I have to say something.

It’s exhausting. It just is. The arguments that mothers from rape hear ad nauseum.

The woman is the only one who matters.

Why should she relive the assault by carrying her rapist’s child?

What if:

The rapist sues for custody?

or

The child wants to meet him someday?

or

The child resents being brought into the world under such circumstances?

OR, OR, OR

It’s now socially acceptable, even expected, to execute on a “what if”.

The woman WAS a victim (though we prefer the term “survivor”). As a result? Most of the time she doesn’t choose to victimize someone else. Having just been an innocent violated in a soul crushing manner, she can’t then crush another innocent who is a part of her and didn’t even exist at the time the crime was committed. Yes, part of HER. As much as any child of hers is. Somehow people gloss over that.

Why is it that many are so eager to speak for women who conceive in rape yet so unwilling to listen to us? To HEAR us?

Don’t assume you know how you would feel. Until you’re staring at an ultrasound screen looking at your child, you don’t know.

You can’t know.

READ: Rape survivor says son, conceived in rape, is proof that ‘good can come from evil’

You can’t know how it feels to suddenly have a flame of hope flickering in your darkness. You can’t know how it feels to not be alone anymore. You can’t know how it feels to be able to protect someone else when, no matter how hard you fought, you couldn’t protect yourself.

Our children are not defined by their conception any more than we are defined by one horrible event.