Randy Alcorn, the author of Why ProLife? recently received an e-mail from a young woman, Mayra, who told him about becoming a Christian and her adoption after being touched by his book.
Alcorn’s website not only talks about Mayra, but also includes a video of her poem. Mayra says that the book “brought a new perspective towards my birth mother and so I wrote her a thank you letter in the form of ‘Spoken Word Poetry.’”
She also shared her favorite Bible verse, Ephesians 1:5: “He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”
Randy Alcorn also shared his own experience with adoption, and his thoughts on the Christian Church and promoting the option more:
The pregnant teenager we took into our home previously had two abortions, but while with us gave birth and released her baby for adoption. It wasn’t easy, but this wonderful woman, years later, told me: “I look back at the three babies I no longer have, but with very different feelings. The two I aborted fill me with grief and regret. But when I think of the one I gave up for adoption, I’m filled with joy, because I know he’s being raised by a family that wanted him.”
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The Christian community should make a concerted effort to overcome the negative spin on adoption. We should speak of it positively and show high regard for women who release their children for adoption. We should publicly honor adoptive parents and bless adopted children. We should make prominent the excellent resources on adoption and celebrate it in our churches.
The example mentioned by Randy Alcorn above is not unique. More women who have both given up their children for adoption and aborted children feel the same way about their children, like Meg Perez.
Adoption, which is certainly a courageous and at times difficult decision, is something which does need to be understood more, but also promoted as an alternative to abortion. This is especially the case when Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, provides 174 abortions for each abortion referral.
We see adoption stigmatized in other ways, as abortion supporters have done so in refusing to accept adoption as a “universal alternative.” Even when they claim to be pro-choice, they certainly don’t advocate promoting all of a pregnant woman’s choices beyond abortion.
Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action, went undercover in 2006 while at UCLA to discuss options with the health center for pregnant students on campus. There were no adoption services and nurse practitioner Ann Brooks referred to adoption as “…you don’t get the present.”
Further, a pro-abortion adoption worker even wished that some of her clients had aborted their children instead! These are living people we are talking about, because their mothers made a courageous decision to choose life even when they could not care for their children!
Many women do abort rather than choose adoption, and the abortion industry is certainly no help. It is up to pro-lifers then to share these wonderful stories as we can, like Mayra’s and Chelsea Patterson’s. A woman need not feel as if her life is over should she become pregnant unexpectedly, and a child doesn’t need to die. Adoption indeed saves lives and is the loving option!
