The lifetime chance of being a rape victim is 1 in 8 for all women & 1 in 10 for all men

Let me tell you a story:

About a young woman who was afraid of very few things, who thought she was invincible, who thought nothing could hurt her. She went out on a Wednesday at 2am, alone in a college town because her roommate didn’t feel like walking in the cold to get food with her. They wanted specific iced-tea, iced-tea that you could only get from the gas station at the bottom of the main street, so the girl went to get some. On the way she saw maybe two people, but it was dark and she didn’t take much notice of them. About half way into her trip she felt someone grab her from behind and a knife press into her neck. She was small and this person, this man was two, maybe three times her size and pulled her into an alley with a door at one end. He told her not to scream and she didn’t, even when he pushed her down onto the ground and proceeded to rape her. He left her there, in the freezing cold that night, in a pool of her own blood, probably to die, because the things he had done could have killed anyone. But she put herself back together, she stumbled back up the street and threw her clothing in the garbage. She showered to wash him off of her and told no one for six months. They couldn’t find him after that long, nor did the police even really believe her when she finally went to them.

It was 4 years ago this January that this story occurred and the only thing I want to say is, if you’ve been raped, please, please tell someone. The biggest regret I have is that I waited too long to tell the police, waited too long to tell anyone and that he may still be out there somewhere, waiting to do this to someone else.

Here’s another part of her story:

Over 4 years ago, when I was in my second semester of college I was brutally raped at knife point. At that time I was not sexually active, & therefore had no reason to be on birth control. As a result of this, I became pregnant, although it was more than a month before I actually realized it because I had such bad anxiety that I refused to leave my dorm room. I did eventually go to a doctor, after which I decided that an abortion was my only option. I could barely stand myself, let alone a child that had been forced upon me through such a traumatic situation. I had always been pro-choice, but this was still a life-altering decision for me, just like being raped had been - as a result I still have lingering post traumatic stress disorder and sever anxiety.

The actual event of the abortion affected me less than going to the clinic that morning, although this is not to say that it did not affect me at all. I do not believe that anyone can be unchanged by having an abortion. But it was a decision that I had come to peacefully and without regret. At 9am there were already protesters outside the clinic in Philadelphia. I had already dropped out of college 3 weeks earlier because of my anxiety and depression and the things that happened to me that day were undeserved. I was yelled at, called terrible names by these people who were supposedly speaking the word of the 'Lord'. A God I had been taught to believe was forgiving, and ultimately understanding. I was surprised to find people (girls) my own age protesting there, and it was one of these girls that spit in my face as I was leaving, after my procedure (I had a first-trimester surgical abortion). I honestly do not believe that I deserved that, after everything that had happened to bring me to that point. It had not been my choice to be raped, for a child to be forced upon me when I could not even take care of myself. I honestly do not believe anyone should have to endure what I did, simply for making a choice that affected their own life. Those people didn't know me, they didn't know what had happened to me - yet they assumed because I was having an abortion, that I was a 'bad' person.

I would never spit on someone for being pro-life - or for being or believing in anything else for that matter. It just makes me sad, that not all people can be as understanding as others, that they can believe so strongly in something that they can't for one moment think that perhaps someone else had a valid reason for doing the things they do.


- RIOT! (aka Morgan)