Rebecca Kiessling is an international pro-life speaker from the U.S, an attorney, a wife and mother of five. Her life story is inspiring - having been conceived in rape, she has made it her mission to change the negative stereotypes and expectations surrounding pregnancies by rape and to advocate for lives like hers that are often aborted.
"I do hope that, as a child conceived in rape, I can help to put a face, a voice, and a story to this issue" - Rebecca Kiessling.
The following article has been used with permission.
We've all heard someone say "I'm pro-life, well, except in cases of rape . . ." or "I'm pro-choice, especially in cases of rape !"
Have you ever considered how really insulting it is to say to someone, "I think your mother should have been able to abort you."? It's like saying, "If I had my way, you'd be dead right now." And that is the reality with which I live every time someone says they are pro-choice or pro-life "except in cases of rape" because I absolutely would have been aborted if it had been legal in Michigan when I
was an unborn child, and I can tell you that it hurts.
But I know that most people don't put a face to this issue -- for them abortion is just a concept -- with a quick cliche, they sweep it under the rug and forget about it.
I was adopted nearly from birth. At 18, I learned that I was conceived out of a brutal rape at knife-point by a serial rapist. Like most people, I'd never considered that abortion applied to my life, but once I received this information, all of a sudden I realized that, not only does it apply to my life, but it has to do with my very existence. It was as if I could hear the echoes of all those people who, with the most sympathetic of tones, would say, “Well, except in cases of rape. . . ," or who would rather fervently exclaim in disgust: “Especially is cases of rape!!!” All these people are out there who don’t even know me, but are standing in judgment of my life, so quick to dismiss it just because of how I was conceived. I felt like I was now going to have to justify my own existence, that I would have to prove myself to the world that I shouldn’t have been aborted and that I was worthy of living. I also remember feeling like garbage because of people who would say that my life was like garbage -- that I was disposable.
I've often experienced those who would confront me and try to dismiss me with quick quips like, “Oh well, you were lucky!” Be sure that my survival has nothing to do with luck. The fact that I’m alive today has to do with choices that were made by our society at large, people who fought to ensure abortion was illegal in Michigan at the time – even in cases of rape, people who argued to protect my life, and people who voted pro-life. I wasn’t lucky. I was protected. And would you
really rationalize that our brothers and sisters who are being aborted every day are just somehow "unlucky"?!!
Although my birthmother was thrilled to meet me, she did tell me that she actually went to two back-alley abortionists and I was almost aborted. After the rape, the police referred her to a counselor who basically told her that abortion was the thing to do. She said there were no crisis pregnancy centers back then, but my birthmother assured me that if there had been, she would have gone if at least for a little more guidance. The rape counselor is the one who set her up with the back-alley abortionists. For the first, she said it was the typical back-alley conditions that you hear about as to why "she should have been able to safely and legally abort" me -- blood and dirt all over the table and floor. Those back-alley conditions and the fact that it was illegal caused her to back out, as with most women.
Then she got hooked up with a more expensive abortionist. This time she was to meet someone at night by the Detroit Institute of Arts. Someone would approach her, say her name, blindfold her, put her in the backseat of a car, take her and then abort me . . . , then blindfold her again and drop her back off. And do you know what I think is so pathetic? It’s that I know there are an awful lot of people out there who would hear me describe those conditions and their response would just be a pitiful shake of the head in disgust: “It’s just so awful that your birthmother should have had to have gone through that in order to have been able to abort you!” Like that’s compassionate?!! I fully realize that they think they are being compassionate, but that’s pretty cold-hearted from
where I stand, don’t you think? That is my life that they are so callously talking about and there is nothing compassionate about that position. My birthmother is okay – her life went on and in fact, she's doing great, but my life would have been ended. I may not look the same as I did when I was four years old or four days old yet unborn in my mother’s womb, but that was still undeniably me and I would have been killed through a brutal abortion.
The nasty disposition and foul mouth of this second back-alley abortionist, along with a fear for her own safety, caused her to back out. When she told him by phone that she wasn't interested in this risky arrangement, this abortion doctor insulted her and called her names. To her surprise, he called again the next day to try to talk her into aborting me once again, and again she declined and was hurled insults. So that was it -- after that she just couldn’t go through with it. My birthmother was then heading into her second trimester – far more dangerous, far more expensive to have me
aborted.
In law school, I’d also have classmates say things to me like, “Oh well! If you’d been aborted, you wouldn’t be here today, and you wouldn’t know the difference anyway, so what does it matter?” Believe it or not, some of the top pro-abortion philosophers use that same kind of argument: “The fetus never knows what hits him, so there’s no such fetus to miss his life.” And if a baby is aborted, and no one else is around to know about it, does it matter? The answer is, “YES! Their lives matter. My life matters. Your life matters and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!
According to the research of Dr. David Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, co-editor of the book Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions and Children Resulting From Sexual Assault, and author of the article "Rape, Incest and Abortion: Searching Beyond the Myths," most women who become pregnant out of sexual assault do not want an abortion and are in fact worse-off after an abortion. http://www.afterabortion.org.
So most people's position on abortion in cases of rape is based upon faulty premises: 1) the rape victim would want an abortion, 2) she'd be better off with an abortion and 3) that child's life just isn't worth having to put her through the pregnancy.
I hope that my story, and those following, will be able to help dispel that last myth.
For Life,
Rebecca
rebecca@rebeccakiessling.com
Rebecca's website has footage from three women who were raped and who defied pressure from society to abort their babies. Their stories are both beautiful and powerful - well worth watching. http://rebeccakiessling.com/PregnantByRape.html
Comments
Post has no comments.