Fight for Life

Some years ago, I was in a fight for my life.  There were people who wanted to kill me.  Not because I had done them any wrong.  Not even because of my race, color, gender, or religion.  But they wanted to kill me just the same.

At the time, I was completely defenseless.  I had no voice.  I was unable to fight to defend myself or even to cry for help or plead my innocence.  I was completely at the mercy of others.

There was an army of people who fought for me.  There were the preacher and his wife who pleaded for my life and found a home for me.  There was a couple, several states away, who prepared to take me in.  There was my birth mother, who chose to suffer the inconvenience, pain, and humiliation of a full-term pregnancy and child-birth rather than to give in to the doctors and those in her circle who encouraged her to get rid of me.

Unbeknownst to me at that tender age, there were prayer warriors and lawyers working around the country to protect children like me.

My life was saved.  I was born on January 3, 1973, in a state where abortion was legal.  Less than 3 weeks later, on January 22, 1973, abortion was made legal across the country.

Others have not been so fortunate.  The lives of hundreds of living, breathing babies are taken every day.

And so, 46 years later, we continue to pray, and to march, and to fight.  There is a war going on, and the victims are defenseless.

Be a voice for a child like me.

Reflections on LIFE

A lot has been said about the marches this past weekend.  In a few days, on January 27, there will be another march in DC:  the March for Life.  I am reposting an article from The Christian Standard magazine on May 29, 1994, that I shared several years ago.  Here is the text:

Decisions That Make a Difference

by Charles A. McNeely

The voice on the phone took me by surprise.  "Are you Charles McNeely from Lincoln, Illinois?"  She sounded young and vivacious, with just a hint of apprehension.

  "Yes," I answered.  "May I help you?"
  "Did you by any chance help place a baby for adoption in Iowa City in 1973?"
  "Yes," I replied cautiously, slowly pulling a kitchen chair over for support.  "Why do you ask?"
  "My name is Susan Andrews* and I was born on January 8, 1973.*  I am wanting to contact my birth mother and I was told you might be able to help me.  Could I have been that baby?"
  My heart beat faster.  "Tell me what you've been told."
  As I listened to her story unfold, long forgotten but vivid memories flooded my mind, like a series of pictures flashing on a screen.  Then I thought, "She's the one!  I don't believe it, but it all connects.  She was the baby!"
  Our conversation continued for another half hour, followed by five days of numerous phone calls and intense searching for Christy, the woman who, as a seventeen-year-old member of our youth group, gave birth to Susan.
  When I called her back with the welcome news that Christy was eager to hear from her, Susan said she was excited, nervous, and scared.  I told her that Christy cried with unsuppressed joy and unresolved guilt.  She said not a day had gone by in twenty-one years that she had not prayed to see her daughter again.
  I recall several comments Susan made then and during the earlier conversation, but one statement will be forever etched in my memory.  It was something she said in the first phone call.  Her bubbly and energetic voice suddenly became very serious and soft-spoken.  She asked about the circumstances surrounding her birth and adoption. 

Don't Make Two Mistakes

  I explained that she was conceived out of wedlock, that her birth father refused all responsibility, that Christy's parents were extremely upset and her family physician had recommended abortion.  I summarized my very first talk with Christy, in which I cited several reasons why she should not abort.  I repeated what my wife and I had told Christy twenty-one years earlier:  "Don't make a second mistake and kill this baby.  Give your child the gift of life and hand her over to a Christian couple who can give her life eternal."
  That was when Susan said something I will never forget.  There was a long pause.  And then softly, slowly, and very seriously she said, "Thank you. . . . Thank you. . . . I always wondered who convinced my birth mother not to abort me.  And I just want to thank you for my life."
  Susan's very genuine expression of gratitude for life itself made everything worthwhile.  The midnight trip to the hospital, the many counseling sessions with Christy and her parents, the long distance phone calls to line up a home for Christy and adoptive parents for Susan, the winter trips over ice-covered roads to encourage Christy, the hours Jane and I let her pour out her heart and weep on our shoulders, the money we gave her to buy what homes for unwed mothers would not provide - it was now worth it all!
  Susan's voice began to quicken again as she described her parents as the best parents in the world.  From the time she was young, they shared honestly that she was adopted - chosen and special.  She was so against abortion, she said, that whenever her papers or speeches assigned in school were open to topics of her own choosing, she always chose pro-life subjects.  Now she was a senior in a Christian college, determined to serve the Lord with all her heart.
  Then she said it again.  "Thank you!"  Chills went up my spine.  I thought of our talks with Christy, and I thought of how often we Christians miss opportunities to give clear, godly advice to people in crisis.  I thought of how sometimes we just need to say, "Don't do it!" whether it's sex before marriage or abortion after sex.  I thought of how some people do listen to us - and their decisions have eternal significance.
  When Susan learned that Christy had turned her back on the church for the past twenty years, that she now has no relationship with Christ and no purpose in life, she said, "Now, perhaps the baby she gave life can give life to her."
   Just before the end of our second conversation, Susan told me that she was going to take it slowly - one step at a time.  She was going to write Christy first, and then talk to her by phone - and later in person.  But she was going to try her best to get acquainted with Christy and reacquaint Christy with her Lord!
*The names, place, and date have been changed.

