1 year ago

This episode, Cross Examination host Mark Curran sat down with Attorney and Pro-life Activist conceived in rape, Rebecca Kiessling. https://rebeccakiessling.com/
Her advocacy is focused on stopping abortion, including in the case of pregnancy from rape.
Kiessling was raised by her adopted family in Detroit, who raised her and her adopted brother in the Jewish faith. She graduated from law school at age 23. During law school, she converted to Catholicism.

In the 1960s, Kiessling's mother was raped at knifepoint and fell pregnant following the assault. She then was advised by her rape counselor that she obtain an illegal abortion in back-alley clinics since the elective procedure was illegal by Michigan law at that time, and consulting a legal physician would have been costly. However, she was deterred from obtaining an abortion due to the unsanitary area and practices there. After she gave birth to Kiessling, Kiessling's mother gave her daughter up for adoption.

At age 19, Kiessling met with her birth mother, Joann, who had told her that her biological father was a serial rapist as well as "Caucasian and of large build.

Initially raised in the Jewish faith, Kiessling converted to Christianity at age 23, following an invitation to attend Mass by a friend after suffering domestic abuse from a boyfriend with whom she attended law school. Sadly, on July 29, 2020, Kiessling announced that her two adopted sons, Caleb and Kyler, died tragically at ages 20 and 18, respectively, from drug a fentanyl overdose.

The weekly show is on WSFI Catholic Radio 88.5 FM/750 AM broadcasting to Northern IL and Southern WI, January 2023. It airs every Tuesday at 4-5 pm. https://wsficatholicradio.org/

BIO Information on Host Mark Curran Mark C. Curran Jr. is an American attorney who served as Sheriff of Lake County, Illinois from 2006 to 2018. He was the Republican nominee in the 2020 United States Senate election in Illinois. Curran graduated from Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in business from Spring Hill College, and a Juris Doctor from the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law. Curran attended law enforcement and leadership courses at Boston University and Northwestern University. Curran began his career as a state prosecutor in Lake County in 1990, rising to Senior Felony Prosecutor. He then served as a prosecutor with the Illinois Attorney General from 1999 to 2002. In 2002, Curran went into private practice, concentrating in civil and criminal litigation. Curran won the Democratic Party's primary election for the position of Sheriff of Lake County, Illinois on March 21, 2006, and won the general election for that position in November 2006, defeating incumbent Gary Del Re.

In his elections and in his role as Sheriff, Curran has called for prison reform in Illinois, in which he includes a call for faith-based programming in prisons.

In August 2008, Curran made national news when he voluntarily spent a week in the Lake County Jail. On December 15, 2008, Curran announced that he was switching from the Democratic to Republican Party, calling his decision a "matter of conscience", stating that the scandals of Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich played a role in his decision.

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