“I don’t understand why women don’t just report it if it really happened.”
When I was 19, I reported mine. I had bruises. Hospital photos. Text messages of him apologizing the next morning. My friends drove me to the station because I could barely stop shaking. I thought evidence would make it simple. I thought truth would be enough.
Months later, I was the one on trial. His lawyer printed my Instagram photos and held them up in court. Asked why I wore crop tops. Asked why I drank that night. Asked why I didn’t scream louder. He replayed my police interview and pointed out every time I hesitated, every time I cried, every time my timeline wasn’t perfectly linear. “If it was traumatic,” he said, “why can’t she remember clearly?”
Sitting there while strangers debated my pain like it was a group project felt like being stripped again. My messages were projected on a screen. My body was described in detail. My character was picked apart like that was the real crime.
He walked out on bail. I walked out with panic attacks.
That’s why some women don’t report. Because even with bruises. Even with screenshots. Even when you do everything “right.” You still have to survive the assault twice, once in private, and once in public, just to maybe be believed.
My classmate was raped on her way back home from university and got pregnant, but couldn’t get an abortion due to the laws. She had to drop out of university where she was studying medicine. Because of pregnancy and childbirth expenses, she couldn’t continue her studies, left college, started working at a coffee shop, lost the fun of her early twenties, and lost the chance to attend international medical conferences she once dreamt of… all just to give birth to a child she never wanted.
People say, “What if the baby you abort grows up and cures cancer?”
Okay — but what if the 19-year-old you deny an abortion to grows up and cures cancer?
Now she can’t afford to get an education. Instead, she has to take care of a baby. What about her? An actual living human being???
“Abortion ends potential life”… So do property disputes, war, and genocide. You only seem to care about lives when women don’t give birth to them.
Juger, c’est résister aux pressions extérieures mais aussi aux séductions intérieures. C’est choisir la loi plutôt que l’applaudissement. L’indépendance du juge ne se mesure pas à l’absence de contrainte, mais à la capacité de dire non, y compris à soi-même.