Editor’s Note: This is a guest col­umn by pro-life speaker Rebecca Kiessling, who spoke on cam­pus Jan. 30.

In the January 20, 2013 arti­cle of the Torch, “Shaming the Survivors: Ferris bring­ing pro-life speaker to cam­pus with rad­i­cal beliefs about rape, ” Arts & Entertainment Editor Jessica Smith appar­ently attempted to shame me with some rad­i­cally libelous mis­in­for­ma­tion, claim­ing that I was com­ing to Ferris State to dis­cuss “decrim­i­nal­iz­ing rape. “ Yeah – wow! That’s what I thought! A retrac­tion was printed in the Torch one week later, but it did not state what the mis­in­for­ma­tion was. So, for the record – I do NOT sup­port the decrim­i­nal­iza­tion of rape. In fact, I believe that Michigan “Criminal Sexual Conduct” (rape) laws are not strong enough.

Part of my story is that I was con­ceived in rape. My birth­mother is a rape sur­vivor. Two years ago, she and her hus­band legally adopted me. She means the world to me and the feel­ing is mutual. Having been a sur­vivor of child abuse and domes­tic vio­lence, I became a fam­ily law attor­ney in order that I could be an advo­cate for women and chil­dren. I’ve worked tire­lessly doing so for the last 18 years. I’m the co-founder of an orga­ni­za­tion called “Hope After Rape Conception” — www​.hopeafter​rapecon​cep​tion​.org, which offers sup­port for women who become preg­nant through rape. As part of this rape sur­vivor advo­cacy orga­ni­za­tion, I lobby for changes to the law to prop­erly pro­tect rape sur­vivor moth­ers and their chil­dren from the rapist hav­ing any kind of parental rights. So, the libelous claims made in the Torch go against every­thing in which I believe and for which I have fought.

The edi­to­r­ial goes on to wrong­fully state: “Kiessling told Piers Morgan she believes a rape victim’s rapist doesn’t deserve to be pun­ished. I don’t know how that makes sense. Any per­son who com­mits a heinous crime deserves to be pun­ished for caus­ing sense­less pain and trauma in someone’s life.” The writer is cor­rect that such a posi­tion would def­i­nitely not make any sense, which is why this edi­tor and the rest of the edi­to­r­ial staff at the Torch should have gone to YouTube and watched the footage of me on Piers Morgan so that they could see what I actu­ally said. My state­ment was that, accord­ing to the U.S. Supreme Court, rapists don’t deserve the death penalty – that even child moles­ters don’t get the death penalty because — accord­ing to the U.S. Supreme Court, that would be “cruel and unusual pun­ish­ment.” Well, I cer­tainly don’t believe that an inno­cent child deserves the death penalty for the crimes of her father. BIG difference!

Yet another libelous state­ment in the story about me was: “On Kiessling’s blog, she states she defends the for­mer U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Missouri’s 2^nd Congressional District’s out­ra­geous state­ment: “It seems to be, first of all, from what I under­stand from doc­tors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legit­i­mate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” That is another out­right lie! I did not defend Todd Akin’s state­ment, which was indeed out­ra­geous. If you’d like to read my blog to see what I actu­ally said, you can find it on my web­site. www​.rebec​ca​kiessling​.com The writer sug­gests I was defend­ing Akin when I pointed out the fact that Roe v Wade was based on an ille­git­i­mate claim of a gang rape. Jane Roe – nor­mally McCorvey has since admit­ted that her rape claim in the Affadavit to the U.S. Supreme Court was com­pletely false and fab­ri­cated in order to gain sym­pa­thy. The Torch edi­tor wrote it this way: “For Kiessling to say that abor­tion rights are squarely respon­si­ble for women cry­ing wolf about being preg­nant from rape is just atro­cious.” That is, again, manip­u­lat­ing what I said. This is not real jour­nal­ism and I’m cer­tain it can’t be what Ferris State is teach­ing it’s students.

Lastly, Ms. Smith wrote: “Her argu­ments come from a self­ish stand­point. She doesn’t have the cred­i­bil­ity to be argu­ing about this mat­ter since she’s a prod­uct of rape and an abor­tion sur­vivor.” This state­ment alone clearly shows that this writer was extremely bias and had an ax to grind when she repeat­edly libeled me. I’m the daugh­ter of a rape sur­vivor, I advo­cate for rape sur­vivors, and yes, I’m a sur­vivor myself. My speech is rel­e­vant, my story is rel­e­vant, and despite what she may think, my life is rel­e­vant. I hope that every­one at the Torch has learned a valu­able les­son here. We still need to get to the bot­tom of which pro­fes­sor first started this awful slan­der of me. Thank you to my Alliance Defending Freedom attor­neys. It’s good to know they’ve got my back. Don’t allow your­self to be bul­lied on cam­pus! I look for­ward to return­ing to speak at Ferris State again next Fall, and to have a fair pro­mo­tion of the event by The Torch.

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