As a young teen I was asked if I supported legalized abortion, and I said no.  Then I was asked about cases when the mother had been raped.  My answer was, “Well, in that case it wasn’t her fault, so she should be allowed to get an abortion if she wants to.”  I didn’t understand what abortion really was, what it entailed, or what it meant for the baby or for the mother. 

                At age 14, I had an incredible salvation experience where Jesus came into my heart, the scales fell off my eyes, and the entire world looked different to me. I started going to a non-denominational church, reading the Bible with awe and wonder, and learning to hear God’s voice. 

                After high school I spent a year with Youth With A Mission doing their Discipleship Training School and their School of Evangelism.  I learned so much about God, the Bible, marriage, families, education, homeschooling, and abortion.  We had a teacher, Bev Kline, who ran a ministry for pregnant women in crisis.  They offered support, counseling, and a home to live in.  This incredible woman told our class her story. She had had two abortions and spent many years under incredible pain and guilt.  She found healing through Jesus and now spent her life extending that healing to others.  She tried to talk to women considering abortion, to spare them the heartache she went through.  Bev helped many women keep their babies and see them thrive in their new lives as single mothers. She helped others lovingly give their babies up for adoption.

She had found a purpose and passion in life and was filled with peace and joy.  But she never forgot the birthdays of the two children she had aborted and looked forward to meeting them in heaven someday. Bev is still loving women by running Living Alternatives.

                During that time I saw pictures of the small humans that had burns all over their tiny bodies because of saline injection abortions.  I saw pictures of tiny legs ripped from a tiny torsos by forceps during an abortion. Abortion was becoming real to me. Here are some similar images.

Here is a link with many images of babies post abortion and explanations of the different types of abortions. Please be aware these images are very disturbing.

The reality of abortion is extreme cruelty to the most vulnerable humans among us, not the “evacuation of fetal tissue.”

                We also had another teacher who started a pro-life group.  He explained how abortion was the same to God as the sacrificing of children to idols in the Bible. Some ancient cultures had this practice.  Israel had a period of leaving the LORD and worshiping the idol Molech, and/or Baal who required that children be burned in fire to appease his wrath.

“They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal— something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind. So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.…”

Jer 19:4-6

In America today we are too educated and sophisticated for idols made of metal or stone. Now our idols are called Selfishness, Convenience, Greed, and Fear and THOUSANDS of babies a day are being sacrificed to these idols.

This teacher also explained to us the procedure called “Partial Birth Abortion” which was legal in some states.  

“Partial-Birth Abortion (Brain Suction) – 4 to 9 months of pregnancy

Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby’s leg with forceps. The baby’s leg is pulled out into the birth canal. The abortionist delivers the baby’s entire body, except for the head. The abortionist jams scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole. The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child’s brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed.”

Wisconsinrighttolife.org

There was no difference between this baby and the baby whose mother wanted to keep him – no different in form or biological structure, no different in value to God.  The only difference was location. The baby who was still partially in the womb could be legally murdered. These babies feel the pain of abortion at least by 20 weeks but probably much sooner.  Here is the scientific proof. https://illinoisrighttolife.org/yes-an-unborn-baby-can-feel-pain-in-an-abortion-heres-the-scientific-proof/

In the girls dorm at YWAM there were no TVs, computers, or phones. So I picked up a huge book about the origins of Planned Parenthood and read the entire thing (I think it was 400 pages long!) I learned that the founder, Margaret Sanger, despised both blacks and Christians.  She lived a very promiscuous lifestyle.  She felt that abortion was the answer to society’s woes: to set women free from traditional morals and of course those burdensome babies.  She also said that abortion would be very useful in controlling the populations of the pesky lower forms of humans, mainly the Negros.  As she began to market her idea, she used the slogan, “Every child a wanted child” and promised that a utopian society would surely follow. 

As we can all see now, Margaret Sanger was a very false prophet.

Planned Parenthood started entering the schools and providing “sex education” which was supposed to help prevent unwanted pregnancies.  Teenage pregnancies began to skyrocket, and it turned out the “sex ed” was actually creating more clients for her abortion clinics.

I knew a woman who had an abortion when she was young. It left emotional and physical scars so that later when she got married, she could not get pregnant. After much struggle and help from health care professionals, she was able to bring one miracle son into the world. She developed an abstinence based sex-ed course. She was invited into many schools.

I also learned from that book that 80% of women who had an abortion reported negative side effects, many long term.

It was becoming clear to me that abortion was devastating to the mother as well.

I have since learned that women who lose their baby before 20 weeks, whether through miscarriage or abortion, have a much higher risk of breast cancer and that risk goes up with each baby that is lost.  On the flip side, for every month a women nurses a baby, her risk for breast cancer goes down.  I have virtually no breast cancer risk after nursing my 10 babies.  What does this tell me?  God created our bodies to work a certain way and when we violate His design, there are negative consequences.

