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Trigger Warning: Sexual assault

Having just been raped very recently, and still healing from the whole experience and trying to process it, I’d say the Republicans picked a rather rotten time to begin opening their mouths and spewing ignorant shit about rape and rape victims. First, there was Rep. Tom Akin, blathering incoherently about what he considers to be the criteria for “legitimate” rape. Then, in an effort to smear some creamy icing on the shit-cake, Mike Huckabee decided to remind the world that he’s a subnormal creep with no sense of decorum, saying that rape can result in a child, therefore, it’s not so bad. These two statements seem to contradict each other, but never mind.

I can’t keep quiet. I took a social media break today because I knew that Akin would be splattered all over my Facebook. I wanted to heal  and not deal with it quite yet, but I couldn’t hold it in. These people have been elected to office in the United States, my former home country. I need to take a stand.

As a rape survivor, I have to say that the idea of being impregnated by my rapist gives me serious nightmares. I cried with happiness for five minutes straight and celebrated with cake and wine when I got back a negative pregnancy test this week. Being raped is a horrible, traumatizing, painful event. Putting up with a great deal of scrutiny, victim-blaming, suspicion, and accusations is torturous. I can’t imagine the humiliation, pain, and traumatic stress of having to deal with a pregnancy resulting from the rape, changing my body and giving me a constant reminder for nine months that my body had been violated, ending with a painful labour. I could not do that. Every day would be more painful than the last. I probably would not survive, to be frank, without access to abortion.

There is no good side to rape. It’s not a blessing to be impregnated from a rape, and we shouldn’t pretend that it’s something that can lighten the burden of this trauma. Fuck you, Mike Huckabee. Fuck you, Tom Akin, and fuck anybody who agrees with them or thinks that this type of behaviour/attitude is acceptable or even desirable in our elected representatives.

My friend Stephanie had this to say on Huckabee’s heinous comments, I thought it was worth sharing:

Also I would argue that it was rape survivors who created those extraordinary people, because of the extraordinary strength it would take to carry and raise the child of a rape. The example of such a compassionate and strong mother might produce an extraordinary person– Let’s give credit where it is due, to the survivors, not to the rapist.

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