Wednesday August 11, 2010
Child Conceived ‘Gave Purpose to the Pain’ of Rape
Commentary by Lizzy Brew, pro-personhood advocate and mother of six
AUSTRALIA, August 11, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As a virgin of not quite fifteen years of age in 1975, my life changed forever when I was raped after entering the vehicle of a man from whom I had innocently accepted a lift home. After he was finished with me, I started on my journey in the darkness of that three-kilometer walk, alone with my trauma. I had trusted him and he had shattered that trust, much as I had trusted those who assured me that adoption would be an option for the son I had thereby conceived.
The removal of my son Michael James Howard on the 29th September 1975, was a foregone conclusion as I was funneled into an unlawful adoption system from Saint Anthony’s Home for Unmarried Mothers. It was from there that the unborn children of unmarried mothers were systematically marked for removal at birth on behalf of childless married couples.
My Social record notes my response to the question, “Relationship with the natural father?” as “holiday romance”. Though those words were the only ones directly quoted as mine, they were among those suggested by the Social worker herself as I struggled to answer that question. It was no doubt expedient for her to concur with my awkward, affirmative nod, as she maintained that my child needed a father and, as we both knew, it was obvious that my son’s was not going to qualify. And so within the space of nine months, I had lost my sense of innocence as well as the son who had helped to restore it.
The stolen babies were adopted through the Supreme Court once deemed medically fit, though many were left behind to languish in institutions due even to minor health problems. My own son’s adoption was deferred due to an innocent heart murmur, though I loved him unconditionally and begged for his return.
My experience contradicted the fears inspired by pro-choice rape propaganda, as the trauma and aftermath of the rape of my virginity paled into insignificance beside the trauma and aftermath of the rape of my womb. My son’s day of birth is not recalled as one on which I gave him birth but as the day I was subjected to various medical intervention to remove him from my body for the benefit of married strangers.
Subsequently, in encountering those ‘moderate’ words: “I am opposed to abortion except in cases of rape,” a stark contradiction lived side-by-side with the healing I had received through my son conceived in rape. The six hourly periods I was permitted to hold him in fact gave purpose to the pain of the violation that had brought him into existence.
Unbelievably, a significant percentage of the adoptions of babies unlawfully taken from their mothers at birth during the era in question became deferred on the basis of inconsequential accidentals such as red hair or a birthmark. Tragically, in the end my own son proved to be a healthy specimen, a prime commodity coveted by many as the firstborn child of a vulnerable and young, unmarried mother.
Reprinted with permission from the author.
Visit her website: https://gift-not-choice.tripod.com/index.html