On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi that provides no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. What’s at stake in this case matters to the countless girls and women who have been raped — including those who, like me, were raped by a father, an uncle or another family member.

周三，最高法院将听取关于密西西比州15周堕胎禁令合宪性的口头辩论。该禁令没有将强奸或乱伦规定为例外。本案同无数遭受强奸的女孩和女人利害攸关——包括那些和我一样被父亲、叔叔或其他家庭成员强奸的人。

It was the early morning of my 10th birthday the first time that I was raped by my father. It would not be the last. The shock was so severe that I temporarily went blind before I began the fifth grade a few weeks later. By the time the school year began, my father had taken me to see a battery of doctors — a medical explanation would paper over the fact that the trauma caused by his sexual violence had caused my body to shut down.

我第一次被父亲强奸是在10岁生日的清晨。那不是最后一次。这件事给我的冲击严重到我出现暂时失明，就在即将开始五年级学业几周前。学年开始时，父亲带我去看了一大堆医生——以此为借口去掩盖他的性暴力造成的创伤导致我身体停转这个事实。

The physiological suffering that I endured included severe migraines, hair loss and even gray hair — at 10 years old. While other girls may have longed for puberty, I loathed the idea of it. My body became a vessel that was not mine. It had been taken from me. I lived in fear of the night, and the footsteps outside my bedroom door.

我身体上承受的痛苦包括严重的偏头痛、脱发，甚至出现白发——我那时才只有10岁。其他女孩渴望青春期的时候，我却厌恶它。我的身体变成了一个不属于我的容器。有人从我这里夺走了它。我生活在恐惧中，害怕夜晚，害怕卧室门外的脚步声。

I gravitated to closets — I would find the deepest corner, sit with a flashlight, read and rock myself. Only years later, while in therapy at 16, would I understand that my involuntary rocking when relating to these experiences was the manifestation of my stress and anxiety.

我总是藏进壁橱——我会找到最深处的角落，拿着手电筒坐下来，看书，摇晃身体。直到几年后，16岁的我在接受心理治疗时才明白，在这些经历之中，我不由自主地摇晃是压力和焦虑的表现。

My father’s predations were hidden behind wealth, social status and his acting the part of a committed and attentive parent. I attended elite schools in New York City, studied ballet at a renowned academy and took private violin and tennis lessons. My father never missed a parent-teacher conference. However, that veneer of normalcy belied intimate family violence that began years before with his physical abuse of my mother. At times he was so violent that she was hospitalized.

我父亲的财富、社会地位和他所扮演的尽职尽责的父亲角色掩盖了他的侵犯行为。我上的是纽约市的精英学校，在一所著名的学院学习芭蕾舞，上过小提琴和网球的私教课。父亲从不缺席家长会。然而，这种正常的外表掩盖了私密的家庭暴力，这始于多年前他对我母亲的身体虐待。有时他的暴力行为会导致她住院。

At age 12, I was pregnant by my father, and I had an abortion. Before we got to the doctor’s office, I had no idea that I was pregnant. My father lied about my age and the circumstance of my pregnancy, informing the doctor that I was 15 and that I had been reckless with a boyfriend. My father shook his head, explaining to the doctor that he was doing all that he could as a single parent — my parents had divorced by this time — but that I was out of control. Both men seemed to convey contempt toward me. For many years, the shame of my father’s lie lingered with me — the stereotype embedded in the narrative of the risky, hypersexualized Black girl.

12岁那年，我怀了父亲的孩子，做了流产。在我们去医生办公室之前，我根本不知道自己怀孕了。父亲在我的年龄和怀孕原因方面撒了谎，他告诉医生我15岁，我和男朋友作出了鲁莽的行为。父亲摇了摇头，向医生解释说，作为一个单亲爸爸——父母当时已经离婚了——他已经尽了最大努力，但我太不听话了。两个男人似乎都对我表示鄙夷。多年来，父亲的谎言所带来的耻辱一直萦绕在我的心头——这是一种刻板印象，源于对喜爱冒险、高度性化的黑人女孩的叙事。

My shame was never about the abortion. I will forever be grateful that my pregnancy was terminated. I am fortunate that my body was spared an additional trauma imposed by my father — one that today would be forced by some state legislatures and courts. No child should be pressured or expected to carry a pregnancy and give birth or to feel remorse, guilt, doubt or unease about an abortion under any circumstances, let alone rape or incest.

