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Rebecca
Wasser-Kiessling is an attorney who has litigated
numerous high profile cases fighting for women's
rights, as well as the rights of the unborn children.
Rebecca travels around the country participating
in presentations on behalf of Crisis Pregnancy
Centers and other pro-life organizations. She
has been interviewed on international, national,
local television and radio, in which she speaks
about the need for the sanctity of life. The following
interview is a combination of the one given at
Congregation Shema Yisrael on May 12th, 2001,
and by email.
Rabbi
Loren: Rebecca, tell us about yourself.
Rebecca:
I've been married to Robert for about three years.
We live in Rochester Hills, Michigan. We have
a young son that we have adopted, Caleb. Our adopted
daughter, Cassandra Grace, was born with a genetic
disorder and died in our arms at 33 days old.
I myself was adopted by a nice Jewish family and
grew up in the Detroit area. I went to Hebrew
school and became a Bat Mitzvah. When I was 10
years old, I saw the musical based on Little Orphan
Annie, and that stimulated me to begin thinking
about my birth mother. That began my search for
my identity, meaning and purpose.
Rabbi
Loren: Seeing "Annie" stimulated you to find
out more about your own birth mother?
Rebecca:
Yes. I hadn't really thought about my birth mother.
When I was really young I sort of thought that
I was “adopted” instead of “born.” My parents
told me that I was adopted and chosen, so I thought
that my parents called up God and placed an order
for me, that there was a room full of babies,
and they went and picked me up.
Rabbi
Loren: How old were you when your search for
your birth mother began?
Rebecca:
When I was in middle school I demanded that my
parents tell me who the lawyer was who handled
my adoption. When I called him, he told me I had
to wait until I was 18 to find out any information.
So, on my 18th birthday, I called him again and
was told to call the court. I called the court
and requested my information, and was told that
I could only get “non-identifying information”
and that I would never be able to meet my birth
mother.
Rabbi
Loren: That didn’t sound too promising. Then
what happened?
Rebecca:
I got my non-identifying information several months
later. It gave a lot of information about my birth
mother - eye color, hair color, height, weight,
age of my siblings, grandparents, my birth mother’s
occupation and educational level. But for my father,
all it said that he was Caucasian and of a large
build. A week later I called my caseworker and
asked her, "Was my mom raped?" And she said, "Yes."
Rabbi
Loren: Why would you even ask that question?
Rebecca:
Because the non-identifying information had all
this information about my birth mother, and almost
no information about my biological father. I thought,
"Goodness, you couldn't even say what his eye
color was, or hair color, or anything?" I thought
that it was really unusual; and "Caucasian" and
"of a large build" sounds like a police description.
Rabbi
Loren: So you got suspicious that your biological
father might have raped your mother and called
your caseworker. What was her response?
Rebecca:
She said, "Yes - I didn't want to tell you." I
was devastated because I had learned that socially
deviant behavior was supposed to be genetic. I
thought, "Who would ever love me? Who would want
to marry someone like me, because I've got bad
genes?” I also thought: "My birth mother must
hate me. She probably wanted to abort me. She's
never going to want to meet me." To make things
worse, I thought of all those people who would
say, "abortion is wrong except in cases of
rape and incest." I felt like at least half
the world was against me.
Rabbi
Loren: What happened next?
Rebecca:
I thought about things for awhile and determined
that if I could just meet her, and hear that she
didn't want to abort me, or that there was some
mistake, I could feel safe and good about myself.
So I pushed my caseworker and, after awhile, she
told me that I could write a letter to the judge,
requesting his permission to allow my caseworker
contact my birth mother and see if she wanted
to meet me - and it worked! My letter went to
the judge and then, my birth mother got a message
from my uncle that I was trying to find her, and
she called and wanted to meet me!
Rabbi
Loren: Then what happened?
Rebecca:
First we spoke on the phone, and she filled me
in on some of the horrible details surrounding
my conception. It was a brutal rape. She was 4
feet 10 inches - really petite - and on her way
to the store, and this man jumped out the bushes,
abducted her at knife point, and brutally raped
her. That's how I was conceived.
Rabbi
Loren: What did she decide to do?
Rebecca:
A few weeks after meeting her, I got up the courage
to ask her about abortion, and she told me that,
if it had been legal, she would have aborted me.
Several years later I found out that she actually
went to two back alley abortionists, and I was
almost killed.
Rabbi
Loren: She tried to have an abortion? Or she
just consulted with them?
Rebecca:
Twice she was actually scheduled to have an abortion.
The first time she walked in there ready to do
it, but it had those typical back alley conditions
that you hear about... blood and dirt all over
the table and floor. That caused her to back out.
Then, on the second attempt, she was supposed
to meet someone by the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Someone was supposed to approach her, say her
name, blindfold her, put her in the back seat
of a car, then take her to the abortionist, abort
me, then blindfold her again and drop her back
off. But providentially, the day she was going
to have me aborted, the worst snowstorm of the
century in the Detroit Metro area began that morning,
and it snowed for days and days, and the roads
were blocked for weeks, and that was it. It was
God's “mandatory waiting period.”
