Extreme abortion laws
don’t value victims
I am appalled by the sheer cold-heartedness and cruelty of some conservative Republicans in forcing victims/survivors of incest to give birth to the child of their evil predator.
I guess they feel that these women and girls have not suffered enough nor been damaged enough. For five years, my heart ached as I listened to the most disgusting and despicable acts committed against them by the men in their lives who should have loved and protected them, but, instead, made it impossible for them to ever trust a man. As one victim/survivor said to me “If you can’t trust your own father, then how can you ever trust any man?”
I am a retired professor of sociology and social work, who once taught at WVU. I asked the therapists and counselors who had much more experience than the five years I had as a therapist and counselor working in the field of alcoholism, drug addiction and mental health, if they have ever heard of an incest victim/survivor who had a happy, successful, long-lasting romantic relationship. They all said, “No. Never.”
There was a therapist who was an incest victim/survivor. A lof of the clients would ask me, “Why does she always smile even when there is nothing for her to smile about?”
So, I asked the more experienced therapists/counselors about this because I had noticed this myself and didn’t understand it. They told me that it is common for some victims/survivors to constantly smile, and that it is a way for them to try to hide and cover-up how they feel inside and how much they hate themselves and how unhappy and miserable they feel inside.
These conservatives who are doing this should be ashamed of themselves.
Stewart B. Epstein
Rochester, N.Y.