我的羞耻从来都不是因为堕胎。我始终感激那次怀孕被终止了。我很幸运，我的身体没有受到父亲带来的额外创伤——换了今天，一些州的立法机构和法院会把这种创伤强加给我。在任何情况下，都不应该强迫或期望一个孩子怀孕和分娩，也不应该让她们对堕胎感到悔恨、内疚、怀疑或不安，更不用说强奸或乱伦的情况了。

As Justice Harry Blackmun recognized in his majority opinion in Roe v. Wade in 1973, the barriers to a decent life are enormous when there is an unwanted pregnancy; for many, they are insurmountable.

正如哈里·布莱克门大法官在1973年“罗伊诉韦德”一案的多数意见书中所承认的那样，出现意外怀孕情况时，很难过上体面的生活；对许多人来说，这样的障碍是不可逾越的。

In the end, my way out was to leave the economic security of home at age 15. That, too, is a decision that I will never regret. But it was not easy. When I left, I had $10 and no access to the savings account my father held for me. I enrolled myself in a public school on Staten Island. To support myself, I cleaned the house of a very kind couple. I lived in an unfinished attic and survived on a modest diet that mostly consisted of beans, rice and cans of tuna. To win my freedom from my parents, I went to court, where I endured interrogation from ill-prepared and insensitive lawyers about being raped as a child.

最后，我的出路是在15岁时离开家庭的经济保障。这也是一个我永远不会后悔的决定。但这并不容易。当我离开时，我只有10美元，也无法使用我父亲为我保留的储蓄账户。我在斯塔滕岛的一所公立学校注册。为了养活自己，我为一对非常善良的夫妇打扫房子。我住在一个未完工的阁楼里，吃豆子、米饭和金枪鱼罐头勉强度日。为了从父母那里赢得自由，我上了法庭，忍受了准备不足、冷漠无情的律师盘问我小时候被强奸的经历。

As a survivor of childhood rape and pregnancy — and today a law professor who teaches constitutional law and bioethics — I recognize the grave dangers of the current crop of abortion bans.

作为讲授宪法和生物伦理的法学教授，作为童年的时候经历过强奸、怀孕的人，我深刻意识到当前堕胎禁令的严重危害。

In Texas, the right to an abortion is virtually meaningless under Senate Bill 8, which bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, when many people will not know they are pregnant. Like the Mississippi ban, it provides no exceptions for rape or incest.

在得克萨斯州，根据州参议院第八号法案，堕胎权变得几乎毫无意义，该法案禁止大多数怀孕六周后的堕胎，而此时很多人根本不知道自己已经怀孕了。就像密西西比州的禁令一样，它对强奸或乱伦也没有提供例外。

Given the importance of the Supreme Court’s deliberations this week and the naïve bravado of Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas suggesting that rape will disappear in his state with a tough-on-crime approach, I felt compelled to speak out.

鉴于最高法院本周审议的重要性，以及得克萨斯州州长格雷格·阿伯特张牙舞爪的幼稚言论——他说通过严厉打击犯罪，强奸将在他所在的州消失——我觉得有必要站出来说话。

The governor imagines that he can “eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas,” but like many abusers, my father was respected in the community, a successful businessman who was adored by family, friends and colleagues. I, on the other hand, felt alone and in fear. I was not only sexually abused but physically harmed as well. I was threatened to keep quiet and told by my father to “grit your teeth and bear it.”

