Pro-Life Miss USA Contestant Was Conceived in Brutal Rape, Glad She Wasn’t Aborted
Wow…talk about choices and consequences. This is a beautiful story about how God has a plan for each life created on earth…how a brutalized young lady chose to have and raise her daughter instead of snuffing out the life of the fetus.
Valerie Gatto, Miss Pennsylvania USA 2014, has revealed that her mother was raped at knife-point when she was 19 years old. Valerie says that the perpetrator planned to murder her mother after the sexual assault, but that she was able to escape when he became distracted.
While her mother originally intended to give Valerie up for adoption, she then decided to set aside her plans for law school and raise her daughter.
“I knew God put me here for a purpose, and He’s the reason my mother and I were saved,” Gatto says. “I want to do Him proud and my family proud.”
“I could just sit here and say, ‘Why did this happen,’ and ‘Does my father know I exist,’” Valerie continued. “But God put me here to do great things, and I’m not going to let things from the past stop me.”
Oh how true is Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Relative to broader choices and consequences, the rapist made a terrible choice. I hope he was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, then accepted Jesus as the Lord of his life, repented, and was forgiven by the Gatto ladies.