Reproductive abuse

My son was conceived as an act of abuse.

You read that right.

Reproductive abuse is an often overlooked and deeply disturbing tool in the abuser’s toolkit. It is at once far more common than we realise and so difficult to recognise and prove that it’s not part of the language most of us use when talking about abuse.

It’s also, tragically, a matter very close to my heart as my son was conceived as an act of abuse against me.

Let me explain.

Reproductive abuse is a form of controlling behaviour where someone interferes with another person’s reproductive choices.

It could include:

Pregnancy coercion: Pressuring or forcing someone to become pregnant or to terminate a pregnancy, using threats, manipulation, or physical violence. 

Birth control sabotage: Interfering with contraception, such as removing or damaging condoms, hiding or discarding birth control pills, or preventing access to contraceptive methods.

Controlling pregnancy outcomes: Attempting to influence whether a partner continues or ends a pregnancy.

I want to expand this definition to include the following scenario:

When a person fails to disclose such important information about themselves and their past criminal/abusive/violent history to their partner that it renders the relationship itself non-consensual. Essentially, I want to make it an offence if the pregnant partner would not have begun or proceeded with the pregnancy had that material fact or set of facts been disclosed to them.

Here’s a brief summary of my own story. I also entreat you to read Liv Nervo’s story which she is bravely sharing in a bid to criminalise this type of deception: https://goodlawproject.org/liv-nervo-court-calls-pringles-shameful-conduct-abuse/

I met my abuser online in my early forties and we had a whirlwind relationship. Both of us already had two children from our previous relationships. He appeared very devoted to his children even though they lived with their mother and spent time with him. My two children lived primarily with me and spent time with their father.

My abuser asked me very early on whether I’d consider having another child. I laughed and told him, no. I was in my forties, already had two kids and didn’t think I could afford any more. But I was excited about the idea of a blended family and stepchildren: it had long been a dream of mine to have a house full of kids (at least, every other weekend).

As the months went on and our relationship deepened, my abuser kept telling me how much he loved kids, that he had always dreamed of having three children and would “love to be a father again.” He’d sometimes speak with tears in his eyes about this dream fading away from him.

I asked him why he didn’t date slightly younger women. After all, many women in their late thirties were very keen to settle down and start a family.

No, he told me, he wanted someone who already had kids as we were on the same page and knew what the other person was going through. Of course, I lapped it all up, and as the months went on, and I started falling for this guy – and especially once I met his gorgeous kids – something seeded in my brain.

What if I could have that one last-chance, late in life baby? It could bring our blended family together, after all. I, too, had dreamed of having three kids long ago, after all, it was just a dream I’d given up on when my first relationship ended.

When I told him I was coming around to the idea, he was delighted. We stopped using contraception. Months passed and nothing. Then, I found out I was pregnant.

As soon as I announced my pregnancy to him, my abuser’s attitude changed. He did not seem excited about the pregnancy. In fact, he seemed angry, as if it had been accidental rather than planned.

At eight weeks pregnant and at the ripe old age of 42, my partner began abusing me. It started with a clenched fist held over my head during an argument when I was lying in bed. It only got worse.

My abuser began telling me to have an abortion (which I didn’t want to do after we’d tried purposefully to get pregnant); that he wanted our child to be born disabled (and other things which I won’t repeat on this site), that he wanted nothing to do with the child once born and that I was not to dare putting him on the birth certificate and that our child would have none of the generous financial support his older two children received from him.

He stormed out of the 20-week anatomy scan where the sex was revealed as he “didn’t want a boy” (our son is a boy). He refused to contribute a penny towards any of the baby gear I set about buying in earnest. Indeed, he began stealing some of the items I purchased myself to ensure I wouldn’t be prepared for our son’s arrival.

A month before my son’s birth, and living in increasing fear of my abuser’s escalating abuse, which I knew may have been focussed on the new baby once he arrived, I finally sought protection from the court and obtained a non-molestation (domestic violence) order against him.

Around 30% of domestic abuse cases begin in pregnancy, a fact I only learned when I Googled it, heavily pregnant and preparing for the imminent birth of my son. I started to realise that my abuser had never wanted another child, at all.

He had also sometimes told me, “let’s get married, it’s an extra layer of commitment.” Luckily, we never did. As I educated myself about narcissistic abuse, I learned that narcissists love marriage and children because those things make it harder for their victims to leave them without consequences. My heart sank, the baby I hadn’t ever planned on having – whom I was now excited to be welcoming into the world alone – had been conceived solely to abuse me.

Indeed, after months of having nothing to do with our son, and paying nothing for his upkeep, my abuser lodged an application in family court to see his child and prevent me from moving on with my life. Keeping me trapped in expensive litigation for months was his last chance saloon – his final turn of the sword in my wound, trying to destroy me.

After the initial fanfare, he failed to show up to any of his own hearings, whilst I was forced to attend court with an expensive legal team to defend my son’s and my safety. He continued to avoid paying child support and not once, in all the months the litigation dragged on, did he attempt to have any contact with his son. You read that right: child proceedings to have contact with the child, but never once took up the invitation to visit with him.

Luckily, due to this particularly egregious and erratic behaviour (which one of my barristers described as the worst she’d ever seen in her long career), the Judge dismissed his applications on the basis he was totally disengaged from the proceedings and granted me sole custody of my son with no order for contact with our abuser. I know that makes me one of the lucky ones – too many women are forced to co-parent with their abusers for years.

Here’s one last twist. I can’t go into details about this for privacy and legal reasons, but after finally escaping my abuser and starting to process the abuse I’d experienced during my pregnancy, I found out my abuser’s past was far darker than I could ever have imagined and that his wrongdoing was not limited to his domestic abuse of me.

That’s why I want reproductive abuse to be expanded to include scenarios where a pregnant partner is tricked into pregnancy by someone who only seeks to use the child as leverage and a tool for control and, particularly, where there is a failure to disclose an abuser’s past history which is so shocking that the pregnant partner would never willingly have chosen to become pregnant to their abuser had they known of that material fact.

I would never have gone on a single date with my abuser had I known that he had done any of things he had done, let alone that he would begin abusing me. I would never have let him in my home or near my older children. I never would have willingly conceived a child with him.

Reproductive abuse is far more common than we know. Let’s change the language of the law and start recognising it. Let’s save women and children from this vile form of abuse.