Pregnancy after Rape...... Then What??? - Abortion, Adoption or Keep the Baby????

Raped!!! -- What a horrifying situation to find oneself in, yet it happens the whole world over and even as I write at this moment, someone somewhere is being violated thus. What a sad world we live in! What joy does it give a rapist, to rape someone - even knowing that his advances are unwanted. How can anyone dehumanize himself to such an extent? Its hard to believe that the same body which holds the image of God within oneself - also, holds the image of the devil within itself. And when the devil lets himself out tragic things happen.

I would not wish it on my worst enemy (luckily I believe in making friends - not enemies) - but some people rape their wives, partners, friends and even their own family members. What a lot of sick people there are in the world.

What trauma must a person go through, when rape takes place, before, during and after the deed. Such a violation of one's temple (I equate one's body as one's temple - because the God in that person resides there). The feeling of being unclean, the humiliation if one goes to the cops to lodge an FIR - the endless questions they get asked about the most personal details of the rape. It must seem like they are being verbally raped again. What a whammy it is in their lives.......!!! Somehow, though, with the help of loved ones and friends they begin to build their lives again and then.........!!!

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Here comes a double whammy - the rape has taken a more sinister form -- in the shape of a little person on his/her way. I shudder when I think of all the emotions that must go through the raped person's mind knowing that the rape was not all... Now here is a lifetime of feeling the rapist's presence around them coming their way, in the form of a little bub.

I often put myself in that person's position and think, 'how would I have felt, if that had happened to me. I love children, always wanted a dozen. I do not believe in abortion, I believe in responsible parenting.

However even despite all that, I don't think I would have ever gone through the pregnancy to bring forth the rapist's baby. It is easy for pro-lifers to say "have the baby and adopt it out" - but really is that what would be best for the baby.

It would be hard enough for the victim to deal with the rape. Now this, Oh my Gosh!!! If she has the baby she will have to live her whole life loving a child, but hating its father who has so violated her. How will she explain to her child that he/she was born out of an act of violence rather than love? How will the child feel about it? How will the child deal with such terrible news? (And invariably such news does leak out). How will it effect the child's attitude towards the world and among other things, what if history repeats itself and the child becomes a rapist like his dad - how would she cope with it?

What would you and I feel if we were the child in question. I can't answer for you, but I might even hate my mother for letting me be born under the circumstances. And that again would be a double whammy for the child and the mother. How would the baby have felt to know that the father had raped his mother and he was not born out of love but out of lust? Is'nt life hard enough as it is, without throwing in such horrendous things for a child to have to deal with?

People will always have an opinion as to what the victim should do, but she needs to do what is right for her and for the child. She may decide to have the baby, because her religion forbids her to get rid of the child. Well, I would not listen to a religion that told me that, because, I would think of what the child would have to go through in life, rather than worry about those that are least affected by it all. But then, that is me, and fortunately, I have never had to deal in real life with this situation - but I do have sympathy for the victims (both mother and the unborn child) and I can empathize with the dilemma they find themselves in.

The only good news in this whole scenario is that there is help out there for all three people in the equation as there are now a lot of counselling and trauma centers, and they deal with helping not only the victim but the rapist as well, to figure out what is wrong with him and why he did what he did.
So to all those unfortunate women out there who have been in this sitation, my heart goes out to you. I wish I had more than just words to help apease your pain, however, I sincerely say to you, "Do what you think is best for you and the baby". You have to live with the decision you make for the rest of your life -- so make it a decision that fits in with your being. Don't let judgmental people makes decisions for your life. They don't have to live your life -- you do.
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Aaaaaah, we were talking about adoption!

