Testimony: '**** no excuse for abortion'In moving testimony, a **** victim has spoken out in favor of Mississippi's proposed Personhood Amendment.
If approved by voters next Tuesday (Nov. 8), the constitutional amendment (Initiative 26) would ban abortion except to save the life of the mother, and it would ban cloning. The issue has spawned heated debate in the Magnolia State over recent weeks -- a debate that has brought to light significant out-of-state financial backing from Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country.
During a Yes on 26 press conference Monday in Jackson, Ashley Sigrest of Brandon, Mississippi, provided dramatic and spontaneous testimony as she introduced herself as a "survivor of ****" who chose to end the resulting pregnancy 13 years ago.
"My **** was nothing compared to what I did to my child," she stated to the gallery. "What my rapist did to me does not compare to what I chose to do to my baby ... out of shame, out of guilt, out of fear because of what a man did to me. **** is no excuse for abortion." (Watch her complete testimony in the video to the right, beginning at 0:38)
In an interview Tuesday with OneNewsNow, Sigrest shared that upon discovering she was pregnant from the **** -- which occurred just before her 18th birthday -- she went to an abortion clinic for counseling.
"And [the clinic worker] just kind of looked at me and was looking at the papers she had and said 'Okay, I just need you to sign this right here,'" she recalls. "And it was just a piece of paper saying I understood the procedure, and she told us we were going to watch a video about what was going to happen -- and that was it."
According to Sigrest, the clinic worker offered no counseling. "She never asked if I wanted to report what happened to me. She never asked if I needed to talk to someone else," she says. "That was it."
Following the abortion, Sigrest went through despair and depression, a period including abuse of alcohol, knowing she had destroyed a human life. As she shared during the press conference, she tells OneNewsNow that relief only came after accepting Jesus as her Savior through a crisis pregnancy center.
"And from that moment on I told God that he could use me in any way he wanted to to share my story -- because women need to know the abortion is not the end," she emphasizes. "After you have the abortion you're going to spend so much more time in depression once you've realized what you've done."
As for the rapist, Sigrest says she prays for him every day. And when asked how she will vote on the amendment next Tuesday? "I am going to vote yes -- very proudly and very loudly -- on 26."
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