Roe Vs. Wade Survivor, Class of 1974

I count myself a survivor of Roe vs. Wade.

I was born to a "pro-choice" mother in the year after this travesty of justice paved the way for women to kill their babies without restriction in every state.

My mother used to boast about how I was the ultimate product of "planned parenthood." My parents waited eight years into their marriage to have a child. They finished their educations. They secured themselves in their careers. I was "wanted." I'm sure my mother told me these details to build my esteem, make me realize my worth. I used to buy into it. I used to be pro-choice.

Then I started thinking: What if in the midst of her pregnancy, my "wanted" status had changed? What if my father had run off with another woman, leaving my mother alone, vulnerable, suddenly unable to cope with the pressures of parenthood? What if my mother had been offered a prestigious new position within her field, one that would provide many additional challenges and accolades and stresses that would not have complemented parenting a newborn at that time? What if, on the other hand, my parents lost one or both of their positions, drastically and rapidly leading to a reversal in their economic state and destroying all the "planning" in which they had so prudently engaged? You can "plan" parenthood as much as possible, but life is ultimately unplannable. When a child's only protection under the law is his or her "wanted-ness" by the mother, then no child is safe.

If, however, each child were seen as a person from the time their unique DNA code is formed (i.e. at conception), deserving of human dignity and legal protection, this would be a better country, a more humane and civilized country. I survived a court decision that told my mother that I was not a person until she said so. I am certain my mother would be horrified to read my point of view on this (she died in 1998). She would protest and say, "No, no! Don't you understand? You were wanted. We planned, we provided, we did it right." Yes, Mom, you did do it right. I think that every child should be so welcomed into this world. You and Dad did a great job. But, even if you hadn't done such a great job planning, preparing and providing, should my life have ended? Even if, all of a sudden, I hadn't been wanted by you, I can assure you I would still have been wanted by at least one person - myself. Abortion denies a child the fundamental right of self-actualization.

No child can ever be duplicated. When you destroy a child through abortion, just as when you murder any human being, no matter how young or old, you are destroying someone irreplaceable. How can people live with these holes that have been punched through our society? I can't walk down a street anymore without seeing the voids created by 45 million missing people. What would they be doing? I'm sure some of those children would have gone on to do amazing, wonderful things, enriching countless lives during their time on earth. I'm sure some of those children would have gone on to commit horrendous acts of incredible depravity. Probably most of those children would be living lives like mine - plain, ordinary, everyday, bread-and-butter kind of lives - living peacefully, raising their own children, working hard, obeying laws, finding joys both great and small, living through their sorrows and regrets, finding redemption in an ever-loving God. No matter what the outcome, we should not deprive people of the chance to do with their lives what they will (or to seek what God wills, if they are a person of faith).

How horrible it is to think that we are adding to these missing around 4,000 human lives a day.

I am not a choice, despite what my mother may have thought. Neither are these tiny souls destroyed daily in abortion mills across this great nation, despite what lies are told to convince women otherwise.

My daughter and any other children my husband and I are blessed with will never have to grow up with the shadow of "what if?" hanging over them. They, too, will not have been choices.

Let us open our hearts and learn to want children more. Let us eliminate, as Randy Alcorn so eloquently put it in his excellent book Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, the "unwanted" from "unwanted children," not the "children." And beyond "wanting," let us change our cultural attitude to welcoming these small people. They deserve to have choices, not to be choices.