So imagine your 12-year-old daughter has stomach pains. You decide to take her to the hospital. After some tests, the cause of the stomach pain is revealed: Your 12-year-old daughter doesn't have the flu nor food poisoning. Nope. She's pregnant. Horrible. And also, uhh, does this sound familiar?!!

It wasn't that long ago that I wrote about an 11-year-old girl who became pregnant with her mother's 42-year-old boyfriend's baby and her mother found out by bringing her daughter to the hospital with stomach pains. This time, a mother brought her 12-year-old to a hospital with stomach pains and it was revealed she was pregnant. The girl told police that a man named Cesar Ernest Alcivar, who is 39, had been sexually assaulting her since she was 11. Both of these strangely and sickeningly similar incidents even happened in Florida.

In the first story, the man was dating the mother of the girl who became pregnant. In this story (at least from the reports I read), it's unclear how Alcivar and the girl knew each other. She reportedly told police he had been sexually abusing her for a year.

In the first story, I asked the question, What should be done about the pregnancy? Many readers said that an abortion was clearly the only option. Many others disagreed. Some people even suggested letting the young girl decide for herself.

It's my contention that if an 11-year-old cannot individually decide what movie to watch, what to wear to school, what to look at on the Internet, and what she can eat for dinner -- because, face it, moms, you'd have something to say about all of those things -- then whether or not to have a child shouldn't be placed on her frail, young shoulders. It's a decision that will affect her the rest of her life. She's still a child herself. I don't even know if a girl that young can safely HAVE a baby. Not to mention that she didn't ASK for this child. She was raped.

I'm boggled by anyone who would believe, as Rep. Todd Akin does, that a woman's body will "shut that thing down" and not become impregnated if raped. Didn't work for the 11-year-old I wrote about before. Didn't work for Jaycee Duggard. Didn't work for this girl. And doesn't work for millions of women all over the world.

This is why abortion needs to be a safe, legal option for women and girls.

Editor's note: Reports don't say how far along the girl is.

What would you do if this was your child?

 

Image via Pinellas County Sheriff's Dept