{"id":17395,"date":"2022-07-14T00:15:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T04:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=17395"},"modified":"2022-07-14T00:16:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-14T04:16:38","slug":"a-child-an-abortion-and-the-gaslighting-pro-life-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2022\/07\/a-child-an-abortion-and-the-gaslighting-pro-life-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"A Child, An Abortion, and the Gaslighting Pro-Life Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A little less than two weeks ago, you might have heard that a ten-year-old girl had been raped.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t think of anything worse than a child being raped. I can\u2019t think of anything in the world more deplorable than a child being raped. But we know that it happens. I could quote you historic examples of child rape<\/a> and examples of children fighting off rape<\/a>. Child sexual assault is a thing that happens. It\u2019s one of the worst things that could ever happen. And it happens frequently.<\/p>\n

We also learned that that girl had gotten pregnant from the rape, another thing that occasionally happens to children. Some girls start their monthly cycles at nine or so instead of later, and anyone who ovulates can get pregnant. A ten-year-old getting pregnant is a distinct possibility. It usually doesn\u2019t go well. Children who give birth are at extremely high risk of injury and death.\u00a0 So her parents took her out of the state of Ohio, to Indiana, for an abortion. They had to go to Indiana because she was just over six weeks pregnant, and abortion is illegal in Ohio after six weeks.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying you have to like what they did. I\u2019m not saying you have to imagine that you\u2019d do the same. I\u2019m saying they did that, and for all we know it saved her life.<\/p>\n

There is absolutely nothing good about this situation.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s nothing implausible about it either. It\u2019s something that happens.<\/p>\n

What happened next was that pro-life,, conservative talking heads started to cast doubt on the girl\u2019s story<\/a>. They came on the news and wrote in the papers about how it couldn\u2019t be true. They gaslit a child and a family they\u2019d never met, claiming the story didn\u2019t add up and was impossible. They acted like child sexual assault and child pregnancy are fantasy, or at least very rare occurrences.<\/p>\n

They were wrong. Today, that child\u2019s alleged rapist was arrested<\/a>. The rape was reported to Children\u2019s Services, who called the police on the 22nd of last month; the abortion took place on the 30th. And the pro-life conservative talking heads turned on a dime, some of them seeming to take credit for the arrest, condemning the alleged rapist for being an \u201cillegal alien.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are people who want us to trust them.<\/p>\n

These are people who would like us to believe that they have the best interests of vulnerable people in mind.<\/p>\n

These are the kind of people who stand outside clinics waving signs at women going inside to get pap smears or STD testing or to have a dead baby surgically removed before it causes sepsis, as well as women actually there to get abortions. They yell \u201cI\u2019ll adopt your baby!\u201d and try to present themselves as trustworthy. But they have no idea how anything works, and when presented with a story of a child rape victim they decide it was all a conspiracy because nothing matters to them more than making other people look like liars.<\/p>\n

There is nothing good about any of this either.<\/p>\n

There can be nothing good about any of this.<\/p>\n

This is a story so grim and hideous, I\u2019m at a loss for words. Everything I\u2019m trying to say seems crassly inadequate.<\/p>\n

A child was raped. She was violated in the worst possible way.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine her suffering, now and for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n

One day, that child will grow up.<\/p>\n

She will understand better what happened to her.<\/p>\n

She will flash back to the pain, the betrayal and the trauma again.<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll find out that the worst thing that was ever done to her was the subject of a media storm, and that people who call themselves pro-life decided her story was manufactured by a newspaper to gin up sympathy. They like things to be simple and have happy endings, and her case wasn\u2019t simple. She was doomed not to have a happy ending.\u00a0 So it must not be true. The wrong people said it, so it had to be a lie.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t imagine what she\u2019ll think of the pro-life movement then.<\/p>\n

I know what I think of the pro-life movement right now.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image via pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n

Mary Pezzulo is the author of\u00a0Meditations on the Way of the Cross,\u00a0<\/a><\/em>The Sorrows and Joys of Mary<\/a><\/em>, and\u00a0Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our\u00a0donate page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 A little less than two weeks ago, you might have heard that a ten-year-old girl had been raped. I can\u2019t think of anything worse than a child being raped. I can\u2019t think of anything in the world more deplorable than a child being raped. But we know that it happens. I could quote you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":17398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1698],"tags":[34,2465,12620,151,1707,36,14041],"class_list":["post-17395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abortion","tag-abortion","tag-child","tag-indiana","tag-ohio","tag-pro-choice","tag-pro-life","tag-ten-year-old"],"yoast_head":"\nA Child, An Abortion, and the Gaslighting Pro-Life Movement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  A little less than two weeks ago, you might have heard that a ten-year-old girl had been raped. 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