In 1971, I was raped and viciously beaten by an intruder in my apartment. I ended up in the nearest teaching hospital’s emergency room. I had a fractured jaw, three broken ribs, I was black and blue from forehead to knees, and I had severe internal lacerations. The first 18 hours were a blur. My biggest worry was that the creep had impregnated me. I wasn’t on birth control and he certainly didn’t use a condom. The resident responsible for my care told me, “You are experiencing vaginal bleeding. We’re going to perform a D&C which should stop the bleeding.” I had the D&C. I wasn’t bleeding.
The rapist was caught soon after and sent to prison for 9 years for six serial rapes. From jail his friends and family threatened all of his accusers. From prison he sued one of his accusers, who gave birth to the product of rape, for custody of that baby.
The rape occurred in 2 years before the Roe v. Wade decision. I don’t know if I was pregnant — and neither did that doctor — but consider what would have happened to me HAD I been pregnant. I would have been denied an abortion.
That rape, like the Roe v. Wade case, happened in Dallas.
I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry at all. I never wanted to be a mother. I certainly would never have wanted the baby of a man who hated women so much he would rape them.
