People should not have to demonstrate their virtue to justify a personal decision about how to handle a life-altering circumstance. All those who want an abortion should be able to avail themselves of that medical procedure. Given that unfortunate reality, we should not live in a world where someone who is raped is forced to carry a pregnancy to term because a minority of Americans believe the unborn are more important than the people who give birth to them.Īnd we should defend abortion access not only in cases of sexual violence. We should not live in a world where sexual violence exists, but we do. Whoever leaked it wanted people to understand the fate awaiting us.Īt least, that is what I am telling myself. Wade was leaked before the justices planned to announce their decision, likely next month. It is stunning that a draft of a Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe v. And the trajectory of my life, too, would have been further altered. The trauma I endured would have only been compounded by a forced pregnancy. But a 12-year-old is not equipped for childbirth or parenthood.
If I had been pregnant, I don’t know what I would have done. I worried I would not know who the father was.
And still, in the weeks and months after, of course I worried I was pregnant. I have told the story and am tired of telling it, and the story is not the point. I was sexually assaulted by several young men when I was 12. It is unfathomable to consider how a forced pregnancy would have further altered the trajectory of her life. She is still dealing with the repercussions of that trauma. It was the early 1970s.Ī pregnancy would have, in Debbie’s words, ruined her life. Her mother took Debbie to a doctor, who said that because of her scar tissue, she was sexually active and must have a boyfriend.
Her stepfather often threatened to kill her younger brother and her mother if Debbie told anyone, so when the fear of pregnancy became too consuming, she told her mother she was assaulted at school. She had no one to talk to and nowhere to turn. The abuse went on for years, and as Debbie got older, she was constantly terrified that she was pregnant. “ Fruit is a snack,” my mom would tell us.My wife’s stepfather began raping her when she was 11 years old. Her stance infuriated my brothers and me because our American friends got to eat magical foods like sugary breakfast cereals, and snack on Cheetos and Chips Ahoy and Little Debbie Snack Cakes.
My mother didn’t believe in processed foods or fast food, so I have never eaten many foods people take for granted- TV dinners, Chef Boyardee, Kraft Mac & Cheese. This was how my mother demonstrated her affection. The dishes I remember, the ones I love most, are Haitian- legumes, fried plantains, red rice, black rice griyo, or pork marinated in blood orange and roasted with shallots Haitian macaroni and cheese-everything served with sauce (a tomato-based sauce with thyme, peppers, and onions) and spicy pickled vegetables, everything made from scratch. Throughout my childhood, my mother prepared a bewildering combination of foods-American dishes from the Betty Crocker Cookbook or The Joy of Cooking one night, and a Haitian meal the next. Save for the aromas wafting from the gas stove, you would never know my mother was cooking. She washed a dish or cutting board or bowl immediately after it had been used. She was known to add a drop of Clorox to the water when washing meat or fruit or vegetables. Wore latex gloves, like a doctor-to avoid contamination, she said. There are those who think we are all lucky girls because we are still, they narrowly assume, alive. This is how I have been wronged.” I’ve been thinking about how so much testimony is demanded of women, and still, there are those who doubt our stories. Or I am thinking about testimony I’ve heard from other women over the years-women sharing their truths, daring to use their voices to say, “This is what happened to me. I have had good relationships, but it’s hard to trust that because what I consider good doesn’t always feel very good at all. Does this make me a lucky girl? Given the stories I’ve heard from other women, yes, it does make me a lucky girl. I’ve never been in a situation where I couldn’t walk away. Since then I’ve never been in a relationship where I’ve had to hide nonconsensual bruises. I work from a place of gratitude for the bare minimum. I look at some of my worst relationships and think, At least they didn’t hit me. And it’s a shame that the measure is what is not so bad instead of what is thriving and good. Since then I’ve had many other relationships and none nearly that bad, but the damage was done.