Abortion advocates have long made a habit of exploiting women and girls in traumatic circumstances in order to promote legalized abortion for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy.
Following the fall of Roe v. Wade in June, those efforts have intensified. Sexually abused children are being exploited, with their horrific and heartbreaking stories used to promote the killing of preborn children. Recent examples include child sexual abuse victims living in Kentucky and Florida.
Abortion and sexual abuse
The Louisville Courier Journal reports two nine-year-old girls had undergone abortions in the last two years in Kentucky because they were survivors of first-degree rape. According to the outlet, 34 girls aged 15 and under had abortions in 2021 in Kentucky. In 2022, that number was 18. Age 16 is considered the age of consent in the state, and therefore, any pregnant girl aged 15 and younger is automatically a sexual assault victim because she is legally unable to consent to sex.
Since August 1, Kentucky’s law protecting preborn children from abortion beginning at fertilization has been in place with one exception for when the woman is at risk of death or serious permanent injury — which could apply to child sex abuse victims due to the risk of pregnancy and labor on their bodies. When a 10-year-old girl became pregnant from rape in Ohio earlier this year, Attorney General David Yost said she would not have had to leave the state for an abortion; it would have been allowed based on the state’s medical exemption abortion exception.
Recently, a middle school girl visited a Planned Parenthood in Jacksonville, Florida, seeking to abort a baby who was conceived due to incest. However, Florida protects preborn children from abortion after 15 weeks and the girl was already further along. Planned Parenthood referred the girl out of state for the abortion. The abortion corporation also shared that another young middle school-aged girl had traveled from out of state to Florida to try to have an abortion, but she was also further along than 15 weeks. She arrived without shoes or basic necessities, which Planned Parenthood complained about providing her with.
“In addition to managing a health center, we now have to be counselors, providers of basic human needs like clothing and food, and even travel agents,” said Ina McDonald, health center manager of the Tallahassee clinic. “Finding lodging for our out-of-state patients has become a daily responsibility.”
Pro-life pregnancy centers provide pregnant women and girls with these necessities as well as access to health care and housing on a daily basis without encouraging them to kill their preborn children. They also find safe housing and counseling for victims of abuse, yet abortion advocates have been actively working to shut pregnancy centers down by spreading lies about them and firebombing them. Pregnancy centers would have been happy to provide this young girl with shoes and many other kinds of support.
No one with any compassion or reason would be happy when a nine-year-old girl becomes pregnant. Assaulting a child is a heinous act, and every adult knows that a young girl who becomes pregnant suffered unimaginable pain and trauma at the hands of a child rapist. In addition, young girls are at potentially serious physical risk during pregnancy and labor, as their bodies are less prepared than adult women’s bodies to labor and deliver babies.
Risks of abortion
Young girls are also at serious physical risk from abortion. Teens and young girls are up to twice as likely to suffer dangerous cervical lacerations during an abortion, and more likely to suffer post-abortion endometritis compared to women, most likely because they have smaller cervixes that are more difficult to dilate. They are also more likely than women to suffer post-abortion infections, which could lead to infertility and future ectopic pregnancies.
In addition, there are serious mental health risks for girls who have abortions. A British study found that women who underwent abortions were 225% more likely to attempt suicide, and teenagers who undergo abortions are 10x more likely to attempt suicide.
And if they are too young to consent to sex, they are also too young to consent to abortion.
READ: Ohio Department of Health data reveals hundreds of minors obtained abortions in 2021
Adding to the trauma
Abortion advocates act as if an abortion will solve a girl’s rape-related trauma and allow her to pick up the pieces and move on with her life. But young rape survivors who became pregnant and had abortions have spoken about the suicidal thoughts they suffered afterward. And some women pregnant from rape have said that the abortion was the worse trauma because abortion had made them the assailant.
“I could never ever deal with my rape because I was so focused on what I had done in choosing abortion,” explained rape survivor Ashley Sigrest. “And that’s what people don’t understand when they tell rape victims, ‘Oh yes, have an abortion so that way you can go on and we can deal with the rape.’ But the abortion just makes the rape 1,000 times worse because now you have these two horrible events that you have to deal with.”
A 13-year-old rape victim who underwent an abortion because a court ruled it to be in her best interest later explained, “I didn’t want to become a mother at 13, but I realise now that baby didn’t deserve to die. I would have loved to give her up for adoption… She’d be a teenager today and maybe we could be friends, even if she didn’t call me mammy.”
Likewise, a 12-year-old abuse survivor who was pressured into an abortion said, “Even if my daughter had been put up for adoption, instead of killed, some of the pain would not be present. Often, I cry. Cry because I could not stop the attacks. Cry because my daughter is dead. And I cry because it still hurts… [T]he abortion which was to be ‘in my best interest’ just has not been.”
Women deserve better
Another 12-year-old rape survivor attempted suicide before learning she was pregnant. When she found out she was expecting a baby, her life changed for the better. “My doctor told me to abort my child and not live with the consequences of the rape,” she said. “But I asked him, ‘Will I be un-raped? Am I going to go out on the streets without fear?’ He didn’t know what to say.”
A 13-year-old victim who gave birth to her son said, “I swear if it wasn’t for [my son] Aiden, I wouldn’t be here today. He has impacted my life more than anyone could ever imagine at a time when I was falling apart… God blessed me with him, and I wouldn’t want my life any other way. I love my son. Aiden saved me.”
There are similar stories here and here.
There is no easy answer once a girl becomes pregnant from rape or incest. She is at potential risk from both the pregnancy and from an abortion, the latter of which will kill the innocent child growing in the womb. But these survivors do deserve quality health care, compassion, support, and protection. The solution is to ensure that no young girl is ever raped or becomes pregnant again. While this is easier said than done, stricter laws can help, along with more in-depth considerations for which adults are allowed around children, how adults are allowed to interact with children, and a resurgence in marriage, along with a decrease in divorce rates. The most dangerous person in a child’s life is a non-biological adult who lives with her in the home.
Currently, Kentucky law states that the rape of a girl younger than 12 is a Class C felony that is punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison. If the victim is 12-16, it is considered a Class D felony punishable by just 1 to 5 years in prison. Florida’s punishments for child sexual assault vary depending on the age of the victim and the age of the assailant, but if the victim is younger than 12 and the offender is under 18, jail time could be 4.5 to 15 years for a second-degree felony. If the victim is under 12 but the offender is over 18, the crime is punishable by a minimum of 25 years in prison (up to life) plus probation for the remainder of the person’s life for what’s considered a life felony. If the victim is between 12 and 16 like the girl who went to Planned Parenthood, an offender under age 18 will get a minimum of three years up to 15 years for a third-degree felony, but if the assailant is over 18 the punishment is 4.5 to 15 years in prison for a second-degree felony.
But they can only be convicted if they are caught. And tragically, as Live Action’s Aiding Abusers investigation revealed, many abortion businesses have been caught actually aiding sexual abusers and failing to report child sexual abuse as required by law.
The truth is, abortion proponents rely on heartbreaking stories of abuse in order to convince compassionate Americans not that abortion should be legal in cases of child sexual abuse, but that it should be legal in all circumstances at any time.
They are willing to exploit young abuse victims in order to secure abortion-on-demand and boost business. Make no mistake, it isn’t about the child rape victim’s well-being. Without these victims, abortion advocates simply wouldn’t have heart-wrenching stories with which to sell abortion-on-demand to America.
