Adopted into God’s Family

President Trump says he is pro-life but believes in abortion for babies conceived in rape and incest. Trump tweeted:

As most people know, and for those who would like to know, I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions — Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother — the same position taken by Ronald Reagan.

Pro-life leader Rebecca Kiessling, who was conceived in rape, responded on her Facebook,

I did not deserve the death penalty for the crime of my biological father. Ask Rick Perry about his conversation with me and how my story pierced his heart he said and that he could not look me in the eyes and justify the rape exception any longer. I’m sure if you met any one of the 800 of us from Save The 1, you would also have a hard time looking us in the eyes and then telling us that we did not deserve equal protection.Strongly pro-life? Mr. President, if you can kill an innocent baby who has no guilt for being conceived in rape and incest, why not kill all the others for other stupid reasons? God calls you to save victims of oppression, and such babies are such victims! Do you want someone killed? Target RAPISTS, not innocent babies!”

Trump is not alone in saying the Alabama law on abortion went too far. CBN and 700 Club Founder Pat Robertson, a staunch abortion opponent, called the Alabama law “extreme,” and should be “legal in case of rape and incest” in spite of the fact his show interviewed Rebecca Kiessling two times to tell her testimony of how she was conceived in rape.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNpRlczGHOw]

In response, to Pat Robertson’s comments, Rebecca Kiessling,  said,

Pat Robertson @700club, I deserved equal protection. Child sacrifice is an abomination. The child shall not be punished for the sins of the father! You’re wrong to say Alabama’s abortion ban was too extreme for not having a rape exception. You had me on The 700 Club twice, including airing my story. So you values my faith testimony, just not my life?!”

Lila Rose, who runs the pro-life advocacy organization Live Action, responded to Trump’s tweet by thanking him for the pro-life advancements his administration has made. But she argued that in order to be pro-life, “we must be 100% pro-life.”

A child of rape or incest is not a 2nd-class citizen,” she wrote in the tweet. “No woman or girl is served by abortion or immune to its trauma, including survivors of rape and incest.”

Live Action’s Twitter account responded to Trump’s tweet by posting a video of a testimony provided by Jennifer Christie, who was raped on a business trip and impregnated.

Rape or incest are horrible situations, and abusers need to be held fully to the law — but abortion is not the path to healing.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VU6FfaO6AA]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k2_UQP1V4Q]

In another tweet, Live Action also reminded followers that Valerie Gatto, former Miss Pennsylvania, was conceived in rape.

Her mother was brutally attacked at knifepoint when she was 19 — but rejected abortion.

Ryan Bomberger, a pro-life activist who himself was conceived in rape and adopted by a loving family wrote an article responding to criticisms of the Alabama law titled “I am the 1 percent used to justify 100 percent of abortions.”

My biological mother was raped, yet she rejected the violence of abortion. I was adopted and loved instead. I’m not the “residue of the rapist”, as Senator Vivian Davis Figures described those like me who were conceived in rape. I couldn’t control the circumstances of my conception. Could you, Senator? 

When it comes to rape and abortion, how do you heal violence with more violence? Let’s be real here. Even if Alabama’s Human Life Protection Act had a rape and incest exception, the confused Handmaid’s Tale cosplayers would still be out in full force. Fake feminists need to exploit tragedy to promote their false equality. And they never seem to find space in their screeds to talk about punishing the actual criminal — the rapist.

As an adoptee who grew up wanted and loved in a multiracial family of fifteen and as a happily married adoptive father with four children, I’m here to say there’s another side of this painful issue.

There are others like me who were conceived in the violence of rape, like my friend Rebecca Kiessling, an attorney and passionate defender of life. There’s the former Miss Pennsylvania, Valerie Gatto, Trayvon Clifton, Monica Kelsey, Jim Sable, Pam Stenzel, and many more whose stories offer a different perspective than mainstream media’s myopic pro-abortion view. There are women who became mothers from rape who courageously chose life, like Jennifer Christie, Liz Carl, and Rebekah Berg.

I mean, who really are the extremists here? Those who think that every human being has the right to life? Or people who celebrate the needless slaughter of one million innocent humans each year in America?

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director who founded the ex-abortion worker ministry Then There Were None, responded to Trump’s tweet with a photo of her adopted son.

My son was conceived in rape. I would love for you to meet him, @realDonaldTrump, and tell me how his life isn’t as valuable as my children conceived in love,” Johnson tweeted.  He deserved to live and I’m so thankful that he does. If we allow some children to die because of certain circumstances, then we become eugenicists,” she wrote. “No better than Hitler.”

Here I might add James Robinson, the famed TV Evangelist, James was the result of a forcible rape of his mother…. But he and his wife have dedicated their lives to serve humanity by feeding millions living in Africa.

We can’t choose the family we were born into, but we can choose Who we belong to. Despite the means by which all of us came into this world, it is clear that we all have value and worth in God’s eyes and we all contribute significantly to society and glorify Christ with our gifts and talents.