A ruling from the Supreme Court of Maine denied a rapist any visitation rights to his child, refuting a prevalent claim from abortion activists that rape victims who keep their children will be tied to their abusers for life.
Richard Sullivan began raping his victim when she was 13 or 14 years old – and he was 60. She endured his abuse at least weekly.
Like many rapists, he “took steps to conceal his abuse,” in the words of the court ruling, written by Justice Donald Alexander. “Once, when she was sixteen, Sullivan arranged an abortion for Doe, without her parents' knowledge.” Maine has no parental consent requirement, according to Planned Parenthood.
Sullivan fathered a second child, a daughter, with the young woman in September 2007 when the victim was 20. In 2011, the young woman obtained a temporary protection order against Sullivan, who promptly sued for custody of his daughter.
In a 13-page decision in Sullivan v. Doe on August 28, the Maine Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that denied Sullivan all custody or contact with his child, cut off access to any of her records, and required him to pay $38,019 in back child support.
Sullivan is now facing five charges of sexual molestation in York County, Maine, for the molestation of the girl's mother.
The pro-life community welcomed the decision.
“Rapists don't deserve rights, innocent children and mothers do!” Monica Kelsey of Save the 1 told LifeSiteNews. “A woman who is raped deserves to be protected from her rapist at all costs, and if there is a child involved the child deserves protection, as well.”
“Women won't choose life for their child as often as they do now if they feel that they have to be associated with the rapist for another 18 years,” Kelsey, who was conceived in rape, warned.
Pro-abortion lobbyists often exploit this fear in their public attacks on the pro-life position. In 2012, Health Care for America Now (HCNA) blasted a “militant, absolutist Republican” position that would force women into “submitting to the rapist-father’s assertion of paternal rights regarding visitation, religion, education, health care and countless other issues…Welcome to the GOP’s shocking approach to women’s rights.”
Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is a national “grassroots” organization comprised of more than 1,000 left-wing activist groups – mostly labor unions and left-wing political organizations funded by billionaire George Soro. Its members include the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the National Abortion Federation, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
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Studies show approximately 70 percent of rape victims choose not to have an abortion.
“We as a society need to protect these women and children from further trauma, and these men need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Kelsey told LifeSiteNews.