“Conceived in Rape, Targeted for Abortion” is not a just a con­cept to Rebecca Kiessling, but a life reality.

The inter­na­tional pro-life speaker and attor­ney came to Ferris State University to share her emo­tional story with stu­dents, fac­ulty and com­mu­nity mem­bers on Wednesday, Jan. 30. The evening event left audi­ence mem­bers feel­ing sym­pa­thetic and com­pas­sion­ate after hear­ing her inspi­ra­tional life story.

“I am alive today because of pro-life advo­cates, vot­ers and lead­ers. They are my heroes, and I owe my life to them,” Kiessling said. “Some of us are in need of heroes. Being thank­ful for my life doesn’t mean I’m pro-rape.”

Like her slo­gan states, Kiessling was con­ceived in a bru­tal rape and almost aborted. After she was born, her bio­log­i­cal mother put her up for adop­tion. A Jewish fam­ily adopted and raised her, but Kiessling started ask­ing ques­tions when she was in mid­dle school.

She wanted to know who her birth par­ents were and requested infor­ma­tion when she was old enough to receive it. When Kiessling was 18 years old, she received her non-identifying infor­ma­tion, which con­tained every­thing she could imag­ine about her birth mother except her name.

“It had all kinds of details about my birth mother; her eye color, hair color, height, weight, age, the age of my half brother and sis­ter who were 11 and 13 when I was born, her eth­nic­ity, reli­gious back­ground, occu­pa­tion, edu­ca­tional level, detailed med­ical his­tory and I just hung onto every word,” Kiessling said. “Then for my father all it said was that he was Caucasian and of large build. And I thought, that sounds like a police descrip­tion. I called up my case worker, and I asked her, ‘Was my mom raped?’ She said, ‘Yeah. I didn’t want to tell you.’ I was just devastated.”

After find­ing out all of that infor­ma­tion, Kiessling fought for her right to try to get in con­tact with her bio­log­i­cal mother. She even­tu­ally became one of the first peo­ple in Michigan to have a judge allow her case worker to try and con­tact her birth mother to see if she wanted to meet her. And in Kiessling’s words, “It worked.”

After shar­ing phone calls, pic­tures and a let­ter with her mother, Kiessling met her on her mother’s 51^st birth­day and had a life-changing reunion with her.

Now, years later, Kiessling has been adopted by her birth mother and birth mother’s hus­band. Kiessling is hap­pily mar­ried with five kids, two of whom are adopted.

Since 1995, she has been trav­el­ing through­out the United States and other coun­tries speak­ing for her cause, often attend­ing uni­ver­si­ties in hope to spread her story to as many stu­dents as possible.

“I hope they [stu­dents] under­stand that real lives are at stake [when deal­ing with abor­tion] and we’re talk­ing about real value,” Kiessling said.

Lauren Relyea, Ferris junior in pre-radiography, was one of many who took Kiessling’s story to heart.

“She makes it obvi­ous where she stands with­out mak­ing peo­ple uncom­fort­able,” Relyea said. “Before this I was kind of pro-choice and in the mid­dle. Now that there is a face behind it, it really puts it in per­spec­tive. It’s nice to hear that.”

To learn more about Kiessling’s life or cause, visit her web­site at RebeccaKiessling​.com.

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