HADLEY DUVALL listens while Gov. Andy Beshear lauds her courage in
coming forward to tell her story and singles out her support as critical
to his campaign during the victory celebration held in Louisville.
Hadley’s mother, Jennifer Miller, is to the right of her and her
grandmother Vickie Fulton is next to Miller. Rocky Adkins, a top Beshear
aide, stands next to Duvall on the left. (Photo submitted)
By Scott White
Woodford Sun Staff
Hadley Duvall, a senior at Midway University, found herself in the
maelstrom of the Andy Beshear – Daniel Cameron gubernatorial election.
Duvall appeared in an ad where she said, “This is to you, Daniel
Cameron. To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her
stepfather who raped her is unthinkable.”
Duvall spoke with the authority of her own experience. She was sexually
abused, raped and sodomized over ten years by her stepfather beginning
as a five-year-old. At age 12, while in the seventh grade, she learned
she was pregnant. Though she miscarried, Duvall vividly remembers
wondering what she was going to do.
“When I was sitting with that positive pregnancy test. It was like, what
am I going to do, how am I going to get help, who can I even tell?” she
said. “Today, if a girl is going through that kind of horrible
situation, they don’t really have options.”
It is this story that Duvall shared in a campaign ad that Beshear, who
favors abortion rights, used to contrast his position with Daniel
Cameron, the Republican nominee who began the campaign supporting the
current total ban in Kentucky and ultimately changed his position three
times in the waning weeks of the campaign as a result of those ads.
Duvall’s advocacy did not come out of the blue. She had already stepped
into the debate in the summer of 2022 — the day after the U.S. Supreme
Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which said there
was no constitutional right to an abortion and that it was for states to
decide its legality and what limits to place on the procedure.
That decision instigated a “trigger law” in Kentucky that bans almost
all abortions, guaranteeing that abortion would be a charged issue in
the Kentucky gubernatorial election.
Duvall said she didn’t know what her stepfather was doing was wrong.
“Until fourth grade or so, I didn’t understand what was happening. I
thought it was a way to be punished,” she said.
As she grew up her stepfather pressured her to keep the secret. Duvall
remembers, “By fifth grade, I started to wonder when I learned about the
‘no-no squares’ that people shouldn’t touch. I started to feel unsafe.”
She said, If I told “my step-father would tell, he would manipulate me
by saying it would make Mom start using drugs again, I’d have nowhere to
go, and I wouldn’t have anybody. So, out of fear, I just kept my mouth
shut.”
In seventh grade, not long after reaching the time when her menstrual
cycle began, she missed a period and was feeling ill at school. After
learning of this, her stepfather became angry, blamed her and had her
take a home pregnancy tests — which were positive. A month or so later,
she had what she later learned was a miscarriage. Feeling both shame and
fear, she told no one.
In high school, the burden was too much to bear. She had already been in
counseling for suicidal thoughts since middle school and said she was
nearing the end of the line.
“I had decided a million times to tell. I would even write out what I
was going to say. But I was always too scared and I didn’t really know
who to even tell,” she said.
By immersing herself in soccer and cheer, she said she tried to “put on
a mask” and that sports were her outlet. “I could focus on that to avoid
being with my stepdad and to not have to think about it,” she said.
Finally, she could no longer keep the secret. Duvall decided the week of
her fifteenth birthday that she had no choice, “I texted Mom and said ‘I
really need to tell you something, don’t let me forget!’” Worried that
the suicidal ideation had returned, her mother, Jennifer Miller who has
been in recovery for nearly 15 years and now works in substance abuse
recovery, drove to school to get her. Duvall vividly remembers the
conversation, saying, “Mom, I don’t know any way to tell you, so I’m
just going to say it. So, I told her that (her stepfather) had been
sexually abusing me since I was a little girl. We hugged and we both
cried. She never doubted me. The whole thing was how to keep me safe,
how to report him to the police and where we could go. She felt guilty,
but it was not her fault, she was not responsible.”
So began a one-year journey through the criminal justice system. Just a
week before her trial, her stepfather plead guilty to two counts of
sodomy, three counts of rape and one count of sex abuse and is not
eligible for parole until 2032.
Despite these tragedies, Duvall excelled as both a student and athlete
and accepted a soccer scholarship from Midway University.
Duvall’s response to the Dobbs decision was a new experience. None but a
few people knew she had been pregnant, not even her mother, so a
Facebook post was a step into the unknown. Duvall said she had to do
something to show folks that real people were impacted without choices.
“I remember (before writing it) I was upset and angry. I thought about
the little 12-year-old girl that I used to be when I was sitting with
that positive pregnancy test. It was like, ‘What am I going to do? And
how am I going to get help? Who could I even tell?’” she said. “Today,
if a girl is going through that kind of horrible situation, they don’t
really have options in Kentucky.”
This Facebook post is what led her into this year’s gubernatorial campaign.
Duvall received a text from the Beshear’s campaign in July asking if she
would appear in an ad, “I didn’t even think about it – this was a chance
to keep doing what I had already started. There was no pressure, it was
entirely up to me and I could back out anytime,” she said. “ More
important to me, they said I could write my own ‘script’ which they
would edit and I had to be totally comfortable before it would go up.”
The ad, in many observers’ view, was a game-changer.
Duvall was surprised to hear Beshear give her a “shout out” during his
victory speech.
“Gosh, it felt so good. I was just like so grateful – not really for
me, but the ‘little girl me’ and all the other girls and women out there
who now have no choice in Kentucky.”
Duvall will graduate with a degree in psychology and a specialization in
substance abuse treatment. She intends to use her experience to inform
her work after she gets a master’s degree in social work.
What began with a Facebook post that put her into a political campaign
and propelled her onto CNN and international news outlets has helped her
discern that advocacy “is what I’m here for.”
“I’m doing what I am supposed to be doing. That is my purpose,” she
said. “When you experience this, life can seem really bad and even over,
but I can prove it is not. I am not complacent – there is still work to
do in Kentucky and work to do on my own healing.”