There are some conclusions about women men have no right to draw. But invariably, they draw them anyway. How women should feel about abortion is one. What it’s like to be a victim of rape is another.

I’m sorry to have to tell you this, gentlemen. These are things you don’t know. You couldn’t. In your wildest dreams, you couldn't. You plain have the wrong equipment.

For a start, you'll need a set of Fallopian tubes.

Kevin Rader, Democratic candidate for the District 27 Senate seat, thinks he knows all about abortion and rape. So does Randy Schultz, an editorial writer at the Palm Beach Post, a member of the Post’s editorial board. Worse, these two apparently believe they know how abortion and rape apply to one particular woman.

That woman would be Rader’s Republican opponent, Lizbeth Benacquisto.

Benacquisto is a pro-life Republican who nevertheless believes in granting exceptions to abortions for victims of rape and incest, and in cases where giving birth threatens the life of the mother. And she has said so since the beginning of her campaign.

Rader says, no, Lizbeth, you can’t have it both ways. You took money from organizations that don’t make exceptions for rape, incest or anything else.

He made a video ad that said, by favoring a ban on abortion, Benacquisto would make criminals out of rape victims who sought abortions. The ad claims her allies would “make choice illegal in all cases including rape, incest, even to save a woman’s life.”

Rader apparently doesn’t believe some women are pro-life but at the same time understand the need for exceptions when necessary. Again – there he is, a man trespassing, wandering down a private road, drawing a conclusion he shouldn’t.

Well, Benacquisto isn’t my hero because she’s fighting for what I believe in. As a matter of fact, she isn’t.

She’s my hero because she went to the wall for what she believes in.

“To suggest that I would make criminals of rape victims … he was crossing the line,” she said of Rader. "It was like being violated all over again."

She decided that the only thing to do was to tell her story, make it public. She summoned the courage and told the world her darkest secret – in a video ad -- that as a college freshman at the University of Florida she was a victim of rape.

Benacquisto wouldn’t talk about the attack. Only a school counselor and her father knew. She told the police but no one was ever prosecuted.


For 23 years Benacquisto kept her secret. She had suffered from post-traumatic-stress syndrome, she had gone for counseling. She had left school right after the incident and she never went back. Last year she finished her college education at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

This is why Rader is my zero: Even after Benacquisto made her ad, when he learned the trauma she had been through, he still would not, did not, take down his ad. It’s still running in District 27.

He did say he would “consider” dumping it if she repudiated groups that gave money to her, the Christian Coalition of Florida, for instance.