Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Ever heard that phrase? Of course you have… it’s an old one; means no matter which way you go you’re going to get your head handed to you. Even if you do what they say, make the decision they want, choose what they told you was the better choice… like choosing life. Even if you’re a girl who was raped and impregnated at 13 years of age, even if you do “chose life” because you don’t believe in abortion, even then it seems you’re damned. Because when small-minded people in a small town see a pregnant teen, they get busy throwing stones, casting aspersions, and scrawling “whore” and “slut” on the family’s garage door; too busy judging to consider the anguish of that little girl’s assault and subsequent decision to keep her “rape baby.” Imagine how that feels to a 13-year-old.

Strange days in the little town of Elwood, Indiana. A rural community in a state at quarrel with its own agenda, switching from red to blue (during Bush) and right back to red when Obama came around. A state of farmers, service industry professionals, blue-collar workers and all kinds of good, caring people, it also has its share of bigots, sexists, and ignorant folk who see the ugly wherever they look, even if it’s at a little girl raped by a 17-year-old boy. The family has painted over the vandalism and the slurs, but they can’t change the plot. The tragedy multiplied is the harassment this girl is enduring simply because others don’t actually know her story and have decided to judge her harshly: whore… slut.

In fact, it was a story that started off like so many others in the high-pitch chaos of a high school hallway. They talked occasionally, she thought he was cute, but clearly he was too old for her at 17. In late September, 2012, however, he sent her a text, said he thought she was cute too and why didn’t she come meet him after school… what girl could resist that? They met in the alleyway behind her house and, given the cold night, he suggested they get into his car to warm up. It went beyond that quickly. When he started to kiss her and push the idea of sex, the naive, frightened teen said “no,” even telling him she was on her period, but he was not to be deterred. The 95-pound, 13-year-old was raped and – as she discovered later – impregnated that day, a day that would change her life forever.

An opponent of abortion, the girl had no choice but to “choose life.” At first she tried to keep it from her mother, Kristy Green, but after a while it was too obvious and too much to keep secret. She finally told her mother in November… who immediately called the police.

Turns out this boy didn’t just go after Kristy Green’s daughter:

Following an investigation that turned up two other victims, the 17-year-old suspect was charged in juvenile court in January with three counts of child molesting. In addition to the case involving Green’s daughter, the charges allege the teen molested the other two young girls. [… ] At a hearing May 3, a Madison County juvenile court judge found the three child molesting charges to be “true.” That’s the juvenile court equivalent of a guilty verdict. Green said a victim assistance advocate recently warned her the boy may be sentenced only to probation. It’s a possibility she has trouble accepting — in part because the boy has remained free since the day he was charged. “The fact that a 17-year-old can walk the street and not serve any jail time, but yet has three counts of child molestation that he has been found guilty of, to me is absolutely asinine,” Green said. “I’m just very, very upset that Madison County hasn’t done their job. I couldn’t be there to protect her, and they sure have not done anything to help protect her either.” [Source: Tim Evans at IndyStar.com]

And this is not a solitary complaint. The Green story is becoming achingly familiar in the state of Indiana, which is seeing a growing number of young women in their teens victimized by sexual assaults, handled by a legal system that seems more concerned with attempting rehabilitate than meting out punishment, which many feel is a grievous disservice to the women victimized. From IndyStar:

The unsettling prospect of a sexual predator escaping jail time or other serious consequences is nothing new to Anita Carpenter, CEO of the Indiana Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “We’ve got some pretty good laws on the books to hold perpetrators accountable, but one of the flaws of our system is that we don’t always use them to their fullest,” she said “There really isn’t enough accountability in the system for juveniles or adults. We see 18-year-olds sentenced for marijuana do more time than sex offenders. That speaks volumes about the need for more public awareness and outcry.” Carpenter said a 2005 study that looked at sex crimes in all Indiana counties, except for Lake and Marion, found that of the 9,000 charges filed in a one-year period, only 9 percent resulted in a sex crime conviction. “We can’t continue,” she said, “to minimize and dismiss the crimes these sex offenders commit.” Carpenter said the perceived lack of consequences may be one reason Indiana ranked second in the rate of high school females reporting they have been victims of sexual assault, according to a 2010 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Statistics reveal one in six girls will become the victim of a sexual assault during their lifetime, she explained, and the risk is highest for teen girls.

Those are horrific statistics but multiply that with the lack of convictions, and the stunning callousness of townsfolk who resort to ignorance and vandalism, and you’ve got rape culture raw. Forget for a moment the details of the rape; what kind of people would vandalize the home of any pregnant teenager, regardless of how that state of being had been achieved? Now, add the amorality of anyone attacking and shaming a child whose condition was the result of violent act of rape and the outrage cannot be overstated.

One cannot help but note the oxymoron of moral righteousness at play here; the ‘spiritual’ pomposity that produces such vile behavior can also be found amongst the ranks of those who scream about the “sin of abortion” versus the Christian choice of life. These people who would tar and feather a pregnant girl for being a slut and a whore somehow didn’t consider that her choice “of life” ought to have been praised, not pilloried. But, clearly, logic is rarely at play when it comes to moral righteousness.

For now, Kristy Green waits with her daughter for the July birth of her child. They wait for the sentencing that will tell them if her rapist will get a slap on the wrist or a prison term. They wait to see if life will ever get back to normal. But while her rapist has been free since the assault, Kristy Green’s daughter, now 14, has morphed from a vivacious, out-going “social bug” to a reclusive young woman whose childhood is over.

“I can’t walk out the door without someone calling me a whore or slut,” the girl said. “I used to have a lot of friends, or people I thought were my friends, but as soon as this happened I just isolated myself.” [Source]

Tragedy multiplied.

Here’s the video: