{"id":220252,"date":"2020-03-20T14:50:36","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T19:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=220252"},"modified":"2020-03-30T14:19:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T19:19:27","slug":"baby-looked-eyes-conceived-rape-chose-parent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-looked-eyes-conceived-rape-chose-parent\/","title":{"rendered":"‘This baby looked me in the eyes’: Woman who conceived in rape chose to parent, and has no regrets"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the documentary Pro-Life Without Exception<\/a>,\u00a0Illinois native Kimberly Cavanagh gave her testimony about becoming pregnant as a result of rape. It was the Spring of 1991, Easter weekend, and Cavanagh was vacationing with a friend when she was raped by an acquaintance.<\/p>\n

Ashamed and in emotional turmoil, she did not report the rape to police or tell her parents. Instead, she kept her experience a secret until she began to suspect she was pregnant. After taking a test, Cavanagh considered abortion. She had always been pro-life, but faced with a pregnancy conceived in rape, abortion seemed like the only solution:<\/p>\n

It was about 30 days after that that I found out I was pregnant. [I] took a pregnancy test on my lunch hour, actually. And I had always grown up convinced, a strong conviction, that abortion was murder. But when you find yourself caught in the trap it ended up being one of the first things I thought about, was going ahead and getting an abortion.<\/em><\/p>\n

But Cavanagh, who was close to her parents, couldn\u2019t keep her pregnancy a secret:<\/p>\n

Once I found out I was pregnant I couldn’t contain that pressure to myself and I had some pretty great parents, who always told me that if anything happens, you know, you can always tell us anything. So, I took advantage of that with my mom one night and explained to her what had happened and watched her heart break right in front of me. And I told her that I was considering an abortion because I didn’t know any other way out of the situation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Her mother told her father, who opposed abortion:<\/p>\n

She took an opportunity to tell my father, and he met me on the front porch the following day, himself broken and a lot of tears. We walked into the house. He wanted to know how things unfolded, and he had said that abortion is murder, and we’re not going to do that. And honestly, I felt in that truth a new liberty, a new freedom to go ahead and do the next best thing for us.<\/em><\/p>\n

Deep down, Cavanagh hadn\u2019t wanted an abortion. When her father opposed abortion so firmly, she felt relief and a sense of freedom.<\/p>\n