By the way, I'm Susan.

Who Are the Women Behind Roe and Doe? See this link.

http://www.citizenlink.com/2013/01/22/who-are-the-women-behind-roe-and-doe/

40 Years Ago Today

Forty years ago today, in January 1973, the Rowe v Wade Supreme Court decision made abortions legal in the United States.  Unfortunately, this was not the beginning of widespread abortions being performed - they had been done for years, not only in backstreet alleys, but also in respected hospitals by respected doctors.  While the lawyers for Rowe and Wade were debating and preparing their court cases, another young girl was struggling with this decision, probably unaware of the battle raging over the subject.  In September 1972, in a small town in Iowa, this young girl found out that she was six months pregnant.  She was seventeen.  She was a good girl in a good family in a good town - the kind of girl that these things don’t happen to.  It would be very easy to make this problem go away.  No one would know.

She did not want to have an abortion.  Her doctor was pressuring her to have this simple medical procedure done, even though she was in her third trimester.  Her parents stood by, not really offering much support, thinking how nice it would be not to have to deal with this problem.  In spite of the "pro-choice" lingo now used by activists, she did not feel that she had a choice.  Then, a caring couple made a difference.  Her minister and his wife visited the home for pregnant girls where she had been sent, gave her money, and did everything they could to talk her out of aborting her baby.  They even found a Christian couple who would adopt the baby and give the baby a good home.  They persuaded her.  While justices debated in Washington, a baby girl was born in Iowa, two weeks before the Supreme Court reached its decision.

You hear often about the mothers who are considering abortion.  Whether they decide to have the baby or to abort it, to keep it or to give it up for adoption, their lives are changed from that point on, and they must suffer the consequences of decisions they have made.  The voices you do not often hear are those of the children.  

Another writer tonight pointed out:

Here’s the thing. We talk about children all the time in this country. Politicians use children as props to promote their causes (gun control, education, national debt). But you’ll notice that when a politician wants to discuss abortion, he puts a woman on stage and not a child.
You’ll never find children on the stage of a pro-abortion discussion. It’s a whole lot harder to talk about abortion when you’re looking at children instead of statistics. (http://www.purposefulhomemaking.com/2013/01/i-should-have-been-aborted-personal.html) 

The children who are aborted are never given a voice.  But the baby in this story?

I just turned 40.

Save the Child (by Jay Banks)

A tiny form

A child at conception

A new beginning starts

A tiny beating heart

The love and hope of two now blossoms into one.

Tiny hands

Forming to perfection

Such a grand display

Stronger every day

The breath of life that all men cherish Has now begun.

But there’s a tear in this little one’s eye

For very soon this little one will die.

Save the child.  Save the child.

If you really care you’ll do what you can do.

Save the child.  Please, save the child.

Would it make a difference if that child were you?

Save the child.

Inside the womb

A wonder of creation

No human hands can form

This human being born

A pure reflection of God’s image and His love.

The child moves

A mother’s sweet sensation

And nothing can describe

The joy that lives inside

This precious life sustained and given from God above.

But before this child draws his first breath

He is tried and sentenced to death.

Save the child.  Save the child.

If you really care you’ll do what you can do.

Save the child.  Please, save the child.

Would it make a difference if that child were you?

Save the child.