[TW: SA] "I wrote my first essay for HuffPost in 2019 regarding my rape at the hands of a trusted friend, how it led to a crisis pregnancy and ultimately, the birth of my daughter, Zoe," writes HuffPost guest writer Dina Zirlott. "I detailed the consequences of being denied an abortion later in pregnancy after discovering she had a fatal neural tube defect called hydranencephaly, and how this meant I was forced to give birth to her and then spend a year watching her slowly die in front of me."⁠ ⁠ "For a long time, I didn’t want to live with it. Sometimes I still don’t. I look out into my future, and all of the past stays clinging to me. I sit here now and begin to write this all down for the hundredth time ― now in the shadow of the Court’s insane and barbaric’s decision ― and hate myself a little bit for trying to affix some purpose or meaning to what happened to me and Zoe."⁠ ⁠ "I know the architecture of a life that has been marred by the consequences of forced birth. I know the shame and the indignity of that hospital bed and what it leaves you with after. It has been 16 years, but I can still hear myself begging my mother, my doctor, not to make me do this ― please don’t make me do this. Forced birth was tantamount to the rape I experienced; in some ways, the violation of it went deeper."⁠ ⁠ "I remember having a revolving door of ambitions: to become a journalist, maybe go into politics, become an ambassador, a psychologist, an English professor, a screenwriter. I had been on the precipice of becoming," Zirlott writes. "Zoe was born, and those possibilities were extinguished. Studying nursing seemed the only practical option. I had a child to take care of for however long she lived, and the best way I could mitigate her suffering was to learn more about how to treat it. But then Zoe died. Then I had nothing."⁠ ⁠ "So, to those Supreme Court justices who just overturned Roe, I say: Tell me how to do it ― tell me how to reconcile ownership to this body that has been overtaken so many times. Would you choose this for your own children? How can you sleep, knowing your hand has assigned this fate to anyone?" ⁠ ⁠ Read more at our link in bio. // 📷 Dina Zirlott