Choosing Birth after Rape

Crossposted from the AbortionGang.

I would like to give an often ignored perspective of rape, pregnancy and abortion (this is your trigger warning, though I don’t plan to be graphic).

I often see tweets, blog posts and comments from women and men (and people who identify as neither of the above) sharing their horror at the thought of carrying a pregnancy conceived in rape to term. They proudly and strongly say they support abortion, because it’s horrific, gruesome, disgusting, and cruel to force a woman to carry to term after she was raped (or, “give birth to her rapist’s child”). Now maybe I’m not paying attention, but it seems that all of the feminist discussion around rape and pregnancy decisions is focused around how awful it is for women to give birth after rape. Yet one study in 1996 (old, but the only reliable one I could find) said 32.2% of raped women chose to birth and keep the child (50% had abortions, 5.9% participated in adoption and 11.8% had miscarriages). 32% is a substantial portion of women that it seems many feminist forget about.

I 100% agree that it’s wrong to force a woman to carry to term when she wants to abort.

But I have to wonder: how does this type of language (horrific, disgusting, cruel) affect women who choose to carry to term after rape?

I wonder how a single mother of a beautiful two year old who happened to be conceived from rape feels when she reads that it’s “barbaric” to “force a woman to give birth to the child of her rapist.” Does she feel like she was supported in her choice? Doubtful.

We always need to be considerate of who we talk about and who we talk to. While it may seem clear that the barbaric part is the force of rape, denying the woman her access to decide to have sex, if we only talk about how wrong it is to force birth instead of how wrong it is to force abortion, or force any unwanted choice, then others may start reading it as the birth of a child as disgusting. And I certainly hope no one actually thinks choosing to give birth is disgusting.

I know a lot of this language choice is based upon our hatred of rape, and it would make sense to have a second discussion about rape here, but I’m not going to do that. All I ask is that we default to the individual woman’s opinion before we share our own feelings when dealing with issues of pregnancy, abortion and rape, because everyone should feel supported in their decisions.

What Planned Parenthood does.

Many people have personal experiences from when they visited their local Planned Parenthood. Depending upon where we go, why we go, and when we go, we can each have a different experience.

Some people claim that Planned Parenthood only deals with abortions, and backs this up with a personal experience about how they went to their local PP and were counseled on abortion. For some reason, they seem to think that this means every single Planned Parenthood clinic and the organization as a whole only does what the one counselor they encountered did. This could not be farther from the truth.

Planned Parenthood is an international organization, yes. But their clinics are not franchises, where every "item" on the "menu" has to be exactly the same (such as a McDonalds does). Each Planned Parenthood has different services they are able to provide, based upon their location, the laws of the area and the doctors/nurses/workers available in the area.

For instance, some Planned Parenthoods perform abortions. Others do not. The one I visited the first time I needed a checkup does not perform abortions- they only deal with STDs, birth control and exams. Some PPs offer prenatal care- I have a friend who went to Planned Parenthood for all of her prenatal care during her first pregnancy as a teenager. Other Planned Parenthood locations have agreements with local adoption groups to provide resources and avenues for women looking to place a child up for adoption. Some PPs can even test you for fertility, and provide infertility treatments!


There are a whole range of services offered by Planned Parenthood as an organization. If you want to know which ones are offered at your local clinic, you can look it up here.

So next time, instead of making an assumption about what Planned Parenthood does based upon the one nurse you interact with, remember that you're seeing one small part of what Planned Parenthood is and does.

Prochoice support for Birthing Women

As a prochoice women, I know that prochoice is about more than just abortion.

It seems, though, that these other reproductive rights are often forgotten. Many prochoicers rightfully believe that abortion is the right most in jeopardy, and thus the right which needs the most of our attention.

But in our efforts to protect a woman's legal right to abort, we must ensure that we don't forget about the other rights which need our efforts.

Many people act as though a woman who wants to give birth will be allowed to do whatever she wants. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. There is a huge problem in America of doctors performing procedures on women either against their will, or after forcing the woman to agree after lying and threatening her.

These actions performs by anyone other than a doctor in a hospital would be considered a huge assault on women everywhere. However, it is ignored simply because it happens in a hospital.


This acceptance of harmful birth practices has got to stop. As a group which supports equality for all, with a special focus on women, prochoicers need to speak up against these actions. As prochoicers, we need to make sure that we speak out publicly against transgressions in the birth room.