{"id":253874,"date":"2021-09-23T10:46:52","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T15:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=253874"},"modified":"2021-09-22T23:22:38","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T04:22:38","slug":"uma-thurman-sexual-assault-abortion-tragic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/uma-thurman-sexual-assault-abortion-tragic\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Uma Thurman’s history of sexual assault and coerced abortion is tragic, not empowering"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This week, in an Op-Ed for The Washington Post<\/a>, actress Uma Thurman used her voice to advocate for the right for Texas women and girls to have abortions by\u00a0revealing to the world her “darkest secret” \u2014 an abortion she underwent as a teenager. She wrote the essay in an attempt to show that the Texas Heartbeat Act, which restricts abortion to before a preborn child’s heartbeat can be detected, is an attack on women’s human rights. But nothing about what happened to Thurman proves that abortion is either necessary or beneficial to women.<\/p>\n

Rape<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2018, Thurman told The New York Times<\/a> that she was raped at 16 by a man 20 years older than she was. At the time, she was living in her studio apartment in Manhattan. In her recent piece for The Washington Post she said, “In my late teens, I was accidentally impregnated by a much older man. I was living out of a suitcase in Europe, far from my family, and about to start a job. I struggled to figure out what to do.” Heartbreakingly, she added, “I wanted to keep the baby, but how?”<\/p>\n

It is unclear whether Thurman was a minor (and a victim of statutory rape), or whether she consented to sex with the “much older man,” and it is also unclear if the man mentioned in the NYT story and the man in her WashPo article were the same person. What is<\/em> clear is that Thurman has suffered a history of sexual assault, including at the hands of Harvey Weinstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Texas Heartbeat Act does not include an exception for rape, and many pro-abortion individuals are deeply bothered by this. But abortion advocates’ main concern with the lack of this exception seems to be the desire to ensure a survivor’s ability to abort a child after sexual assault, rather than imprisoning the survivor’s rapist for the assault itself.<\/p>\n

This is made obvious by the numerous cases in which Planned Parenthood<\/a> has committed an abortion on young girls \u2014 some as young as 12 \u2014 who were victims of sexual abuse. As a mandated reporter, Planned Parenthood staff is responsible for reporting even suspected abuse, which includes any<\/em> pregnancy of a minor under the age of consent. Instead, Planned Parenthood has repeatedly taken the money for the abortions and returned the victims to their abusers, allowing them (and others) to be further abused.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0\u2018Don\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u2019: Planned Parenthood sends pre-teen victims back to sexual abusers<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rape and abortion are both<\/em> violent attacks<\/a> on a human being, and many women who have chosen abortion after rape have experienced deep regret.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could never ever deal with my rape because I was so focused on what I had done in choosing abortion,\u201d\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0rape survivor Ashley Sigrest. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what people don\u2019t understand when they tell rape victims, ‘Oh yes, have an abortion so that way you can go on and we can deal with the rape.’ But the abortion just makes the rape 1,000 times worse because now you have these\u00a0two<\/em>\u00a0horrible events that you have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women who have chosen life after rape, however, tell a much happier story.\u00a0\u201cMy son is a reminder,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0rape survivor Paula Peyton Ilari. \u201cHe reminds me that miracles still happen, and he is the greatest miracle I\u2019ve ever held. My son is loved. He has a mama whose heart spills love for him everywhere because it simply cannot hold it all. My son is a child. He is a beautiful spark of light and hope and joy. He, like every other child, is filled with purpose. My son is love. He is God\u2019s gift of love sent to heal my heart and draw me closer to the one who created us both.\u201d<\/p>\n