Rep. Marlin Stutzman may owe his life to the fact that an abortion clinic was 40 miles away. He tells his story here.
On a cold December night in 1975, a 17-year-old girl sobbed on the bedroom floor of a neighbor’s house. Her own home had just burned to the ground, destroying everything she had. But that wasn’t the only weight she carried that night. She had just discovered that she was a few weeks pregnant with her first child. In the dark, alone and terrified, she decided to find a way to Kalamazoo, Mich., 40 miles away, to “take care of her situation.”
That young girl was my mother, and if she had gone to Kalamazoo that night, you wouldn’t be reading this today. I would have been aborted.
Recently, after speaking on the House floor about the horrors of Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s abortion clinic in Philadelphia, I began wondering if my mother had ever thought about ending her unplanned pregnancy. My parents never gave any indication that it was ever a consideration, but was it?
I gave her a call. When she answered, I talked to her about my speech on the House floor and then asked gently, “Mom, did you ever think about .” There was a tense pause, and then, through tears she said, “Marlin, I’m so sorry!” As we cried together, I was no longer a congressman, but a son understanding for the first time the heartache and struggles my mom had gone through before I was born. As we talked about her fear of driving 40 miles alone, I had to think, “What if a ‘Gosnell‘ clinic was only four miles away instead of 40?”She asked if I could forgive her. I answered, “Yes, with all my heart.”
This is why every clinic that closes, every extra mile people have to drive to the clinic, saves lives. This is why this war on murder is not only fought in Statehouses and in D.C. but every clinic to every clinic. Every doctor to every doctor.
See a news report on Rep. Stutzman.
