Juda Myers discovered she was conceived by gang rape when she met her birth mother, Ann. Adopted at three-months-old, Juda didn’t know the violent circumstances surrounding her birth until she sought her birth mother. Ann inspired her to start Choices4Life, an organization devoted to supporting the needs of victims of rape and their children.
“I started the organization because there was no other organization attending to the specific needs of those with rape conception stories,” Myers told Spirit-Led Women eMagazine. “Many are not believed and even shunned and insulted for being pregnant by rape.”
She added, “Their babies are targeted for death. When they want to give birth they are told they must have ‘wanted it’ because who would want a rapist’s baby. What society doesn’t realize is that baby is the mother’s baby. The rapist stole from her what was not his and he will not steal her child too. Society needs to know the truth and stop the prejudice against mothers and children of rape conception.”
Myers met Ann in 2005. She shared her story of being raped by eight men when she was walking home one night. Her grandmother wanted Ann to abort Myers but Ann found a safe place to give birth with the help of clergy. “She prayed for 48 years that she would meet me,” says Myers. “Her prayers came true Dec. 7, 2005.”
Interestingly enough, Myers explains that most people she has talked with who are children conceived in rape are Christians. “It was interesting to me that some people heard from the Lord exactly what I heard,” she says. “After asking the Lord in prayer if He really did create me I heard ‘I have placed you in the camp of the enemy to glorify my name!’ What a privilege that is!”
Choices4Life was founded February 2011 to promote and restore honor and dignity to women and children of rape conception. The goal of the organization is to educate the world about he value of every human life conceived and to raise awareness of the multitudes living in shame from sexual abuse that isn’t their own. She has also formed a panel of speakers who were conceived by rape to help dispel that myth.
Myers, a public speaker, tells her story of her journey to forgiveness in “Hostile Conception: Living With Purpose.”
