A Wisconsin man charged with raping multiple children and attempting a “crude” abortion on one of them after she became pregnant is headed to prison.
Authorities initially charged Matthew Christenson, 33, of Crandon, Wisconsin, with 14 felonies involving sexual and physical abuse of victims ages 12 through 17. Authorities allege he sexually abused five underage victims and physically abused another underage victim.
Court documents allege Christenson raped one victim, a sixth-grade girl, and impregnated her, and then attempted to abort her unborn child in a “crude” manner. News reports do not detail how the abortion was carried out or if the unborn baby died, although it appears the baby did not survive.
Now Christenson is headed to prison for 60 years for his crimes:
Judge Patrick O’Melia and Forest County District Attorney Chuck Simono used the same words to describe 34-year-old Matthew Christenson on Monday. They both said what he’d done was “the worst case [they’d] ever seen.”
“It was monstrous in the end,” O’Melia told Christenson. “I can’t risk you being out.”
In one case, police say Christenson impregnated a girl, then performed a crude abortion on her. A different victim told police Christenson forced the victim into sex more than one hundred times. Still another described being beaten over and over with a switch, crescent wrench, and fire poker.
Police reports said Christenson regularly got children drunk or high before committing physical or sexual abuse.O’Melia’s sentence means Christenson’s prison term will end when he is 93 years old. After that, he will be on extended supervision until age 108.
“I don’t want you to see children again,” O’Melia said. “I don’t want you to have children available to you in the future.”
Sexual abuse and abortion often are connected. Abusers pressure or force their victims to abort their unborn babies as a way to cover up their abuse.
Research indicates human trafficking victims often are forced or coerced into aborting their unborn babies. A survey by the U.S. Department of State found that 55 percent of sex trafficking victims had at least one abortion, with 30 percent having multiple abortions. More than half said they did not choose to abort their unborn child; their traffickers ordered them to, according to the survey.
Many sexual abuse victims who become pregnant say the abortion only added to their trauma, according to research by the Elliot Institute.
In 2015, a sexual abuse victim told a British court that her abuser forced her to abort her unborn child. While the woman admitted that she had no desire to be a mother, she said she would not have aborted her baby – “because I didn’t want to go through all that.”