Rabbi
Loren: So, the fact that abortion was illegal
and inconvenient before 1973 saved your life?
If it was legal, easy and convenient, like it
is now, you would have died in your mother’s womb?
That sounds like one very good reason why abortion
should be illegal. Tell us how you came to know
Messiah Yeshua.
Rebecca:
I first heard about the Messiah when I was 15.
A classmate invited me to a special youth event,
and for the first time I heard the message about
the Messiah explained, and I believed! When my
parents found out about my new faith in Yeshua,
my mom took me to see the rabbi who had immersed
me in the mikvah (pool of water for the purpose
of baptism) when I was three years old. The rabbi
told me that I had no choice - I was made Jewish,
and I couldn’t change my beliefs.
Rabbi
Loren: You couldn't believe in Yeshua? Did
you accept the rabbi's explanation?
Rebecca:
No. I thought that sounded quite ridiculous. The
truth was irrelevant and I had no choice what
to believe? Unfortunately, after nine months I
lost my ride to church and drifted away from God.
I ended up spending some of the toughest years
of my life, away from God, away from the fellowship
of other Christians, on my own, doing things my
way - the world's way. Needless to say, I got
myself into quite a bit of trouble.
Rabbi
Loren: How did the Lord turn your life around?
Rebecca:
Before Yeshua called me back to Him, while I was
still astray, I had thought, "If I could just
find someone who would love me, and if I could
prove to the world that I shouldn't have been
aborted, by making myself attractive and successful,
then people would say, ‘Oh, it's so obvious that
Rebecca shouldn't have been aborted,' and then
I could feel good about myself." Not being firmly
rooted in Christ, I settled in dysfunctional relationships
until Law School, when a guy wound up beating
me up so badly that he broke my jaw and left my
front tooth hanging loose in my mouth. It was
after I tried doing things my way, "the world's
way," which ended in disaster, that the Lord called
me back to Himself. God sent one person after
another into my life. It was as if they were at
every fork in the road saying, "Come this way,
here's the narrow path." I’ve been back with the
Lord for eight years.
Rabbi
Loren: What has God done in your life in the
past eight years?
Rebecca:
God sent me a godly man who honored me throughout
our courtship. Before we were engaged, we agreed
that adopting children was something we felt called
to do. Last year, a few days before her baby was
due, my husband and I learned of a 16 year old
girl who had decided to place her child for adoption.
We brought home our adopted son Caleb when he
was a day old. What's really interesting is that
Caleb was also conceived out of a rape. He was
conceived from a date-rape drug given by an 18
year old to Caleb’s mother at a rave party. The
birth mother only knew the man’s first name, and
never saw him again. What are the odds of that
happening, my mother raped, me given up for adoption,
and I wind up adopting a child whose mother was
also raped? But now that I have come to know God
and the Messiah, I will be able to give my son
a great legacy - not that he's a child of rape,
but a child of God, and that there's no stigma
in being adopted. In the New Testament we are
told that it's in the spirit of adoption that
we're called to be God’s children through the
Messiah. God must have thought highly of adoption
to use that as a picture of His love for us. I
searched for my value for many years in the wrong
places. But if my son wants to know what his value
is, he doesn’t have to repeat my mistakes. Now
I am able to teach him that all he has to do is
look to the Cross on which Yeshua died, because
that's the incredible price that was paid for
him. That's the great value that God placed on
his life.
Rabbi
Loren: How do you feel about yourself these
days?
Rebecca:
One of the greatest things I have learned is that
the rapist is not my creator. My self-esteem,
my value is firmly rooted in God. I am honored
that He is using me as a Pro-Life attorney and
as an adopted mother. My husband and I adopted
a little girl who died last September, but it
was a privilege to be there for her short life.
I feel honored that God has used me, but I know
my value isn't linked to the things that I've
done. My real worth comes from being part of His
creation, and one of His adopted daughters.
Rabbi
Loren: What would you say to a young woman
who is considering having an abortion?
Rebecca:
I would speak the truth to a young woman who is
considering having an abortion, that this is a
horrific thing and that there are all sorts of
things in the aftermath that she may not be aware
of, and there are lots of reasons for her not
to choose abortion. There are physical consequences
- for example, there is a link between breast
cancer and abortion. There are emotional consequences
- Post-Abortion Syndrome can be horrific. There
are spiritual consequences - abortion is murder
and it will not go unpunished. And I would tell
her that there are positive reasons to keep the
child alive, even in a case of rape. Glamour
Magazine did an article called, "My Father's
a Rapist." Eight of us were profiled, and what
was interesting to me was that each one of our
mothers expressed what Glamour Magazine
called the "stunning fact" that they were able
to overcome their hatred for the rapist by finding
joy in their love for their daughters. Giving
birth to the child was part of the healing process
for each one who was raped. Killing the child
by abortion would have been the wrong course of
action, and would have only added more hurt, guilt
and pain. Abortion is never right, even in the
case of rape or incest. My very existence is vivid
testimony to that.
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