Coming To Your Town: The Rape Tour

A Story by LibMom

Lies, misinformation and personhood.

Rebecca Kiessling is a pretty, blonde lawyer who lives in Michigan. She home schools her children and is an evangelical Christian. When she was born, she was adopted by a loving Jewish family, but rather than accept their religion, she chose to become a born again Christian. According to her many websites and social pages, she was even bat mitzvahed. When Rebecca turned 18, she wanted to find her birth mother. She contacted her case worker, and was given information about her mother and father. Rebecca noticed that the information for her father simply stated his race (white) and his build (large). This naiive 18 year thought that sounded an awful lot like a police description, and suddenly asked her case worker if she was raped. NOW-I wrote a chapter for my book about the new and improved anti abortion laws that are permeating the fabric of our society and one of the many things I did was contact an adoption agency in my town. I asked that poor woman question after question, and she answered each one to the best of her ability. We spoke about the chances of an adoptive family finding out that the birth mother was raped, we spoke about what happens when a birth mother admits she was raped, do perspective parents pay attention to the varying science on nature versus nurture regarding violent predatory behavior, AND what an adopted child would be told if they came looking for their birth mother.

There are numerous laws protecting both adopted children and birth mothers in regards to adoption. I know this because when I was 20, I gave a child up for adoption through an adoption agency. I know the forms I had to fill out, I know that my name was never placed on any paper unless I wanted it placed there, and I did not know the identity of the family that adopted my daughter. If, when she turned 18, she had chosen to come find me, the case worker would not have been able to give her ANY information without contacting me first. Period. So, Ms. Kiessling would not have been able to find out her birth mother was allegedly raped from a case worker, as she claims, unless that case worker was actively violating adoption law, or it was an open adoption, which from Ms. Kiessling's own description, I highly doubt. After speaking about her horror at finding out illegally that she was an alleged product of rape, she then decides to find her birth mother. Upon being contacted by Ms. Kiessling, the first conversation they allegedly have is about the birth mother's violent rape, at knife point, and at the hands of a serial rapist. Then Ms. Kiessling's birth mother chooses to tell her teenage daughter that she went to no less than two back alley abortionists, trying to receive what was then an illegal abortion.

I sometimes write fiction. I understand that in order to sell it, you have to embellish, add shock value and hook your audience. As not only a woman who gave a child up for adoption, but as the victim of a sexual assault, I can honestly tell you that a lot of Ms. Kiessling's "life story" doesn't add up. However, as we have found over the past 20 years in the evangelical Christian save a cell kill a woman movement, the line between fact and fiction is blurry most of the time. I doubt it occurred to Ms. Kiessling that anyone would ever dare challenge someone who claims to have had such a horrible life. I mean, my God, adopted by a loving family, raised in the one of the oldest and most hallowed religions in the world, loved and adored. That poor woman. Ms. Kiessling says that it was only by becoming a born again Christian that she was able to deal with finding her birth mother, and the alleged horror of her birth mother's life. I am not saying that Ms. Kiessling's mother was not raped. I question, however, a case worker who would violate privacy laws, a woman who would tell her teenage daughter that she went to back alley abortionists, and finally, I question why a woman who had the honor of being raised by people who loved her so much would dismiss their religion, the religion in which she was raised, and state that Christ got her through all this.

Ms. Kiessling is currently on a tour sponsored by a truly terrifying group "Personhood, USA". From their website:

[What is Personhood?

When the term “Person” is granted to a human being, it refers to the presence of a particular set of characteristics that grant that individual certain rights such as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, to be a person is to be protected by a series of God given and constitutionally protected rights.

This terrifies the pro-abortion foes!!!

They know that if we clearly define the pre-born baby as a person then they will have the same right to life as all Americans do! This Amendment has the promise plugging the “Blackmun Hole,” a startling admissionthat if personhood could be established for the pre-born, the arguments in Roe would collapse.

Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the majority opinion for Roe v. Wade in 1973, “The appellee and certain amici [pro-lifers] argue that the fetus is a ‘person’ within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.”

