I was conceived and born despite my parents’ contracepting efforts. It was in
1977, just a few months after they were married. My parents were living overseas
due to my father’s military orders. A new marriage, a new and strange place, my
parents said they wanted "alone time" together before I came along. When faced
with an "unplanned pregnancy," fortunately they allowed me to be born.
Although I was "unplanned" I grew up in family surrounded by love. However,
as a survivor of the Roe V. Wade era, I was recently faced with my own
"disposability." A stark reality hit me following a dispute with my mother when
I thought to myself "Why didn’t you abort me?"
As someone working to end abortion, I was taken aback at myself for thinking
this. I know that despite all our problems, my parents love me very much. They
chose me, instead of ending my life in the womb. Yet, at that point in my life,
I was disposable. My parents had the legal option of killing me. Today’s
children and young adults are all here not just because God willed it so, but
also because we survived the abortion holocaust.
If children are a blessing and a gift, why are they so often rejected? Why am
I here...while over 40 million lives are missing from my generation?
In a 1994 Wall Street Journal article, Mother Theresa said "The so-called
right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against
men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human
relationships...It has portrayed the greatest of gifts—a child—as a competitor,
an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered
dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and
daughters...The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be
contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign."
It is a very dangerous combination when you have a culture focused on
personal pleasure and convenience with the availability of contraceptives and
abortion. What Mother Theresa said needs to be reiterated. To restore peace in
our world, we need to restore peace in our families and furthermore, we need to
restore peace in the womb.
Let us all continue to pray and fight for a culture of life and for the
reversal of Roe V. Wade. Perhaps future generations can grow up with a greater
assurance of life and never ask that fateful question, "why didn’t you abort
me?"
