“Posted on 08/21/2012 2:53:18 PM PDT by NYer
Rebecca Kiessling, a pro-life attorney from Michigan, fully understands the national debate going on concerning the controversial comments Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin made about abortion and rape. Kiessling was conceived when her mother was victimized by a rapist.
“It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, if it’s a legitimate rape, that’s really rare. The female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin said. “The punishment ought to be on the rapist, and not in attacking the child.”
Kiessling responded to the comments saying that the use of the term “legitimate rape” was unnecessary and improper and she gave her advice for how pro-life candidates can thoughtfully and articulately address the sensitive subject of rape and abortion.
“
First of all — never say ‘legitimate rape,’” Kiessling said. “Ron Paul used the same terminology last January and he got lambasted for it too. This kind of remark only serves to perpetuate the suspicion of rape victims’ accounts. It’s estimated that only 1% of rape victims ever see their rapist convicted as charged. Rape is rape. “Legitimate rape” almost sounds as if it was somehow justifiable.”
“If you are 100% pro-life with no rape exceptions, there is no need to question the veracity of a rape victims’ account, because you are against all abortions. It would not matter if a woman was not or not raped,” she continued.
While abortion advocates often talk about supporting a woman’s right to privacy, Kiessling says rape exceptions in abortion laws turn that notion on its head.
“Rape exceptions in the law actually put the government in the position of having to ascertain when the child was conceived, who the father is, whether the child was conceived during the alleged rape or during intercourse with her husband or boyfriend, and if the child was conceived during the time frame of the alleged rape, then the government would need to determine whether the sexual intercourse was consensual or not,” she explained. “So rape exceptions serve to perpetuate the injustice against rape victims that their accounts are to be viewed with skepticism, and it further leaves the majority of impregnated rape victims wholly unprotected under the law. Rape exceptions suggest that a “real rape victim” couldn’t possibly love “the rapist’s baby” and that rape victim mothers don’t exist.”
The pro-life attorney says pro-life candidates need to be coached on how to answer the media’s inevitable question.
“Senator Rick Santorum, during his presidential campaign, said that he thinks that a child conceived in rape is “a gift from God,” and he was made fun of for that. Just Google images for “Santorum rape” and you’ll see all of the posters where he is mocked for this statement. While I believe it’s true that every child is a gift from God, including children conceived in rape, I don’t believe this was the best response for the interview,” she explained. “If it had been my birthmother sharing that she believes that I’m a blessing and a gift from God, she would not be mocked and ridiculed in the same way he was. And then Sharron Angle, during her Senate race in Nevada, said it’s a “lemonade situation,” which did not come across well at all. The problem is not with these candidates’ values. The problem is how they express them.”
Kiessling gives a three-step process in terms of how candidates should answer the question:
1. The Supreme Court has said that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment for rapists and that rapists don’t deserve the death penalty. I don’t think the innocent child conceived in rape deserves the death penalty for the crimes of her father. It seems to me that is cruel and unusual punishment.
2. Rape victims are four times more likely to die within the next year after the abortion, with a higher rate of suicide, murder, drug overdose, etc.. As someone who really cares about rape victims, I want to protect them from the rapist, and from the abortion, and not the baby. A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim — an abortion is. We need to educate the American public on the truth in this matter and not make public policy based on myth and misinformation.
3. Rape victims choose abortion at half the rate of the average unplanned pregnancy, which is over 50%. Only 15-25% of rape victims choose abortion, depending on the study. The majority of rape victims choose to raise her child — not “the rapist’s baby” — HER child.
Of course, I also think it helps to share a personal story and there are lots available, of women who became pregnant by rape and either regret aborting, are raising their children or are birth-moms, as well as stories of those of us conceived in rape and/or incest. You can find those stories on my website: www.rebeccakiessling.com/Othersconceivedinrape.html and www.rebeccakiessling.com/PregnantByRape.html
Ping!
So far, all I can tell is Akin will not back down from principle when politics threaten them.
What percentage of the voters would vote for a candidate who used her talking points?
Oh boy.. dinner is ready.. I might be back later..
This didn’t exactly go in the direction I thought it would. The LifeNews should have tipped me off.
The article was quite informative.
I had no idea that only 15 to 25% of women who become pregnant as a result of a rape, decide to terminate the pregnancy. Honestly, I would have guessed the other way around. I’m glad I was wrong.
Thanks for bringing the article to our attention.
Good article. I think she’s right. Instead of focusing on whether rape accounts will go up because of the availability of abortion for rape. Focus on the rights of the unborn.
After Santorum made the remarks she pointed out above, he shifted his response to basically mirror those exact talking points.
He proceeded to clean up in Missouri, in both their caucuses and primary.
One of my coworkers told me today that she is here because her mother was raped. She is a lovely, lovely person.
Ethel Waters was conceived when her mother was raped by a mixed-race (white?) man when she was thirteen years old.
Ethel Waters was not aborted because that option was not available.
(These are people who are being aborted, even if they are conceived in rape.)
read
"First of all -- never say 'legitimate rape,'" Kiessling said. "Ron Paul used the same terminology last January and he got lambasted for it too. This kind of remark only serves to perpetuate the suspicion of rape victims' accounts. It's estimated that only 1% of rape victims ever see their rapist convicted as charged. Rape is rape. 'Legitimate rape' almost sounds as if it was somehow justifiable. If you are 100% pro-life with no rape exceptions, there is no need to question the veracity of a rape victims' account, because you are against all abortions. It would not matter if a woman was not or not raped," she continued.
What principles? He’s a lying sack of crap career politician looking out for himself. You sound like the right-wing version of Peggy, the Obama voter who thought she was going to have her mortgage and car paid for after he was elected.
Thank you for sharing this. I was thinking about this today (before I read about her) and wondered why we do not do more to support women who have become pregnant via rape to have their babies and to make them feel that they are doing something heroic and possibly healing for themselves as well as their child. Much of how a person feels about something has to do with how those around them feel about it and what they convey to them. God bless every woman who goes thru this. And I hate that the left uses it as a political issue.
You are not alone in this thinking which has been fostered by feminists and their democrat supporters. For that reason, I posted this thread. You can learn more from Kiessling's web site.
REBECCA KIESSLING - Official Web Site
I started having sex underage. Not by much, but underage...with someone who was not.
I have been around younger girls in my life, however, who have had multiple abortions by age 16, along with proudly school-aged and pregnant. It’s not amazing. It’s reprehensible.
Whining and complaining about child porn or NAMBLA or moral turpitude and degradation does no more good than typing here. It’s just words, and the present Administration is fine with having us pay for it.....Except for the muzz, who will kill women that don’t want children, along with raping Western girls for sh!ts and giggles.
But is the answer to forbid abortion, or discourage it.
This is ridiculous! The woman knows if she is pregnant, or not before she's raped, otherwise all that's in place is an embryo, or not far from it. The decision belongs to the woman alone. If she is raped everyone else, includng the law, has no business sticking their nose in this whatsoever.
She makes a compelling case. I will admit to oscillating on this issue. I genuinely don’t know.
I understand that there is no logic in allowing a baby to be terminated because he was conceived in rape. It is not his fault. I also have a real personal problem condemning a woman to a life-changing pregnancy and 18-years of child-rearing that she truly had absolutely no option to refuse. It also is not her fault.
Unfortunately, life presents situations with absolutely no good answer. This is one of them. It is possible that “choice” is the best of two awful options.
Most abortions do not fall into this category, so we can reduce them by 99% by banning them in all other cases, so this need not be the focus of the debate anyway.
SnakeDoc
I think she is smiling.
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