Finding Real Answers in the “Hard Cases”
By Amy Sobie
Kay Zibolsky is the founder of Life After Assault League, an organization dedicated to ministering to victims of sexual assault. In 1957, Kay herself was raped and became pregnant at the age of 16. She gave birth to her daughter, Robin, and placed her for adoption when she was 18 months old. Nearly 25 years later, mother and daughter were finally reunited.
Life After Assault League takes a Biblical/Christian approach to counseling that is based on Kay’s own experience of healing from sexual assault. Kay has counseled thousands of women over the years (she says she lost count at about 2,000) through phone calls, the mail, or one-on-one locally.
According to Kay, about half the women she counsels are pregnant from a sexual assault. “You can’t say it doesn’t happen,” she said. “I know from my own experience that there are more rape pregnancies than the statistics say. Eighty to ninety percent of the women I have counseled who are pregnant from sexual assault have never reported the rape.
Most women Kay talks to are pregnant at the time they call her. She urges these women not to dwell on the circumstances of their baby’s conception. “People don’t normally walk around thinking about how we they were conceived,” she said. “Once we’re here, what does it matter how we got here?”
Kay shares her experiences in a new book, The Sorrow of Sexual Assault & the Joy of Healing (see review on page 4). She was also previously interviewed for the book Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault. That interview is excerpted here.
Abortion is Not the Answer
According to Kay, she is to help most women avoid abortion. She believes abortion “is not compassionate” for the mother and child, even as she recalls her own struggles to accept her pregnancy in the first weeks:
“Abortion was not legal then–I did not know the word ‘abortion,’ she said. “But I do remember in the first four to six weeks wanting to get rid of the baby, wanting to beat my belly or do something I had heard might cause a miscarriage. I didn’t, of course, but I wanted to. I didn’t want to be pregnant–I knew I would have to leave school, that people would talk.
“But as the pregnancy progressed, as I could feel my baby begin to kick and move, my thoughts began to change. The baby itself was a part of the healing. I began to like it, even to like being pregnant. I began to know we would get through it. My mom was a single mom (my parents divorced when I was just a baby) and I knew that if she had made it, we would too.
“Everyone’s mind changes . . . that’s why we want them to wait, to give them time to think, time for a pro-lifer to talk with them–before they do something they can’t change. You have to work with them where they are at. You have to let the Lord speak through you. Sometimes He gives you things to say that will change a woman’s mind and you don’t even know it.
“I tell these women that there is no reason to kill a baby. I give them no loopholes. Every abortion is for someone’s convenience. There are no unwanted children–it’s just a matter of distribution. There is no reason to have an abortion–it’s that simple.”
Kay believes that abortion only compounds the anger women feel toward the perpetrators who attacked them. Abortion is simply a form of transferring that anger to an innocent victim.
“The rape crisis centers and secular counselors have it all wrong when they tell the women they need to get angry so they can get over the rape,” she said. “You don’t need to tell a rape victim to get angry; they already are. The anger is what they need to get rid of. Otherwise they take on the guilt of the perpetrator and start hating him. Then they end up turning the anger against the baby–against the wrong person. Even if the perpetrator is caught, he is not killed for his crime of rape. Yet why do we kill the baby for the rape?”
Learning to Heal
It is holding on to this anger that prevents women from healing, Kay believes, since without forgiveness for the perpetrator, there can be no true healing from the pain of sexual assault. Kay said many of the women who call her have gone to counseling for years but say they still can’t find healing. “They don’t have Jesus, so they can’t forgive and they can’t heal,” she said. “They need to realize that the counselor can’t heal them.”
Kay said that some of the most profound examples of forgiveness and healing that she has witnessed have come from women who were the most violently attacked. “There was one case where a woman’s body was so torn up she had to have numerous surgeries and almost could not carry the baby to term,” she said. “I’ve seen this several times. You would think these women would be the most angry, but they are often the most loving people. They are able to forgive and go on.
“I tell each woman that time marches on–as it says in Scripture, ‘This too will pass.’ I tell them I will be there for them, that I will correspond with them, that they can call me. I’ll give them whatever they need to get through it. Someday they will be able to look back at this crisis and know that they got through it.
“Sometimes I get the chance to stay with the woman through correspondence or through seeing them at church . . . I get the chance to see them get married and have other babies. One of my friends in Australia had a rape pregnancy eleven years ago and placed the child for adoption. We still correspond and she is now married and expecting another child . . . I have the privilege of being able to look back and see where she has come from.”
Kay believes that resources–having the necessary financial, physical, emotional, and spiritual support–are one of the keys to helping women chose to give birth to their children rather than give in to an abortion.
“There are more resources now than when I had my baby–more help available today where there was nothing then,” she said. “Crisis pregnancy centers provide all kinds of financial and medical assistance, counseling, etc. Pro-lifers can’t get weary of helping and being there for the women. We need to help them get on their feet–there aren’t enough pro-lifers to mother all these women. We need to help them learn how to help themselves.”
Abortion and Despair
“If they have had an abortion, they need to recognize that it was wrong; but that Jesus loves and forgives,” Kay said. “She needs to accept Jesus. I always say we are in the restoration business, the business of restoring women’s lives and peace. You need to have compassion–to meet these women where they are. Each case is different; you have to deal with each one differently. You can’t apply the last case to the one who is coming in the door.”
Abortion, Kay says, merely prolongs the hurt and trauma that is caused by sexual assault. Often women feel that they have gone “too far” to be forgiven and they just want to give up.
“Women come to me in such despair.,” she said. “They feel that they’ve crossed a line somewhere and that they can never be forgiven. I have to tell them that Jesus always forgive.”
Kay believes despair can keep women trapped in the past and unable to accept the forgiveness and healing that is available to them. Abortion following a rape will only push them deeper into a state of despair. She believes from her experience that women who carry the child to term and experience giving life are less likely to despair and more likely to heal more quickly.
In talking about abortion, Kay emphasizes that giving birth to her child was part of her own healing from sexual assault. In her book The Sorrow of Sexual Assault & the Joy of Healing, she writes:
In talking with young woman who are considering abortion, I have discovered that my life lends credibility to my words. To you victims of sexual assault who may be experiencing pressure to “take the easy way out” by the destructive means of legal abortion, don’t yield to that temptation!
For your child’s sake, and for your own peace of mind, give him or her something far more precious than anyone else could ever give, let the child live! You’ll be contributing to this world the selfless kind of love and caring we all so desperately need. And you’ll find joy and fulfillment for yourself in doing it. You can take it from me–I’ve been there.
* * *
This article is excerpted from the book Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting From Sexual Assault. © 2000 David Reardon, Julie Makimaa, and Amy Sobie.
Victims and Victors is based on a survey of 192 women–the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind to date–who experienced a pregnancy resulting from rape and incest. Includes compelling personal testimonies that show why sexual assault victims don’t want abortions. To order, call Acorn Books at 1-888-412-2676.
