Because there is Nothing Legitimate about Rape

America’s rape victims have to deal with hundreds of systemic issues; mistrust, bad

media representation, a corrupt justice system and language that makes rape seem like a joke. However there is another issue that is almost never brought into the light.

Across the United States a women does not have the right to terminate her rapist’s parental rights. Yes, that’s right. A rapist’s has equal right to be part of a child’s life. These women end of having to drop up their child to spend time with their rapists father every other weekend. Shauna Prewitt (rape survivor, lawyer, and current women’s activist) spent two years trying to get full custody of her daughter.

Sadly, this isn’t an uncommon story. Every year 32,000 become pregnant each year through rape. About one third of them go on to have and raise that child. That means there’s potential for about 10,000 custody battles every year in this country. Ten thousand is not a small number and custody battles aren’t easy even under normal circumstances. It’s a massive amount of time, money, and energy. For those ten thousand women legals costs are hard. They have to pay for lawyers who don’t come cheap if they want to win. Many of these women have jobs as well as taking care of their children. Not to mention mental anguish. If you are one of these 10,000 women their is a high chance you having to see your rapist regularly both in and outside of the courtroom. Maybe trying to convict them and fight for your child at the same time. Many of these rapists us the children against them in their criminal trials saying that if the women drops the charges then they will stop seeking custody. That’s a decision that no woman should ever have to make; keeping your child or seeing the man who raped you go to prison.

You would think that this would be something that everyone could agree on. Women who have been victims of rape should have full right to their children. It’s not a hard thing to wrap your head around. Laws should be passed so that women like Shauna Prewitt don’t have to fight an uphill battle to keep their children. It something that most people can agree on; Democrats, Republicans, pro choice groups, and pro life groups. No one wants this to keep going on. I thought that with this kind of agreement, bills would run right through the house with ease. However there have been some major issues that keep this hell going.

Firstly people not believing that this is a common problem. The government has an automatic and systemic mistrust of rape victims. To give one disgusting example of it we can turn to my own state’s former congressmen Todd Akin.

Todd Akin was the Republican senator of missouri back in 2012 when he made a statement that shook St. Louis and later the nation. He introduced something called “legitimate rape”; the idea that women who become victims of rape were lying because they got pregnant. He stated that when a women is having sex without her constant her body automatically shuts down and then accepts no sperm. Most people can shake their heads and say that’s the stupidest shit they’ve ever heard in their life, but not everybody does. The story was picked up on a national level and people all around the country started stating that legitimate rape was a police term and therefore must be true. Not only is it not a police term it’s also not faintly close to true. Remember those 32,000 women I mentioned earlier? Tell them they get to pick and choose their sperm and see how they react.

Another reason that these laws are having a hard time in the house is that aren’t even able to have a hearing. Because of the extra costs that it would put on the tax dollars the law has not had any real floor time. The question is how much money is too money to keep children out of the hands of rapists. This bill would cost about five million dollars annually. This may sound like a lot of money, but let’s look at what we spend money on right now. The US government spends about five million dollars promoting fruits and vegetables. To quote Samantha Bee, “So we’re cool with eam grape, but not team letting rape victims keep their children?” We spent about $718 billion dollars on defense and international relations in 2011. We spend about eighty billion dollars on prisons each year. Let us look again. Five million dollars in retrospect isn’t that much.

So who is trying to fix this massive issue? Wasserman Schultz (the state representative of Florida) introduced legislation to try and fix it. After much fighting she was able to get a bill in her state at a low cost that has proved extremely effective in the last three years. It’s a model that Shauna Prewitt wants to be passed in all fifty states.

This story isn’t usually picked up by media. Maybe it’s because it’s ugly and disturbing. Writing this makes me frustrated, angry, and want to scream. It seems so obvious that this is absurd and wrong. I want to fix it right now to run all the way to D.C. and force the house to listen. But I am one voice and I can’t speak for a whole issue. This essay is a small window into a disturbing world that most people avert their eyes to. In the time you have read this essay you have had to take a side glance at that window. I ask you to gather your time, learn, and use your own voice. You can’t blame one stupid congressmen from Missouri or some political party (although that is huge piece of this issue). It’s not anyone person that is causing women like Shauna Prewitt to suffer. It’s an ideology. I ask you to use your voice in anyway to shatter the glass of that window.