The Holocaust. Rwanda. Darfur. Three terrible examples of horrific slaughter with millions of lives lost. The reasons are almost inexplicable--one day a group of people decided that another group did not deserve to live.
In our own nation, we have lost millions in the same way. One group has decided it has the right to terminate the life of another. We have a generation that is missing 48 million people, killed before they could be born. But alive, they most definitely were. That argument is fully supported by medical science.
Whenever the topic of abortion is defended, only the interests of one half of one side are addressed: the mother's. (Paternal interests are often dismissed, too.) But in the 35 years since Roe v. Wade, a generation has come to maturity who can speak to the loss from the other side.
Four of those young adults are marching today in D.C. They were each adopted, two from Russia, one from Romania, and one from D.C. I interviewed their adoptive mother for my book. We'll call her Marty Terrill. (Because some of the stories in my book are quite sensitive, I've decided to change all the names of those I interviewed for the sake of privacy.)
Lucas Terrill was adopted from Romania. His birth mother was in her fifth month of pregnancy, about to get an abortion. But one night, she had a dream in which she was told, "Don't abort the boy." She didn't know the sex of her child, but the dream sobered her enough that she immediately canceled the abortion and decided to give him up for adoption.
Lucas was two years old in 1992 when Marty took him to his first March for Life in Washington, D.C. "As we walked, we encountered a whole section of pro-abortion feminists," Marty recalls. "They were angry and antagonistic about the rally. So I stepped up, holding Lucas and said, 'I adopted him. Look at him! He could have been aborted.' I assumed they were be affected by this cute little boy, but it didn't affect them one bit. They shouted expletives in return. I was horrified by their reaction."
Lucas and his siblings have attended every March for Life since then, carrying signs saying, "I was adopted, not aborted." Often they are applauded. Sometimes they are jeered. In one recent march, Marty was confronted by a group of self-proclaimed atheists who yelled at her for bringing her children, accusing her of forcing them to come and carry these signs. Lucas immediately stepped up and corrected them, saying he wanted to come: "I believe in this. My life was spared! I definitely want to be here."
Then he witnessed to them, sharing the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.
"I think for my kids it's very meaningful to be in this march," Marty says. "They've seen the pictures of the babies who were aborted. They are very aware of how they were spared. So we all want to stand up for other children in the same situation, where their mothers could choose to kill them instead of allowing them to live. I always say to my kids, 'Your moms were poor and didn't have the money to take care of you. They could have aborted you, but they didn't. You can thank your birth moms that they went through labor and gave you birth.'
"Every one of my adopted kids could have been aborted. But their birth mothers all chose life and gave me the chance to adopt them. God says we need to stand up for life. The Bible says we are to cry out for those who can't cry out for themselves--and that's what we're doing."
UPDATE: The headline in The Washington Post's report the next day concurs with this perspective, "A Youthful Throng Marches Against Abortion." Quote from a 17-year-old from Dallas: "This is the social justice issue of our era, and I want to do something about it."
(Photos: The Washington Post)
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