There are so many documented complications following abortion from increases in many kinds of cancer, poor general health, problems with future pregnancies, and on and on. The most concerning is the death rate in the year after abortion.

“According to the best record based study of deaths following pregnancy and abortion, a 1997 government funded study in Finland, women who abort are approximately four times more likely to die in the following year than women who carry their pregnancies to term. In addition, women who carry to term are only half as likely to die as women who were not pregnant”

afterabortion.org

What do you know?  Pregnancy is actually good for women because God’s creation is good and He loves women.  Pregnancy taken to the birth of a full term baby can actually protect a woman from DYING!

A year after YWAM, Chris and I got married and started having babies. We were learning first hand how our babies were being fearfully and wonderfully made by God who was knitting them together in my womb and bringing them through astonishing developments week by week. This was not a clump of cell. This was a miracle!

                In quick succession I had a girl and two baby boys.  My fourth pregnancy produced a beautiful baby girl, Ashlyn, who was diagnoses with a rare chromosomal disorder.  Soon we realized that she was developmentally delayed and had unexpected abnormalities in her body.  Yet she is such a vital part of our family.  Most children like her never make it out of the womb alive.  80% of Down syndrome Babies are aborted in America. In some countries it is close to 100%.

I met a friend a few years later who took a special interest in Ashlyn. She even organized a fundraiser to help get Ashlyn the special therapy she needed.  One day she told me her story.  She was close to her due date with baby number 3 when the doctors realized that her child had some sort of problem, likely chromosomal in nature.  They urged her to abort.  Abortions in the third trimester were not legal in our state, so she and her husband traveled to another state.  The abortion was preformed and she got a picture of her dead daughter.  She and her husband had since divorced.  Her older daughter was practicing self -harm.

I listened to my sweet friend and I heard a torture that I have never experienced in all the hardship of caring for a child who is physically and mentally handicapped.  I wouldn’t wish that type of pain on anyone.

In the last year I have watched the movie, “Unplanned”, story of Abby Johnson who went from Planned Parenthood’s Employee of the year to a Pro-Life advocate. Please read her book or watch her movie. It explains so much about what it is like inside the abortion industry and what it is like to have an abortion.  The turning point for Abby was when she was called in to assist with an abortion for the first time.  It was her job to hold the ultrasound probe so the doctor could see the baby in order to suction it out.

  When the suction tube came near the small baby, Abby saw it recoil and move out of the way.  It tried to find a safe place but the little body could not escape.

                “Beam me up Scotty,” said the doctor as the baby was ripped from the womb and ended up in a bloody heap in the machine.

                Just a few weeks ago I was able to attend a Kick Off Rally for our local chapter of 40 Days of Life, the Pro-Life organization that helped Abby get out of the abortion industry.  I met many precious Catholics who have been standing and praying in front of our city’s Planned Parenthood since 2006. They have pictures and stories of the babies and mothers they have saved from abortion.  I was able to tour Little Bee, a mobile ultrasound unit by Undefeated Courage.  They park in front of Planned Parenthoods in the area and offer free ultrasounds for pregnant women.  Planned Parenthood always does an ultrasound for any client wanting an abortion, but only to determine price.  The client is never allowed to see her baby moving on the screen, never allowed to notice the beating heart. 

Four out of five women who receive an ultrasound on a mobile unit decide to keep her baby.  She can plainly see that what is in her womb is a human child, HER human child.

                I also learned about Rachel’s Vineyard, a local ministry that helps women heal from abortion.  Their pamphlet reads, “One in Four Women will become a victim of abortion by the age of 45.” 

Interesting, I had never thought of it that way.  But now I understand why the woman is a victim too. She is being lied to by her culture, celebrities, media, lawmakers, educators, and her health care providers.  Most of all she is being lied to by Planned Parenthood counselors who are trained to sell a product. They only product they have to sell is abortion.  The pain, grief, guilt, and negative side effects are downplayed or never mentioned.  Her baby is referred to as “the pregnancy”, “contents of the uterus”, or “fetal tissue.” She is never told that her baby is a real human baby, a life worth living, and a life worth saving. 

She is never told that when God gives a woman a baby, it is His way of showing His favor and giving her His highest blessing. She is never told that babies are always a blessing and never a curse, that the child in her womb may become the best thing in her life.

                I love to talk about pregnancy, labor, birth, and everything to do with babies and motherhood.  It is my great passion in life!  Women sense this and seem to open up to me.  I have heard so many stories over the years!  Many times I have heard a woman say,

“I wish I would have had more children.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t have more children.” 

“I wanted more children.”

                I have never once heard a woman say,

“I have too many children.” 

“I never should have keep this child of mine.”