Posted by:
blindguy
(
)
Date: January 26, 2024 05:25PM
NPR ran a story about the inability of people in states with anti-abortion laws to seek abortions after having been raped on Wednesday.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/01/24/1226161416/rape-caused-pregnancy-abortion-ban-statesFrom that story comes the following profile:
"Each number, a story
Samantha Hansen has been an outspoken rape survivor for years, but only recently shared that she became pregnant as a result of the attack. She was a college
student at Brigham Young University in 2014, when she was watching Netflix with someone she considered a friend.
Samantha Hansen is opposed to a Utah bill that would keep clinics from offering abortions to rape victims who can't provide a law enforcement-generated
case number.
Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune
"I went into the other room to go pop popcorn," she recalls. "It's my belief that he slipped something into my Coca-Cola, because when I came back and
started sipping my Coke, it wasn't too long before I couldn't move a single muscle."
She doesn't remember the details of the rape. "The rest of the night is bits and pieces of flashes — and me trying to fight to regain control of my limbs."
The next day, she took a long shower. "Then I went through my apartment — anything that was touched that night went in a garbage bag, which then went in
the dumpster outside of my apartment," she says. Then she took the emergency
contraception pill called Plan B.
Like many rape survivors, she didn't go to the doctor or report the incident to law enforcement; she just tried to pretend it never happened. In the following weeks, she couldn't sleep, she lost weight, and her grades fell.
Weeks later, she noticed she'd missed her period, and a pregnancy test came back positive, despite having taken Plan B. She went to Planned Parenthood
to talk through her options and wrestled with the decision. She had decided to continue the pregnancy but ended up having a miscarriage.
Hansen still lives in Utah. She has
written about
why she thinks abortion bans without rape exceptions harm rape survivors. Last year, she
spoke out against a state bill
that would have required rape survivors to file a police report to have access to abortion.
"Having had my autonomy stripped of me that night that I was raped, having the ability to make that choice of — can I take back control of my body and
either keep or abort? — was so, so pivotal to my healing," she explains."
Combining the NPR story with the original post, I would say that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is being tone deaf (again). I'll bet that there are a lot of Samantha Hansons who were raped by their returning RMs before they got married. I mean with all that pent-up sex drive...Jesus!