What if you were Imette St. Guillen?

[Bgno64]

http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/21451

I want you to imagine that you are Imette St. Guillen, and went out with friends one night, as she did Feb. 25.

And I want you to imagine that on your way home, like St. Guillen, you were savagely raped.

I want you to imagine that, like St. Guillen, your hands and feet were bound with plastic ties, your hair chopped off.

You were tortured, sodomized, perhaps “violated with objects,” as police say the real St. Guillen’s wounds suggest.

Like St. Guillen, you were choked, a tube sock stuffed down your throat. And I want you to imagine that your face — your face — was wrapped in packing tape, effectively obliterating your identity.

It was the most vicious, violent, animalistic attack imaginable. The real St. Guillen died as a result.

But I want you to imagine that you managed to live through it.

And then, a few weeks later, you discover you’re pregnant.

What do you do?

[Radio_Lady]

1. At my age, 66, I'd light a candle at the nearest cathedral.

It would be the next immaculate conception in a woman without any eggs! ::sarcasm::

Seriously, I understand your point. In March, 1960, I married a young resident doctor whom I had known only a few weeks. I married either because I was pregnant or at least I thought I was pregnant -- I really do not remember all of the details. He was a good man, and trying to work a terrible schedule which gave him little or no free time.

Later that year, I became so depressed I tried to kill myself. My husband basically figured out how to extricate himself from the marriage by putting me in a psychiatric hospital and just leaving me there. I was quite ill, underwent electroshock treatments. I was there for many months, until I delivered a stillborn daughter, who had died in utero, in November 1960.

We divorced in 1971, and the official order says he "abandoned" me. If that baby had lived, in 1960, I would have put it up for adoption.

However, it is now 2006, and the circumstances you outline are horrific. If this were my daughter or granddaughter, I would counsel her to seek an abortion, and pray that she was not living in South Dakota.

My heart goes out to her parents and loved ones. Each family will have their own answer to your question. I know there are other women who would have the baby and raise it, or put it up for adoption. But, for me, the matter would have been between her and her doctor, and the government should have no say. Whether it will or not depends on how the texture of laws in this country will change (or not change) in the future.

[aquart]

2. I'm sure Imette would be thrilled to be used for propaganda purposes.

After all, it's effective, right?

I'm pretty turned off by this. Especially since my best guess is that girl was Catholic.

The rapist made a thing of her. And now some person with a great cause has done the same.

[Radio_Lady]

3. I don't understand. Didn't they do that with Terri Schiavo, too?

If the girl was Catholic, it comes to the same point.

She, her doctor, her priest, and her family should get to decide. Not the government.

At least, that's what I currently believe.