“The first thing they asked was, ‘how can we help you?'”
By Jean Marie Davis
Ed. Note: the following testimony was presented February 15 to the Senate Health & Welfare Committee in its review of S. 37, the abortion/transgender shield law that also would allow the Vermont Attorney General to bring civil action against crisis pregnancy centers for allegedly misleading advertising. The committee is expected to vote today on sending the bill to the full Senate floor.
I’m a survivor of Human Trafficking in the United States for almost twenty years. Over the many years of being trafficked, I remember a situation that dealt with a woman who was pregnant.
One night I was being sent out to make money for my trafficker, and a woman I trafficked with was pregnant. Her trafficker did not care she was due. His focus was the money. He gave her some drugs and sent her out. When we left the motel about 5 to 10 mins later, she gave birth to her baby on the sidewalk, cut the umbilical cord, and continued to walk in hopes of making money. She knew not making money meant her receiving bruises.
I could not help or do anything because my trafficker would have punished me. That is just one situation I experienced in the life of being trafficked. When I got away from my traffickers, I became homeless in a DV Shelter in New Hampshire. The Shelter told me the Pregnancy Resource Center was a Christian faith-based organization. Being raised as Jehovah’s Witness, I didn’t care; I needed help.
My first time at the center was the best experience ever. The first thing they asked was how can we help you? They provided me with clothes. They then asked how far along I was and what my plans were. I explained that I did not want to keep my baby because of traffickers. I explained that I didn’t want a girl because I didn’t want my daughter to go through the things I went through. However, I would keep the baby if it was a boy.
They did an ultrasound, which was the first time I saw my child. I knew then I couldn’t get rid of my baby. I expressed that I wanted to keep my child. I asked for help. They presented a program for women and children with drug problems. I said yes, I would try the program. They then informed me that it was a faith-based program that believed in Jesus Christ. I didn’t care. I just wanted help. They shared the gospel with me. I accepted Jesus Christ that day.
They continued to help me until I entered the program two weeks later. Once I had my son, the director and the staff member visited me at the program. They brought me gifts for my son and me.
Because of the pregnancy resource center, I not only graduated from the woman’s program. I went to Northpoint Bible College and graduated with an Associate Degree. I have become an advocate for Human Trafficking. I help women in the same situation I got out of almost nine years ago. Now, because of Jesus, I can be a director of Branches helping men and women. “We do life with each other” is one of our statements.
The author is the Executive Director of Branches Pregnancy Resource Center in Brattleboro.
Categories: Commentary
Let’s take a guess: The members of the Senate Committee are attempting to figure out how they might be able to get away with calling this courageous woman a “racist” – whilst simultaneously trying to get her to buy into their ideology that prostituting oneself is “empowering”.
Thank you so much for sharing your actually empowering and very moving life story, Ms. Davis.
This morning, despite the obvious facts that prove beyond a reasonable doubt that democrat progressive lawmakers are on the wrong side of most that everything which is good, just, and Godlike in Montpelier – I prayed for them all at the beginning of this Lenten season, for the light of Salvation has yet to be extinguished within this once Holy State; nor shall it ever be as long as there is but one individual remaining who serves as disciple.
I hope she means against Human Trafficking… but if the Progs in the Senate allowed her to speak maybe not….
Amen, Kathleen J. Gaffney.
S.37, if passed, would most likely prevent other women like Ms Davis to make such a choice; or justice for de-transitioners like Chloe Cole who was coerced into taking puberty blockers and having her breasts removed at age 15. The trend in Sweden and other European countries is to halt or reconsider the practice of gender transitioning based on accumulating data.
Kathleen, I just listened to Chloe Cole interview with Jorden Peterson on YouTube. Horrible what she went through and is still suffering from the experience. I pray that Justice will come soon on the evil people doing these things. Come Lord Jesus.
Evil must come – but woe to him (or her) through whom it comes. My heart breaks for both victim and perpetrator. May they all find liberty.
I noticed she was helped by an organization in New Hampshire. In Vermont, the politically weaponized BIPOC equity group is silent on the issue of human trafficking. The majority of those sitting on the Health and Welfare Committee and under the Golden Dome are direct benefactors of it. There is plenty of evidence on surpressed laptops, basement servers, smashed Blackberries, Epstien’s flight logs, celebrity adoptions in Africa, Clinton Foundation and Haiti, Open Societies, Voodoo Donuts, Comet Pizza, etc. etc. etc.