Saving My Baby Saved My Life

Often, I hear people say that pro-lifers only care about the baby before he or she is born. They rail against sidewalk advocates, screaming profanities or demanding they go home and find something better to do. Of course, I am speaking from experience. I know something they don’t. Saving my baby saved my life too.

Saving my baby saved my life

As I stood out in the cold winds or the heat of the day, my prayerful presence evoked all kinds of reactions. From horn honks to accusations, I have heard it all. The compelling question, honestly asked is, “why?” Why was I out there at the killing centers? Simply put, I am here in case I can help someone choose life.

When I was captive as a victim of sex trafficking, I didn’t have a clue that there were advocates. I didn’t think there were good people in the world before I was eighteen years old. There were people who, out of obligation, would take care of others. They had to. I didn’t know people who went out of their way, for others with no personal gain or obligation. There were such people in my life, but I didn’t perceive it.

I used to say things like, “Safe as a baby in her mother’s womb.” In fact, it was the worst place for a baby in the 80’s. I was sold into sex trafficking on my 14th birthday. During those teen years, I lived in my sneakers, on the streets. Occasionally, home for a few weeks or staying with other transients or for short periods, I might stay with a pimp or a buyer or a motorcycle club or small-time organized crime boss. In all those years, if I got pregnant, I’d miscarried and didn’t know it.

Pregnant

I got pregnant after being sold as a “house pet.” He kept me in an apartment leased to a candidate for sheriff. The rent was paid by me in cash. I had a job at a pizza store. The deprivation and brutality of the previous few years ceased. I served one buyer who told me that, if I got pregnant I would have to have an abortion. Why worry about it? After all, it had been five years of being passed around, used and abused, usually too many times a day to keep track of.

This small business owner was well connected in the community. He had friends in the local government and police forces, as well as in the underworld of organized crime and illegal gambling. He bought and sold little girls like me all the time through pimps like mine. On numerous occasions, he told me about other girls and women who he’d forced to have abortions. One delivered a five-month-old baby girl in the toilet at his business. “That was a baby,” he said. He said my pregnancy was too early to be a baby.

He said that he would kill me if I didn’t have an abortion. I had attempted suicide numerous times and I had engaged in high-risk behaviors, like thumbing across the country. My life had no value to me. He could kill me, but I couldn’t kill her. It wasn’t out of pride or any sense of being better than anyone else. I was much more afraid of going to an abortionist than of facing my own death.

The power of one

One social worker that I had known while I was a runaway came to mind. She was the only person that I thought might help. After all, it was her job and she seemed genuinely caring too. Her name was Anthy. She was my advocate.

She found a woman who had opened her home to girls in similar crisis situations. Her advocacy saved my baby and my life too. She cared for both of us. How many young women go into the killing centers under duress? Can we tell how many believe they have no other choice? How many have been threatened? So many scared, trapped, and tormented women and girls will have the additional trauma of abortion to compound their grief.

That is why I am an advocate for the pro-life position, without exception and without compromise. Saving my baby saved my life. Perhaps, saving her baby will save her life too.