I grew between West Virginia, Ohio and Oklahoma. The first I can remember my dad molesting me is when I was four years old, living in Columbus, Ohio. It was Christmastime and my mom was with my younger brother who was in the hospital with asthma. We almost lost him. I was home alone with my dad, on the basement steps with my back turned, and my dad was touching me inappropriately. I didn’t like it, but I was afraid.
My dad was a mean drunk, like the devil was in him. On one occasion, my dad had me run up and down a hill with a little puppy, then he took that puppy and hung him right in front of me. On another occasion, he told me he’d put a bunch of kittens in a bag and ran over them with his car.
Whenever my dad wanted to touch me, he was drinking whiskey and I had a feeling of dread come over my shoulders. I never told anyone, but my mom eventually knew what was happening and she didn’t stop it. In fact, at times, she was in bed with us when he was abusing me. I remember it always hurt.
At the age of 11, I lost my virginity to my dad. Again, I was afraid and confused. I didn’t even understand what was happening. My mom was in the room sitting at a table. When he was done, he walked over to my mom and chastised her, “You let someone else get her before me.” Then he started to beat on her.
The abuse went on for years, about four or five times a week. When he would rape me, I would close my eyes, my body would go numb, and I would go somewhere else in my head. I knew what he did to me was wrong and I felt different from others. At a young age, I just thought that this must be how daddies love their daughters. But around the age of 13, I realized that this is not the way things are supposed to be. I began looking at boys and realized that normal attraction is toward people closer to your own age. I liked boys my own age, and my dad should have only been attracted to my mom.
From a young age, I had become a loner. I was a skinny little girl with long hair and sad eyes. Other children made fun of me and I didn’t want to talk in front of others because I was bullied a lot. I felt like my dad controlled me, and I felt dirty.
In 1965, at the age of 14, I told my mom that I missed a period, but she just told me that it was okay and that it would come back. But I missed it again and I knew that meant I could be pregnant. That’s when my mom and dad took me a strange house in New Rome, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. I thought we were just visiting one of my dad’s friends.
My mom told me everything would be okay. I could hear my dad talking to this strange man. Then my parents left me alone with him. I was afraid and starting crying. He took me down into his basement. I remember he had a cloth with a strange odor that he put over my mouth, and then the next thing I knew, I woke up at home bleeding profusely out of my privates. My mom had ice in bags that she was putting on me, with towels around me to soak up the blood. I was confused at first and didn’t know what happened to me. I didn’t know anything about abortions. My mom never said a word to me about what was done to me. Really, we never talked at all — same thing with my dad. We didn’t talk.
Within a week or two, he began raping me again, and it went on for another two years until I left home at the age of 16. I met a man who was 21 years old who wanted to marry me. My mom helped me to leave so that my dad would finally have sex with her.
However, after I left home, my dad tried raping my 13 year old sister, but she was able to fight him off with the help of my two younger brothers and my mom, who ended up getting severely beaten by my dad. Then my sister told a neighbor lady. Knowing he would finally face arrest, he headed up into the hollers of West Virginia and they couldn’t find him. My parents eventually divorced.
I felt terrible when I knew that they had fought so hard to protect my sister, but had not protected me. I talked to my brothers about it, and they just said, “We were kids when this all started. What we were going to do?”
Looking back, I realize now that my mom and dad had forced an illegal abortion upon me in order to protect him. They didn’t want me to have a baby and have the truth come out that he was the father. I feel like I missed out on a blessing, even though this was my dad’s baby. I grieve that I missed out on something. I know I would have loved my baby. It’s not the baby’s fault that my dad molested me.
My children are my life. My son was born four days before my 17th birthday and from the beginning, I loved him completely. My children come first in my life. I am totally pro-life. I took my daughter to the March For Life in Washington, D.C. when she was 14 years old. Despite what I went through, I think I’d be pro-life regardless because I love babies.
Abortion is the end of a life – someone who is part of you. It’s much better to carry a child and put him or her up for adoption. Every child is a blessing from God. My baby had a soul. I feel sad and angry at what my mom and dad did to me – it wasn’t their right for me to be raped and it wasn’t their right to take that baby away from me. One day, that baby will be in my arms.
It makes me upset when I hear people say that it’s necessary to have abortion legal in cases of rape or incest, but you need to think about what abortion does – it ends a life and it protects the perpetrator. Even if a mom was taking a girl for an abortion, that could be like my mom who was just trying to protect my dad and herself, because she’d been letting him molest me for all of these years.
My mom and dad never apologized for everything they’d done to me. I had gone nearly a dozen years without seeing him, but when I found out he was dying of cancer, I went to see him because I thought that no one should have to die alone. I told him, “Dad, I forgive you for what you did to me. I forgive you, not for you, but for myself.” He surely heard me, but acted like he didn’t.
I still struggle. I have nightmares to this day and I’m still in therapy. No one should ever have to go through what I went through, and I just hope that my story will help someone with their life – whether you have suffered abuse, whether you are a mom who is concerned about her husband or boyfriend’s behavior, or whether you’ve suffered an abortion. No one deserves to be harmed. Everyone should be able to live a peaceful life.BIO: A post-abortive survivor of incest, Joyce Ann Born is now a mother of two and a grandmother of six, residing in Ohio, and is now a pro-life blogger for Save The 1.
