Pregnant after rape - husband gets custody of the child
Tiffany Gordon's nine-year-old son rages through her Florida apartment, and her mother beaming, "He's my all!" says the young woman. No matter how much her husband Anthony loves the boy, you can tell by the fact that he had his name tattooed in huge letters on his right arm: !! Ryan !! with four exclamation marks.
Her family wanted her to abort
Ryan was not begotten for love, but by force. Tiffany Gordon, 21 today, was only 12 when an 18-year-old friend of her older sister invited them on a drive. "I thought we were going to McDonald's," says Tiffany. Instead, Christopher Mirasolo threw her cell phones out of the truck window, held the sisters in an abandoned house for two days, and raped her.
A month later, Tiffany realized that she was pregnant. "You can not imagine it: you're twelve, and the gynecologist tells you you're expecting a baby," says the plump woman with the long curly red curls. Her apartment is decorated with framed Bible quotations; only her faith, she says, has saved her through this time.
Her family wanted her aborted, but Tiffany decided to keep the baby. "Ryan is innocent, not he ruined my youth, but the rapist." Her parents support her, but some strictly conservative family members still do not speak to her. She also had to change schools, because other parents were worried that she would have a bad influence on her classmates - because she brought "disgrace" to the family as underage pregnant women.
For almost eight years, she did not talk about the kidnapping, tried to oust her, kept afloat with odd jobs. Until last year she applied for state support for her son.
The judges ordered her to move close to her rapist
This set in motion a process whose consequences Tiffany Gordon could not foresee. Instead of support she got a court order: If there is a father, then the support should pay (which he has not done until today), and then he would also have the common custody. Without taking into account the criminal circumstances of the paternity, the judge ordered Tiffany to move from Florida to near the child's father's to Michigan, not allowed to move farther than 100 miles from where he lived, and incidentally betrayed the perpetrator to Tiffany's new address ,
Tiffany Gordon's fate is not an isolated case: up to 32,000 women are pregnant each year in America by a rape, one-third to half of women decide to keep the child. But six American states have no law that protects rape victims from having custody of the offender. 31 other states have laws with many loopholes.
Three years ago, then-President Barack Obama signed the "Rape Survivor Child Custody Act," a law intended to protect rape victims from this trauma. But the implementation is left to the individual states. And there is not only a lack of clear guidelines, but also an understanding of the victims.
"The child does not care how it came about"
The 23-year-old Noemi Martinez in Norfolk, Nebraska, for example, was raped six years ago by a 21-year-old colleague after work. For Noemi an abortion was out of the question. "When I first heard my baby's heartbeat, I knew I could not do it." She is strictly Catholic, and like Tiffany, she says: "The child can not do anything about how it came about."
When she asked for maintenance, the perpetrator demanded access rights with his daughter - and the court proved him right. Every week she has to give him her child, every other week even for a whole weekend. Unattended. Isabella is now six years old.
"My biggest fear is that he does something to her or something bad happens," Noemi says hesitantly. "I can not guess what he's up to with my daughter."
In a CNN report, she shows her rapper's SMS messages, which he sent her when she was pregnant. In it he asks her to let the child abort or to fall down the stairs. She says she was dreading her life. But even that did not prevent the court from granting him rights of access.
Is that all still fair?
She tries not to meet her daughter's father. When the child is handed over, she takes her mother or sister with him wherever possible, and always looks for public places. She then lets Isabella run across the parking lot to his car or apartment door so as not to face him directly."I do not want to have anything to do with him," she says. Isabella says he gives her toys and plays a lot with her, but Noemi does not trust him.
In a rape-rape, a rapist automatically loses paternity rights in Nebraska. The fact itself is undisputed, the culprit has confessed. But he negotiated a so-called "plea deal", an "understanding" - in the US, the fewest perpetrators are still convicted in proper court cases, whole 97 percent agree to a deal. They agree to a weakened accusation and get in return a milder sentence.
