The Lord is not impressed by numbers, but by the presence of faith, the broken and contrite heart, the meek, the humble and those who thirst after righteousness. The saints will endure and shine like the stars, the innumerable children of Abraham.
– James M. Kushiner
For many years I was ambivalent about abortion in the United States. As a teenager, and even through college, I didn’t give it much thought becuase a) I’m a guy, and would never have to directly make that decision, and b) I never planned on getting a woman into the situation where I would need to help someone else make that decision.
I knew the Church’s teachings on the matter and accepted them halfheartedly — like the vow of perpetual celibacy, I knew it wasn’t going to impact my life.
Then, while I was in graduate school, I saw a statistic that jolted me out of my complacency: My generation is 25% smaller than it should be because of abortion.
That seemed incredible to me. In fact, I didn’t think is was accurate. Surely abortion wasn’t that prevalent! So I ran the numbers:
I was born in 1978 — one of 3,333,279 live births in this country that year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1978 also saw 1,157,776 abortions.
4,491,055 pregnancies. 1,157,776 abortions. 25.6%.
That shocked me. I thought about the kids I should have known in school, the kids I should have swam with on the swim team, the kids that should have lived down the street from me.
And I thanked God that my mom chose life.
I still don’t consider myself a “crusader” for the pro-life cause. But I do consider myself proudly pro-life. Not just becuase “the Church says so,” but because I came to realize what abortion has done to my generation.