Last month, Wisconsin’s state senate passed SB 179. Known as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, it bans most abortions after 20 weeks – the point when evidence suggests that a baby can suffer pain.
Abortion advocates are trying to rally opposition, but it’s not an easy task: polls show most Americans (and women in particular) are deeply uncomfortable with late-term abortion. Given that, I’m sure many opponents are working hard to make their criticism sound as reasonable and well thought out as possible.
Then you’ve got stuff like this:
That was left under a Facebook post from the Population Connection Action Fund criticizing Gov. Scott Walker’s support for the bill. Other commenters wanted to see Gov. Walker get raped and wished that he’d been castrated as a child. Please reference this the next time someone tries to blame pro-lifers for poisoning the debate.
What has them upset is the fact that the legislation doesn’t allow abortions in cases of rape or incest, resulting in what one commenter called “rape babies.” You see that term used a lot to describe children who were conceived via sexual assault; “rape spawn” and “evil seed” are other popular labels. These epithets seem intended to conjure up images of hideous, frightening creatures…
…which is definitely not what I’m seeing here. That’s 2014’s Miss Pennsylvania USA Valerie Gatto, and she is (in her words) “a child of rape.” Conceived when her mother was raped at 19, Gatto is an advocate for sexual assault awareness. She’s also a human being.
So is Rebecca Kiessling. Her biological mother was raped in 1968 and has admitted that she would have aborted Rebecca if it had been legal to do so. Raised by adoptive parents, Kiessling is now an attorney, an activist, and an adoptive mother herself.
You can hear more about Kiessling’s story at website called Conceivedinrape.com. In addition to children conceived in rape, it also features their mothers. While the stories are different, there is one theme that doesn’t change. As rape survivor Jackie Evans explains, “My child was conceived in rape—that doesn’t make her less than human.”
Not that it matters to abortion proponents—they’re fine with making a child pay for what her father did. Most people would rather punish rapists, but that’s not always easy to do, especially when the abortion industry is ready to help cover up their crimes.
It certainly helped Gary Cross: he brought his 13-year-old stepdaughter to Planned Parenthood after impregnating her. Although she was below the age of consent, staff didn’t go to authorities. They did, however, refer the victim for a late-term abortion, thus hiding the abuse. Cross went back to raping her when she got home.
Fellow child rapists Timothy Smith, John Blanks, Jr., John F. Szorady and Adam Gault also took their victims in for a cover-up abortion, as did these 50 other sexual predators. So did the father of Denise Fairbanks; she sued Planned Parenthood, claiming clinic staff ignored her when she told them that she’d been abused.
Accused serial rapist Tyler Kost apparently got a hand from the abortion industry without even knowing it. When one of his alleged victims went to Planned Parenthood for an abortion, she was told not to report the rape as it would create unwanted paperwork for clinic staff. The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office has said an investigation could have been opened “months before” if a report had been filed.
In some countries, people are punished for the crimes of their family members. That might be how things work in North Korea, but it doesn’t fit with American values. You can help defend those values by getting behind Wisconsin’s Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, along with similar legislation in other states. You can also also demand that the abortion industry be held to account for aiding sexual predators. Finally, you can support pregnancy care centers, places where vulnerable moms can turn for help. Because while rapists deserve to pay for their crimes, their children don’t.