During Blackmun’s time, the “well-known facts of fetal development” were a far cry from what is known today. Ultrasonography and DNA testing were yet to be invented. In 1973, most held that “life” began at “quickening,” or when a woman first feels movement of the baby in the womb at 18 to 24 weeks. Some even held to the “Recapitulation Theory,” the scientifically debunked notion that the human baby underwent his entire evolutionary cycle in the womb, being first a simple one-celled creature, then later a fish, then later a mammal, then finally a human, which of course now seems absurd.

The science of fetology in 1973 was not able to prove, as it can now, that a fully human and unique individual exists at the moment of fertilization and continues to grow through various stages of development in a continuum (barring tragedy) until natural death from old age.

If the Court considers the humanity of the pre-born child, for which there is overwhelming scientific evidence, it could restore the legal protections of person-hood to the pre-born under the 14th Amendment as Blackmun foretold, stopping abortion in a few and then in all fifty states!

Explanation from abort73.com;

There are essentially two issues which must be resolved concerning unborn embryos and fetuses. The first is, "Are they human beings?" The second is, "Should they be recognized as persons under the law?" We've already established that there is no debate on the first question. It is a matter of plain, objective science. Embryos and fetuses are fully and individually human from the moment of fertilization on. If this were not true, if unborn children were not demonstrably human, there would be no need to even talk about rights of personhood. "Removing a fetus" would be the moral equivalent of pulling a tooth. This, however, is not the case, and so the debate must now enter the political arena.]

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So, from the MOMENT of conception, it's a person. It can eat, sleep, breathe, move. Wait, no it can't. It can't do any of that because it's NOT A PERSON.
Personhood USA is not just content with overturning Roe V Wade and making it impossible and illegal for any woman to receive an abortion. They also have major issues with birth control. You read that correctly-birth control. From thinkprogress:

[A fringe anti-abortion group, Personhood USA, has been startlingly successful at pushing forward legislation across the country that would redefine life as beginning at the moment of fertilization, effectively outlawing contraceptives like birth control pills. Although the medical community has long been in agreement that fertilization does not mark the beginning of a pregnancy �" fertilized eggs must first be implanted, and only about half of fertilized eggs actually result in a pregnancy �" a growing number of lawmakers are supporting Personhood USA’s efforts to buck medical expertise and legally define life as the moment a sperm meets an egg.

If they succeed in passing such a law �" and if such a law survives judicial scrutiny �" it could turn common forms of birth control into the legal equivalent of a homicide. While “personhood” laws have always been a transparent attempt to outlaw abortion, the legislation supported by groups like Personhood USA goes much further in trying to assert government control over women’s bodies. These laws would recognize every fertilized egg as an individual and complete human being with full rights, and place millions of women in legal jeopardy. According to 2008 numbers, around 11 million American women use birth control pills and another 2 million use intrauterine devices (IUDs).]

Got that? Try this logic on for size-no birth control, no protection against unwanted pregnancy, no abortion, millions of unwanted children born into an already overloaded system. Have you ever seen those horrible photos of abandoned babies in China? Look for those types of photos on the cover of a magazine in your local grocery store if these flaming Christians get their way.

And to Ms. Kiessling I say this: there are genetic indicators being discovered every day to back up the theory of hereditary predatory behavior. I do not believe you are a violent serial killer, ma'am. I do believe that you are a predator and your weapons are fear, hate and very un-Christian views of not only women but of that line people like you blur every day between fact and fiction. I believe with all my heart that portions of your life story do not match the facts and the laws that govern closed adoption. I believe you and your "corporate sponsor", Personhood USA, are one of the most dangerous groups to hit this country in a very long time. Your views are medieval, your tactics are disturbing, and your message is a lie. What a wonderful representative you are for false Christians everywhere. I think I'll stick with the liberal Christians, or as I like to call them, the people that are actually trying to follow in the footsteps of Christ, rather than "born again" Christians, who are trying to beat people over the head with the Bible, force them to relinquish their own rights, and lie to them in order to murder women and children. Personhood USA's insane desires to end reproductive rights in this country will lead to the death of children. Actual children, not a mass of cells that is, in fact, NOT a person.

If you happen to bump into Ms. Kiessling as she skips around America on her "Conceived in Rape" tour, calling for personhood, get ready for a horrible story of rape and attempted murder, of the saving power of Christ and how abortion is vile and hateful and murder and of the devil, etc. And remember that if these psychopaths get their way, and cells become people, much like corporations are now people, women and children will most certainly die. How is that Christian?