Bekah’s Story about Rape and Abortion

Rapist use abortion to hide their crime

Bekah’s Story tells the story of Rebekah Berg, who was raped just four months into her freshmen year in college. Her rapist pressed her to have an abortion to cover up the rape, but she left college and went home find support with her family. She writes: “Now I could see that I was truly the one, who had been victimized. But I was not the only victim. I certainly had not chosen to become pregnant. No more did my child ask to be conceived. I knew that I had no right to take his life because of the horrible situation that had happened to my. My innocent child should not become a victim, too.” Bekah gave birth to her baby and says, “From the moment this baby entered my life, I have only had love for him, which will continue until the day I die . . . My son has made my life better.”

This child is, in fact, a second victim of the rape. Totally innocent the child exists because of another’s crime. If the mother succumbs to the pressure to abort her child, violence again victimizes an innocent person. Ryan Bomberger’s biological mother was raped yet courageously chose to continue the pregnancy giving him life. He says, “One woman made a selfless choice so I can love and be loved . .  I’m the 1 precent that is used all the time to justify 100 percent of abortions . . . Abortion activists call me the rapist’s child . . . When do we ever define an innocent child by the crimes of either parent? This is only necessary to those whose ideology demands the dehumanization of that life to justify killing via abortion . . . I am not the ‘rapist’s child’. I am her child. I am God’s child. I’m one of thousands every year, given the opportunity to live, love and redeem what the rapist tried to destory.

Bekah reports that she discovered that she was not the first girl to be victimized by her rapist. In fact, she was the third. “When abortion was legalized in America, it allowed a rapist to be able to cover his tracks and abuse women again and again.” Rapist use abortion to hide their crimes. Abortion is the “solution” for the rapist – not for the women or her child.

Rape is a difficult topic to address because it deals with complex psychological problems and sensitive sexual issues. Those who support abortion right have always argued that one of the justifications for legal abortion is to provide an option for the women who are pregnant as a result of rape. However, a closer examination of the issue indicates that abortion is not a true solution for the woman and her child, and indeed, might serve to benefit the rapist instead.

It is estimated that the pregnancy rate following rape is approximately 5 percent. It is estimated that 40 percent of these pregnancies are carried to term, 10 percent are spontaneous miscarriages, and half end in abortion, about 1 percent of all abortions. It is noteworthy that half of women, who become pregnant following rape, do not consider abortion an appropriate response to their traumatic experiences.

It is important to understand that rape is not about sex. Rather it is a violent misuse of the sexual act to fulfill the aggressor’s deviant psychological, developmental and personal needs, including the need for power and control. The woman is a victim of the most brutal form of violence – the intimate and personal attack on her identity as a woman.

The psychological recovery of the victim of rape requires that she recognizes that she has not brought the rape upon herself, that she understands the rapist’s deviance, and that she forgives her attacker so she can respond without anger to others in loving ways. Killing her own child can only make it more difficult for her to fulfill these tasks of healing.