show that women who have become pregnant by rape and have an abortion are four times more likely to have mental health issues compared to women who chose adoption or to raise the child. Abortion does nothing to help the mother heal from the rape. She’s still going to remember that rape for the rest of her life.
As for the child reminding the mother of the crime, if a man raped her and disfigured the face of her already born child, would she get rid of the child because looking at him reminded her of the rape?
There are tens of thousands of women in the U.S. each year who have gotten pregnant by rape and have not aborted the baby. So it can be done. A woman can carry her baby to term and give birth. To say that we can’t do that is to say that women are weak and fragile, which is simply not true. A mother can love a baby conceived in rape and that love for her baby can bring some healing from the rape.The mother can place the child for adoption if she cannot raise the child herself or if she simply does not want to raise the child. There are thousands of people who are eager to adopt a baby. I miscarried two of my unborn children and was never able to have children myself due to polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Women in crisis pregnancies should be able to get the help they need, whatever that may be. Pro-life pregnancy resource centers should be supported in any way possible so that women have better options and don’t feel they have no choice but abortion. Every baby deserves a chance to live. Abortion should be unnecessary and unthinkable. We need to cultivate a culture of life instead of the culture of death that we are living in now.
BIO: Cynthia Mahoney is a wife, retired and enjoys writing. She’s now a blogger for Save The 1.