This has many advantages: The state saves time and money, the perpetrator saves several years in prison - but the victim must see how it copes with the consequences. In Noemis case, the consequences are dramatic: The offender was convicted as a result of the deal only because of sexual coercion of third degree. And so he may keep the paternity rights.
The man should still be behind bars. Instead, the system punishes my client, who was still a child when all this happened.
Exactly this practice was also fatal to Tiffany Gordon. For the extremely serious crime - kidnapping and multiple rape of a child with pregnancy succession - Mirasolo, now 28, would actually have had to get 25 years to life, instead, the judges sentenced him only for "attempted" rape. He was released after six months to look after his sick mother. Barely released, he raped a 14-year-old and sat for four years.
As a convicted rapist, Mirasolo is not allowed to approach a kindergarten or a school - but Tiffany should give him a son once a week? "That's sick," says attorney Rebecca Kiessling, 49. "The man should still be behind bars today, instead the system punishes my client, who was a child herself when it all happened." For Tiffany, it was a challenge to meet her tormentor at the trial. "The court required them to be present and did not even allow them to wait in a separate room," says Kiessling. She has won the case, but considers it scandalous that her client was forced to do this ordeal. Plus, because Tiffany could not have afforded a lawyer? Kiessling represented her pro bono.
Rebecca Kiessling is committed to changing the law, and she has recently done so in Maryland. She founded a self-help association for rape victims who became mothers. The fact that she herself was fathered by a rape is high on her website. "If my mother had aborted, I would not be here today," she says. Like many of her clients, Rebecca Kiessling is also a committed life-saver and condemns abortions even after rape. Much as this may irritate one's point of view, the mothers feel accepted by the "pro-life" activists in their decision to have the child. Given their often dire financial and psychological situation, they find emotional support and legal support. Kiessling mercilessly exposes the topic to the public.
Jessica was pregnant several times by her uncle
Jessica Cardwell, 31, did not start talking about the abuse that poisoned her childhood until this January. Her mother's brother, she tells on the drive to the radio station where she works, moved to Alabama with her family when she was twelve. Because the apartment was small, her mother had the then 19 -year-old in Jessica's room - and from then on, he raped her regularly. At the age of 14, she became pregnant for the first time. The child died still in the womb. To this day, Jessica can not understand why the gynecologist did not inform the authorities. "A pregnant 14-year-old, why nobody is listening in. I could have been released then." At 15, she became pregnant again, as well as 17 and 19. Her sons are now 15 and twelve years old. Another son would actually be 13 years old, but he lived severely disabled only a few years.
Instead of protecting her, her mother urged her to marry the offender. "She talked to me when I go to the police, we all go to jail, me too," says Jessica, "I saw no way out." But then, she says, she was "totally intimidated" and "terribly ashamed." My family told me it was all my fault. " Her husband had taken drugs, beaten and strangled her. Only when he put a gun to her head did she leave him with her children.
Not only do not I want the kids to have contact with him. I do not even want to live in the same galaxy with this monster.
As a single mother, Jessica became homeless, and the courts spoke the children to the father, although he kept coming into conflict with the police over car-theft and drug use.
She now has a good job as a radio commercial, has remarried, and her two youngest children are five and six years old.In 2012, she also got custody of her two eldest sons, but the judge granted the father rights of access. Jessica also wanted to speak in court about the incest, but her lawyer advised her against it. "That's not relevant, she said."
In June 2018, she was again sentenced to leave her rapist with her children once a week. Under supervision, but that does not diminish her anger. "I even have to pay half the cost of the supervision," she says. "Not only do I not want the kids to be in touch with him, I do not even want to live in the same galaxy with this monster." Her eldest son knows how he came into being and refuses to see his father. Then Jessica builds her hope: "Because the visits are under supervision, everything is recorded by cameras, and then the judges can see for themselves that they do not want contact."
In the process, she threatened not to agree to further visits, preferring to jail her. "It's worth it, is not it?" She asked the judge. She looked directly into his eyes. "Yes, that's it."
