“If you do not stand for Planned Parenthood, then you don’t stand for women. Period.” 

As I sat on the couch reading that statement, my blood started to boil. I had just finished reading a long-winded post about how abortion was the right decision to make for this woman, and my heart started to race – faster, and faster as I began to think about her decision to end a human life.

I’m not writing this to stir controversy. I’m writing this to make you think. If you’re pro-life, I want you to simply hear what I have to say. If you’re pro-choice, I want you to listen to me – really listen to me.

Conception is a miracle – a fantastic miracle. And if you don’t believe that, then I strongly suggest that you learn about how an egg is fertilized. It’s an amazing thing. Check out this video if you don’t know how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFrVmDgh4v4 . I really want you to see this, or at least read about it, before we delve in.

For every baby, and for every fetus for that matter, there is a plan designed for them that had existed long before they even did themselves. Whether you believe in God or not, you can’t deny that every human life is designed with a future ahead of them. What that future holds is the question to be answered – but there’s always a future.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭139:13-14, 16‬ ‭NIV‬‬

When you make the decision to engage in sex, that is your choice. If you chose not to be protected, that is your choice. If you want to get an abortion because of the choices you made, that is a completely different story. You CHOSE to have sex. You CHOSE to not be protected. And if you CHOOSE to have an abortion, you are taking AWAY the choice from someone that cannot choose for their own self. Am I not for women? No! I AM a woman. And if you make a mistake like that, then you have to deal with the consequences. Abortion is an easy way out. Birth isn’t easy, raising a child isn’t easy, adoption isn’t easy. And, yes, abortion isn’t easy; it’s physically painful, and for people with a conscience, it’s emotionally painful. But it is undoubtedly an easy way out. The baby dies. It’s done, that’s it. No 9 months of pregnancy, no labor, no raising a life, and, in some cases, no giving up your child to another family. Just temporary pain, or is that really all there is?

I know what some of you are thinking; I’m neglecting the other sides to this argument. What if the baby won’t be born “normal?” What if the mother was raped? What if the baby is going to die anyway? What if it threatens the mother’s life?

What if the baby won’t be born “normal?”

My husband was supposed to be born with down syndrome. My mother-in-law was told up until the point where she was full term that the baby she was carrying would never be normal. After much prayer and what she believes to be a miracle, I am married to a very healthy, normal (by the physical sense of the word), 22 year old. I love him, and he’s a miracle.

That doesn’t work out for everyone. Not everyone gives birth to a baby that was healed or misdiagnosed. A sweet woman I know was told early on in her pregnancy that her baby has down syndrome. As devastated as I know she must have been, this was her child, and she wasn’t going to take the easy way out because of the difficulty this situation proposed. She researched, she learned, and she gave birth to a handsome baby boy with downs. She couldn’t love him more. She became frustrated one day during her pregnancy and posted on Facebook: “Every time I go into my doctor for an appointment there seems to be more and more they want to put us through just because of his ‘diagnosis’ and it’s a ‘high risk pregnancy’. And yet, they never find anything wrong! Little do they know that I have more faith in God than in their medical expertise. I just want to scream at them to leave us alone.”

Just because your baby isn’t going to be physically “normal,” doesn’t mean that he should not be given the right to life. Did you hear about the down syndrome model? Imagine if her mom decided to end her pregnancy. Her determination has inspired many. She has a purpose. She has HAD a purpose since before she was born.

What if the mother was raped?

Rape is a touchy subject. In this case, it’s not the mother’s fault. It wasn’t her choice to have sex, so she feels that abortion IS her only choice. If that’s what you believe, check out this website; http://www.juda4praise.com/Other_Conceived_in_Rape_Stories.htm . It’s outdated, and some of the stories are based off of religion. But you can’t tell me that a baby conceived from rape should be aborted because it wasn’t the mother’s choice. It’s a hard situation, and I applaud the women that put their child’s life above their own in such a time of grief.

What if the baby is going to die anyway?

One of my mother’s friends was faced with a difficult circumstance shortly after she found out she was pregnant; the baby would not survive. The outcome was determined, it was going to die anyway. So why carry it to term? The diagnosis was devastating. With a few healthy children of her own already, the idea of terminating her pregnancy early was cast away. She knew the fate of her child was death, but a mother’s love is inexplicable. She documented her child’s short life in the womb through pictures, and carried her to term. She lived less than an hour, but the time this woman had with her child she will never forget. She loved her. And though her baby was set to die, the impact the baby left on her will stay with her the rest of her life. That child’s life mattered.

What if it threatens the mother’s life?

These cases are rare, and devastating no doubt. Many people, I have come to realize, use this question as the very basis for their beliefs in pro-choice. I read a great article on the subject. http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Feb/20/what-about-woman-whose-life-threatened-pregnancy-o/ . Less than 1% of all abortions are performed to save the mother’s life. That’s not a whole lot, but it’s still an area for concern. This is where the article really said it best:

“Friends of ours were faced with a situation in which removing the mother’s life-threatening and rapidly spreading cancer would result in the unborn child’s death. It was heartbreaking, but they and we were confident that the decision to save the mother’s life was right… The purpose of the surgery was not to kill the child, but to save the life of the mother. The death of the child was a tragic and unintended secondary effect of life saving efforts. This was a consistently prolife act, since to be prolife does not mean being prolife just about babies. It also means being prolife about women, who are just as valuable as babies.”

It is one of the hardest decisions a woman would have to make – deciding to end her child’s life for the sake of her own [physical] life. But to be prolife means to be pro-everyone’s life. And in that case, the life of the mother was important. “One life saved is better than two lives lost.”

So here the argument comes full circle. Life in the womb is still life. If one chooses to end that life, they are choosing a fateful end for a human who cannot choose for their own self, often because of selfish desires (“I can’t take care of a baby right now.” “My career won’t allow it.” “I can’t stand to give a baby up for adoption.”)

My sister gave up her baby for adoption when she was 24. I was 12 years old at the time, but I remember the situation vividly. She never let abortion become an option for her. She knew that her baby was going to be born, and it was not her choice to abort it, but she also knew she couldn’t give him the kind of life he needed on her own. She joined an adoption agency, and researched many couples that could not have children, but wanted them. She found an amazing couple, and I remember her telling them the first time we met them that she knew that they were the right people to take care of her child. When he was born, he was sick, and the 2 weeks he spent in the hospital were agonizing. She dreaded the day she had to sign the papers to relinquish her baby to the care of another family. Through tears she signed the papers, and through tears she handed him over. She went through so much pain for the sake of her baby. And now? He’s in the care of a fantastic family. He’s handsome, intelligent, and incredibly loved.

My sister saw the potential in the baby she was carrying and knew she couldn’t stand to end his life. But she also knew she couldn’t give him the life he needed and deserved. She knew that the hardest decision she ever had to make was the BEST decision she could ever make for her baby. It wasn’t easy, and we all saw the pain and suffering she went through to give him up, but we all knew how much courage and strength that took her to accept the consequences of her actions and make sure that the life she had created would be able to live to be the best he could be. It took a lot of guts to admit she failed, and be able to make good come out of it. I am so proud of her.

My heart aches. My heart seriously aches for the babies that are killed every day because of their mother’s decision to say “Your life isn’t worth living.” It’s all about the women, and their bodies, and their lives after all, right?

I am pro-life. I believe that every life matters. If you have the stomach for it, I encourage you to check out the few pictures displayed on this site: http://www.abort73.com/abortion/abortion_pictures/ . I couldn’t. I only got through two of the six.

So, where do you stand?