Kathy Barnette is a political commentator and an Army veteran. She’s also a wife, an adjunct professor, and the homeschooling mother of two children. She has a lot to say, but it’s what she said on June 8 in an opinion piece for Fox News that everyone should be listening to. Barnette was conceived in rape — and her life is beautiful.
All around the nation, abortion supporters are outraged that any pro-life law would be passed without an exception for children conceived in rape or incest. While it is understandable that, from the outside, it might seem that no woman would ever want a child who was conceived in a sexual assault against her, the truth is that pro-lifers see each and every human being as valuable and worthy of life — no matter what the circumstances were surrounding their conception. And of the women who have conceived a child in rape, past studies have shown that more than 70 percent choose life for that child. Barnette is not the man who raped her mother. She is innocent and worthy of life. But abortion supporters are constantly telling her that she doesn’t deserve to be alive.
“I am the product of rape,” wrote Barnette. “My mother was 12 years old when she delivered me. My father was 21 years old.”
READ: Studies show most pregnant rape survivors choose life with no regrets
She says that life has not been easy for her mother, but regardless of her struggles, she always had faith and never stopped smiling. She refused to live as a victim or to live in shame. Giving birth to a baby at 12 after rape must have been difficult and perhaps “unbearable” at times, says Barnette, but she never gave up.
“She peered into the future and she saw me,” she wrote. “I am my mother’s joy. And every one of my mother’s decisions concerning my birth had an impact on my life. An impact that will reverberate for all eternity.”
Barnette is “eternally grateful” to her mother for the decision to keep her, raise her, and love her. She is also thankful to her grandmother for being there through it all, and to her paternal grandparents, who, also innocent of the rape, were able to help Barnette’s mother to provide for her baby.
Because of those people making the choice to help, rather than further hurt Barnette’s mother by taking her baby, Barnette is now a successful wife and mother with a career that continues to grow — including a new book on the horizon.
“My life has value. I am not an inanimate object,” she said. “I am a person. For me, I’ve given birth to two beautiful, healthy, intelligent, and loving little people who are destined to grow up into productive members of this great society. I am a veteran. I am a staunch lover of this country. I am a supportive sister, a respectful niece and a devoted wife. Best of all, I get the wonderful opportunity to now care for my mother.”
Barnette says she lives a “charmed life,” and it’s all because one person saw her value before the world did — her mother. She hopes that their story will help a future woman to choose life for her child conceived in rape.
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