I posted in this in a page regarding this topic, and I felt it should be repeated here:
I was raped when I was a freshman in college, in front of other guys. Except it took me 3 years to realize it because “personal responsibility” was so ingrained in me from my parents, that I literally spent those years trying to figure out when I had consented. The fact I was drinking contributed to my feelings of guilt. I finally stopped thinking about what happened when I was blacked out (passed out), and started thinking about what happened when I regained consciousness and realized what was happening. I certainly didn’t have any signs of “forcible” rape.

I thankfully didn’t get pregnant, but I can’t imagine the turmoil it would have caused in my life had I gotten pregnant, and the immense shame I would have felt if I would have been forced to carry a baby conceived from that mess. I can’t imagine telling my parents. I can’t imagine trying to raise a baby to have self-worth when my self-worth was in the toilet. But mostly, I think about how it probably would have changed my life, even if I would have chosen adoption. I probably wouldn’t have finished college, therefore wouldn’t have ultimately met my husband and had the 3 beautiful daughters I do have that were born out of love and raised in a stable, financially secure home at a time I was emotionally ready for children.

There are women who have carried and raised rapists babies, and have found healing with it. I certainly have no problem with their choice to do so, even if I don’t understand it. But do these Republican men think about what might change because of someone carrying to term against their will? Do they think about the contributions the woman might have made or the changes her life could take by being forced to have a child she isn’t ready for or isn’t able to provide for? People talk about adoption like it’s easy, but I doubt it is. I read an account of a woman who had given up a baby for as a teenager in a closed adoption and put it behind her. When the adopted child searched her out and contacted her without any consent, she was forced to tell her husband and children about what happened when she was a teenager. As well, many children from unplanned pregnancies end up in the foster system after the magical 2 year age, when all attempts at keeping the child with the birth mother fail.

It’s just unconscionable to me to damn all other possibilities or accept all other consequences with any unwanted pregnancy by forcing women to carry at all costs, raped or not.