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Contact: Theresa Watson - 917-697-7039
TITUSVILLE, FL -- Priests for Life today issued a statement of support for Julia Holcomb, a spokeswoman for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign who is suing the singer Steven Tyler for sexual assault.
“We first came to know of Julia’s story after Tyler wrote in one of his books about the son they lost to abortion in the 1970s,” said Janet Morana, Executive Director of Priests for Life and co-founder of Silent No More. “She ultimately attended a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat for healing, and spoke at the 2012 March for Life with Silent No More.”
Ms. Holcomb this week filed a lawsuit during the final days of California’s Child Victims Act, which temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for sexual assault victims. The suit charges Tyler – identified as Doe 1 - with sexual assault, sexual battery and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In 2011, Rachel’s Vineyard Co-founder Kevin Burke read about Julia, and the saline abortion that ended her pregnancy, and wrote about it in an essay for National Review. “Julia then reached out to Kevin to help her tell her side of the story. We now consider her a dear friend of our ministries,” Mrs. Morana said.
Ms. Holcomb was 16 when she met Tyler at an Aerosmith concert and was 17 when she became pregnant with a baby she said she and Tyler both wanted. She had just turned 18 when she barely survived a fire in her apartment and was then coerced to abort the son with whom she was more than five months pregnant.
“Julia Holcomb’s experience of healing and faith has given her the courage and emotional stability to move forward,” Burke said. “This is a story that reveals the common situation where young teens can be manipulated and injured by sexual abuse and coerced into unwanted abortions which can leave them with wounds that will certainly exacerbate previous trauma, taking a lifetime to sort out.”
Mrs. Morana said she hopes the lawsuit sheds light on the exploitation of minors so prevalent in the music business.
“Somehow the #MeToo movement missed the rock’n’roll industry, even though Julia’s story was well known by then,” she said. “We know from our work that forced abortion is very common, and we know that young girls exploited by older men are frequently victimized in that way. I invite any woman who has been forced to have an abortion to seek healing.”
For more information about Ms. Holcomb, click here.