Everybody's daughter': The rape victim behind Kentucky's viral abortion ad

[irisblue]

https://wapo.st/3uSfHBi. gift article


snip-"She’d been raped throughout childhood by her stepfather, who pleaded guilty to rape, sodomy and sexual abuse, and is now serving 20 years in prison. He started sexually abusing her when she was 5 years old, according to police reports — at first convincing her that his behavior was normal, then holding her down when she finally realized it was not.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s reelection campaign learned about Duvall because of a Facebook post about her experience she had written on June 25, 2022, the day after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The ruling triggered a near-total abortion ban in Kentucky, one of 12 states with a recently enacted ban that makes no exceptions for rape or incest. Days after she heard from Beshear’s team, Duvall was sitting in the dining room of a wealthy Beshear supporter she didn’t know, staring into a video camera. She aimed her words directly at the Republican candidate for governor, who for months had thrown his full support behind the current version of Kentucky’s law before conceding late in the campaign that he was open to additional exceptions.

“This is to you, Daniel Cameron,” Duvall said in the ad, her blue eyes narrowed in anger.

“To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable. I’m speaking out because women and girls need to have options. Daniel Cameron would give us none.”



Try not to vomit when you read Camerons' response

[sheshe2]

1. What an incredibly strong young woman.

Parts of the article made me cry. Thank you for gifting it, Iris. Everyone should read it in its entirety.

[SharonAnn]

2. Actually am crying for her when she went through all that in her childhood.

It's heartbreaking to know that this stuff goes on and that it is kept secret because the child is usually terrified.

What a brave young woman.
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I remember when Marilyn Van Derbur (Miss America 1958) went public about her sexual abuse at the hand of her father. It was unbelievable that this lovely, talented, accomplished woman had been through the same kind of abuse during all her childhood.

In this long-awaited book, Marilyn Van Derbur, a former Miss America, tells the story of how she was sexually violated by her prominent, millionaire father from age 5 to age 18. She was 53 years old before she was able to speak the words in public, “I am an incest survivor.”

She opened the door for tens of thousands of sexual abuse survivors to also speak the words, many for the first time, within their own families and communities. https://www.missamericabyday.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Miss-America-Day-Betrayals-Unconditional/dp/1935689517