How Wife of American Presidential Aspirant, Evelyn Yang Was Subjected To Sexual Abuse For Months By Her Doctor During Antenatal Visits

It was the beginning of 2012. Yang, pregnant with her first child, had found an obstetrician-gynecologist who had a good reputation and worked at the world-renowned medical facilities at Columbia University. His name was Dr. Robert Hadden.

This is the story of how one woman, Evelyn Yang, wife of entrepreneur and 2020 candidate Andrew Yang, dealt with sexual assault at the hands of her gynecologist while pregnant with her first child in 2012.

Initially, she says, she didn’t see any red flags, but as the months progressed, her doctor, Hadden started asking her inappropriate, unsolicited questions about sexual activity with her husband, which were unrelated to her health or the health of her unborn child. Looking back, she now believes he was prepping her for sexual abuse.

“There was absolutely no premise for that line of questioning, and it seemed like he just wanted to hear about me talking about sex.

What I kept sticking to was this: ‘OK, so my doctor is pervy. I have a pervy doctor, but I’m going to focus on having a healthy baby,’ and the idea of changing doctors was overwhelming for me.”

Going to the gynecologist is an experience that makes many women feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. Going when pregnant adds an entirely different level of anxiety, especially during a first pregnancy, when a woman may not know what to expect. Yang says Hadden took advantage of that.

“The examinations became longer, more frequent, and I learned that they were unnecessary most of the time,”

she recalled, but she told herself,

“I suppose I just need to trust him.”

Yang says Hadden violated that trust in an unthinkable way when she was seven months pregnant.

“I was in the exam room, and I was dressed and ready to go. Then, at the last minute, he kind of made up an excuse. He said something about, ‘I think you might need a C-section,’ and he proceeded to grab me over to him and undress me and examine me internally, ungloved,”

she recalled.

“I knew it was wrong. I knew I was being assaulted,”

she added.

Like so many survivors of sexual assault, Yang said she had always thought she would run away in a situation like this. But that’s not what happened.

“I imagined myself as someone being, you know, like I would throw a chair at him and run out yelling bloody murder.

I just kind of froze like a deer in headlights, just frozen. I knew it was happening. I could feel it. I remember trying to fix my eyes on a spot on the wall and just trying to avoid seeing his face as he was assaulting me, just waiting for it to be over.”

Yang said.

Despite the trauma, and urgently having to find a new doctor to see her through the rest of her pregnancy, Yang didn’t tell a soul what had happened to her, not even her husband.

Evelyn Yang was reading letters that voters had sent to her husband, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, and suddenly stopped in her tracks.

”I Blamed Myself”

Like many other victims of sexual abuse, Yang took the blame upon herself. She said she didn’t tell anyone what happened because she blamed herself, and worried she had done something to “invite this kind of behaviour”.

She later received a letter telling her that Hadden had left the practice, and then saw news reports that another woman had made a complaint about his behaviour to the police.

“This was a serial predator, and he just picked me as his prey,”

she said.

She said she had decided to speak publicly after receiving a positive response while speaking openly about the fact her son is autistic.

“Something about being on the trail and meeting people and seeing the difference that we’ve been making already has moved me to share my own story about it, about sexual assault,”
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she said.

After the interview was broadcast, Andrew Yang tweeted:

“I love my wife very very much.”

Watch the video of her interview with CNN: