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Attorney Wendy Murphy, at the law library at the New England School of Law in. Elise Amendola | AP

As her rapist seeks to have a relationship with her child, a Massachusetts woman is appealing to the highest court in the state.



The victim, now 22, conceived and gave birth to the child after repeatedly being raped by her older sister's boyfriend, Jamie Melendez, when she was in eighth grade.

Police arrested Melendez, then 20 and a resident of Braintee, in 2009 on the strength of DNA testing confirming the child was biologically related to Melendez.



In 2011, Melendez pleaded guilty to the rape, according to a Patriot Ledger report.

After accepting his guilty plea, Norfolk Superior Court Judge Thomas Mcguire sentenced Melendez to 16 years probation and remanded the case to family court, which then ordered Melendez to pay the victim $110 a week in child support.

Melendez filed a motion in family court arguing for the right of visitation one year after his guilty plea.

Massachusetts law allows a judge to grant visitation to the father of a child conceived by rape if the judge considers it in the best interest of the child.

"Sperm is a weapon of rape and is not transformed into the privilege of fatherhood, simply because the victim was ovulating," Wendy Murphy, an attorney representing the victim who specializes in cases involving child abuse and sex crimes, said during arguments in the Massachusetts Court of Appeals earlier this year.

The Massachusetts Court of Appeals this week denied the victim's request to bar Melendez from seeing the child.

Murphy says they will appeal the decision to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

"All of this is exceedingly dangerous territory," Murphy told the Boston Herald. "Is this ruling going to incentivize offenders to go to family court? I think without a doubt it will."

The woman said she wants the courts to recognize that she and Melendez do not constitute a family and a judge should not get to decide who can be a part of her child's life.