Nobody ever wants to write about such experiences, exposing intimate aspects of one’s life, revisiting traumatic aspects of childhood. That is probably a big reason survivors of incest do not come forward. Even as our society becomes more enlightened about sexual assaults and abuse, often survivors pay a cost. While in college, a prominent professor warned me to never speak or write of my experiences. He believed that I had a bright future and that I could be personally and professionally harmed by sharing my story.

没有人愿意公开写出这样的经历，暴露自己的隐私，回顾童年的创伤。这可能是乱伦的经历者不愿意站出来的一大原因。即使我们的社会对性侵犯和性虐待这样的事情态度变得越来越理性，亲历者往往还是要付出很大的代价。我念大学的时候，一位著名的教授警告我，永远不要说出或写下我的经历。他相信我有光明的未来，分享这样的经历可能会对我和我的职业带来伤害。

Yet the lack of compassion and the hubris that underlie the Mississippi and Texas legislation deserve a response.

然而，密西西比州和得克萨斯州相关立法缺乏同情心，而且何其傲慢，这些都需要我们出来做回应。

With those laws, the state has in effect forced girls to carry the burden of its desires, forcing many of them to risk their health — and even risk death — by remaining pregnant. Like a military draft, the state has coercively conscripted rape and incest survivors to endure one more tremendous burden. To take another devastating physical and mental hit. To tie their lives to those of their rapists. This time it is state lawmakers who strong-arm their bodies into service.

通过这样的法律，这些州实际上迫使女孩们背负起欲望的负担，迫使她们中的许多人冒着健康的风险——甚至是死亡的风险，继续怀孕。这就跟征兵一样，这些州强制征召强奸和乱伦的经历者，让她们去承受更为巨大的负担。去承受对身体和精神的再一次毁灭性打击。将她们的生命与强奸犯的生命联系起来。这一次，是州议员强行征用她们的身体。

This draft — the pregnancy draft — is warfare at home, and the state leaves its girls on the battlefield to fend for themselves. Rather than provide aid and care, states often punish girls who have run away from home after experiencing sexual violence. More than 80 percent of the girls in juvenile justice systems in some states are victims of sexual or physical violence. For so many of these girls, their pipelines are not from youth to college and graduate school but to juvenile detention and possibly prison. Their lives are treated as expendable and not worth saving.

这场以怀孕为形式的征兵，是一场国内战争，这些州让女孩子们在战场上自求多福。它们非但不提供援助和照顾，还往往惩罚那些在经历了性暴力后离家出走的女孩。在一些州的青少年惩戒系统中，超过八成的女孩是性暴力或身体暴力的受害者。对于这些女孩中的许多人来说，她们的出路不是从青年时代到大学和研究生院，而是到少管所，甚至可能是监狱。她们的生命被视为可有可无，不值得拯救。

Abortion bans represent more than isolated state lawmaking or states’ rights — they represent an attack on the fundamental principles of liberty, freedom and autonomy. As Justice Blackmun noted in a 1986 majority opinion that reaffirmed Roe, “few decisions are more personal and intimate, more properly private or more basic to individual dignity and autonomy” than the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Abortion bans that provide no exceptions for rape and incest are a particularly cruel and immoral type of lawmaking.

堕胎禁令代表的不仅仅是一项州立法或州权利，它也代表着对自主、自由和自治这些基本原则的攻击。正如布莱克门大法官在1986年重申罗伊案裁决的多数意见书时所说，“很少有什么决定比终止妊娠的决定更私人、更私密，或者对个人尊严和自主权更为基本的了。”对强奸和乱伦没有例外的堕胎禁令，是一种极其残忍和不道德的立法。

For these reasons, this is a pivotal moment for the Supreme Court to issue a corrective and show that here, too, the arc of the moral universe may be long, but as foretold by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it bends toward justice — and that includes the protection of girls.

出于这些原因，对于最高法院来说，眼下是一个关键时刻，应该发布纠正意见，并表明在这方面，道德世界的弧线可能很长，但正如牧师小马丁·路德·金博士所预言的那样，它趋向正义——其中包括对女孩们的保护。