Why I Am Pro-Life

Now for a moment of rare and complete candor from me. I've been wanting to write this article for a while now, so I feel that it's time to set out to explain exactly why I'm pro-life. I believe that the arguments for the pro-life side are much more powerful and have greater explanatory power than pro-choice arguments. But that's not the whole story as to why I'm so passionate about saving unborn human beings.

How I decided to enter the pro-life movement.

I grew up a conservative Christian, though I wouldn't necessarily say I grew up in a conservative Christian household. Mom took us kids to church but I don't ever remember talking about it much away from there. I honestly don't even know how I felt about controversial issues. I was probably pro-life, I had just not given it much thought. So if I was pro-life, it was due to my Christian upbringing.

It wasn't until after I graduated high school and went to college that I started to seriously question things. No one, not even my high school teachers, instilled in me the desire to learn that I have now. I was always a pretty shy kid, so I decided to take a public speaking class to help me get over my shyness. The third speech that I had to give in that class was on a controversial topic. I had to present both sides of the issue fairly, so that no one could tell which side I came down on. I chose the topic of abortion out of thin air (though looking back on it, I'm pretty sure it was God nudging me to choose that topic). In the course of studying for my speech, all of the research I gathered indicated that we truly are human beings from fertilization. I finally learned for the first time just what an abortion is, that it's legal for basically any reason and through all nine months of pregnancy, and that some 1.3 million (it's about 1.2 million now) unborn children were being mercilessly slaughtered in their mother's own womb. I was horrified that anyone would think this gruesome procedure was acceptable, a mother killing her own child in the womb, which should be the safest place in the world for a child to be. This was just unfathomable to me.

I gave my speech (still leaning slightly toward the pro-life side), and got a good grade on it. But that was the catalyst for my desire to want to stand up for the rights of the unborn. It's not just that my Christian faith tells me to stand up for the oppressed, for those without a voice, it's just the decent, human thing to do.

I gave a couple of presentations at my church, but sometime later my older sister, who knew of my interest to join the pro-life fight, took me to the local 40 Days for Life vigil that was happening at Planned Parenthood. There I met my future friend and mentor, Josh Brahm. Nothing became of it right away, but about a year later we met again and he took me under his tutelage. From that point I decided to dedicate my life to saving unborn human children, and I sincerely hope I'm alive to see the day when Roe v. Wade is overturned.

Why I am so passionate about the unborn.

It's not just the good arguments. At the end of the day, logic wins out over emotion. This is not because emotion isn't important, but because emotion can confuse matters, and make wrong actions seem right just because you're too concerned with how to love someone yet still tell them their actions are wrong. I consider myself a logically-minded person, but I have an emotional side that I rarely let anyone see. I think sometimes I can overcompensate by trying to hide all semblance of emotion and remain coldly detached from the issue. It's something I'm working on, and something that speaking and mentoring through Justice for All has greatly helped me with.

See, I was mercilessly bullied in school. I didn't have an advocate. Day in and day out the other students would torment me. My parents never did anything about it. In fact, my mom actually thought it was funny when her young, impressionable child would come home from school in tears because the other kids were picking on him. My teachers, even though they knew it was going on to some degree, never did anything to stop it. I had very few friends growing up, and most of the ones who did hang out with me would only do so in private. They wouldn't let the other kids know that they hung out with me. I did have a few genuine friends growing up, but the treatment I received from other kids has caused me to grow up with a severe distrust of people.

I was hearing all the time about how worthless I was, and never heard anything positive about me. Not even from my own parents. So naturally I began to believe them, since everyone seemed to be in agreement. I grew up believing myself to be less than human. I would never tell anyone how I feel, or who I developed romantic feelings for, or anything like that, because I literally did not think I was worth anything. This led me to become suicidal when I graduated from high school. I didn't think I was worth anything, and I didn't think anyone would miss me if I was gone, so I came close to wanting to end it. But I never attempted. I believe with everything that I am that there is a God, and I didn't want to stand in front of him and tell him that I felt the life he gave me was so worthless that I didn't want to live it anymore. And as I began to study my faith, not just accepting it because I always believed it, I started to realize that my life really was worth something, that God's love was enough to give my life meaning, even if I didn't see it, myself. And I have the opportunity to do good in this life, to stand up for those who have no voice, because no one would stand up for me when my suffering was visible.

So when someone tells me that the unborn have no worth, or at least less worth than I do, I find that deeply insulting, deeply offensive. And I won't stand for it. I've been there, so I know what it's like to be dehumanized, even if it wasn't enacted in law.

Understand, I'm not saying all this so that anyone would feel bad for me. That's not my purpose. In fact, I believe that God allowed me to go through this not just so that it would make me a better person when I grew up, not wanting to treat anyone the way that I was treated as a child, but it also makes me a more passionate advocate for those too weak and too young to speak up for themselves. I just want my readers to know why exactly it is that I do what I do. I see abortion as the ultimate act of bullying. It's just bigger and stronger people tormenting and killing those who are weaker and smaller, usually for no other reason than that they're in the way of something we want, or they're just plain inconvenient. This is a tragedy, and it needs to stop.