Years ago, when I was 18, I received a phone call from a friend of mine. And minutes into the phone call, she asked me: “Sam, what would you say to a girl considering an abortion?
I believed that was just another one of her hypothetical questions. I believed that was just a random question.
I didn’t know that question was the most pressing issue in her life. I didn’t know my answer could save a life.
I didn’t know she was pregnant. I didn’t know her boyfriend was pressuring her to get an abortion. I didn’t know she felt helpless. I didn’t know she was asking for help—my help.
I didn’t know much about abortion, anyway. I didn’t know abortion ripped babies apart, limb-by-limb. I didn’t know abortion decapitated and disembowelled babies. I didn’t know that happened to 300 babies a day. I didn’t know that happened to 100, 000 babies a year in our country. I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
So when my friend asked me, “Sam, what would you say to a girl considering an abortion?”
I answered: “I don’t know.”
A few days later, my 18 year old friend went to an abortion clinic, and they killed her baby.
That’s haunted me for years.
At the time, If I knew what to say to girls considering abortions—maybe, maybe—there would be one more 12 year old in this city today.
13 years ago, I didn’t know what to say to a girl with an unplanned pregnancy. I didn’t know how to effectively articulate that abortion hurts women and kills babies.
However last year, at my internship at the Canadian Center For Bio-Ethical Reform, I learned how to talk to people effectively and compassionately about the inhumane nature of abortion.
For instance, I had a conversation with a girl from a high school last summer.
I asked her what she would do if she got pregnant, she said: “I’m too young to have a baby. I would get an abortion.”
So then I said to her: if a friend of yours said to you that she wanted to kill her two year old baby because she was too young to be a mother, what would you do?
The girl said to me: “I would try to convince her not to kill her baby.”
That day, the girl realized that there’s no difference between killing a two year old baby and killing a pre-born baby.
She told me that if she got pregnant, she wouldn’t get an abortion. She became pro-life. She agreed that abortion was a human rights violation. And that summer, I was able to convince 72 other pro-choice people to become pro-life.
13 years ago, I didn’t know what to say to a girl considering an abortion. Today, I know how to convince many pro-choice people to become pro-life by explaining the humanity of pre-born babies and the inhumanity of abortion.
And you can too. So please use all the resources available to you today.