While still on that delicate topic of adoption - I had often wondered why people adopt within the family when the child's parents are still alive. I had a cousin and a friend who were adopted that way. My cousin's birth mother and adoptive mother were real sisters. My friend was adopted by a single aunt who never got married. Her brother had four girls and she was the one who got adopted. Luckily, for both of them they had very happy, healthy, well-balanced childhoods and were well-loved in their respective adoptive homes. I never did ask my cousin how he felt about being an only child (although he had other siblings) or the adoption, but, my friend herself mentioned once that she often wondered why she was chosen to be given away by her parents. She calls them "Uncle" and "Aunty" - yet knowing that they are her birth parents makes it so wierd. She grew up without siblings, except when they were all together in the same house and same city - even then she was the one who did not really belong, they were her cousins by adoption - not e her real sister. How awful is that? Fancy missing out on such special relationships, because the people who created you did not think about your needs, wants or desires. My thinking is - how could one do that to one's own child? I know that the child was given to the adoptive person because,the adoptive person was well loved and they wanted to give that person the joy of loving their own child. That is a very lovely thing to do for another person. However, on the flip side of the coin - is this beautiful baby whom you have brought into the world. She/he is not a toy or gift that you can just hand over to someone else, because you love them a lot. What about the baby's feelings. How does a child who has been given away by a parent cope knowing that they loved someone else more than they loved her and so they gave her away to the other person. What a terrible dilemma and thought to have to live with for the rest of your life - it would be so much easier to accept if the parents were dead. Life is hard enough without adding more dimensions to it than God had intended for that life. The world is full of children who are without parents. They are the ones who really need to be adopted. They are the ones in danger out there - alone in the world. If you are going to adopt why not adopt out of them, so that you really do some good for another soul. Instead, by adopting within the family or friend's circle you create more issues for a poor child to have to deal with right through their life. Why is it when people think about these things they never seem to think from the eye's of a child who has been given up for adoption. I too, many years ago was put through the same test. My ma-in-law wanted me to give up one of my babies (even those not yet born) to be adopted by my brother and sister-in-law. Wow, that hit me like a ton of bricks!!! I should have expected it but I did not, and when it came it knocked the very wind out of my sails! She had made my brother and sister-in-law, whom I had grown very fond off, wait for 13 years - telling them that when their brother married they could adopt a child from him. She did not want whatever they had materially, to go to another child - it should go to a child from within the family. How selfish is that and how mercenary?:( Instead of thinkig about the child's feelings, to be thinking about keeping whatever is in the family - for the family. Anyway, I had to politely but assertively tell her that 'sorry but no way am I going to part with a child'. She said if you plan to have 4, just have one extra to give to them and I had to tell her that no matter how many children I had there would never be an extra one. All of them would be very welcomed into my home and my heart. I tried to explain to her that I could never do that to my child and that it was important to think of that child before all else. Also, I tried to tell her that any child that came into the house as an adopted child would for all intents and purposes be the loved child of those parents and there should be no difference between him/her and a child born into the family. However, I don't think she quite understood - or forgave me for not giving away my child. The irony of the whole thing is that those beautiful children that my brother and sister-in-law adopted, after that incident were the ones who were around her to give my ma-in-law all the love and care that grandchildren do and she knew them more than she ever knew any of the children actually born into the family.

Still on the topic of adoption!

As I had mentioned earlier, I did a Post-Graduate course in International Social Work in Melbourne many years ago. I did some research and wrote on a topic -adoption - that has been a passion of mine ever since I was a little girl. When I was still in my teens I had thought that someday I would like to adopt a child and give some parent-less child the joy of belonging. (However, I must say that I was thoroughly put off with the Indian adoption rules in those days as they said that if you adopt a child that child gets half of whatever you have when you die - and all the other children collectively get the other half. Talk about being unfair to your own child). Anyway, when I did this research for my course, I found out that in Victoria, Australia and in many other countries adoption rules were so strict in olden days, that they did not allow for parents or children to look for or try and find each other. How cruel is that? Okay, Okay, so maybe the parent could be penalized for life for having given up his/her child while they were still alive......but, to do that to a child. How awful would that be? Every human being wants to know where he/she came from. What right does anyone have to take that right away from a person? Anyway, fair or not ... that's what the law said in those days and many a child who had been adopted in that era, died without ever finding out where his/her roots came from. I forget what year that dumb rule was lifted, sometime in the 1960s or 1970s but, when it was lifted there was a deluge of both - parents who gave up their children for adoption and since wanted to find them; as well as; children who wanted to find their birth parents. Many had grown up in orphanages and had miserable lives, some had lived off the streets, some went to undesirable homes ..... but, there were also many who had found very loving and supportive parents, but, still the hankering for where their bloodline came from, caused them to want to find out. A lot of adopted children were very fortunate that the adopting parents did not mind, and, some even helped them find out about their birth parents. Some of the stories were happy reunions with the birth-parents becoming a part of their children's future lives - as friends, not parents since they had given up that right. However, I can remember reading about one poor fellow who desperately wanted to find out and talk to his mother - I think his father had already died - but this heartless birth-mother did not want to disrupt her present life (and her husband and other children did not know about this child) so she refused to meet or even talk to the son she had borne, and given away and since forgotten. How any woman can be so cruel I cannot fathom, but I won't sit in judgement of her as I do not know her circumstances. I just wonder how she can get up each day and look at her face in the mirror and like what she sees!!! It does lead me to a niggling question in my mind though .... Should she be allowed to keep quiet and stay unknown -if her child wants to know her - or does she owe it to the child to talk to him? After all she did put him on this earth and then subsequently forgot about him. I would love to have other people's opinions regarding this issue --- so if you have any thoughts please write them out for me and send them to me.:)