Life is Worth More than the Potential of Suffering
I was adopted into a family of six when I was two years old, along with my three older siblings. Our story didn’t begin in what most people would call an “ideal” situation.
My birth mother conceived the four of us with four different men. My oldest sister was conceived when our birth mother was only fifteen years old.
By today’s cultural standards, many would say that our lives began under circumstances that justified abortion. But I thank the Lord every day that abortion was not chosen for me or my siblings.
My birth mother struggled deeply with drug and alcohol abuse and would disappear for months at a time. I was told that one time my birth grandmother found me and my three-year-old brother home alone. I was only about 6 months old, screaming and crying, with no adult around.
No one would argue that this was an easy or safe environment for children. It wasn’t. Yet, I am profoundly grateful that I was born.
At two years old, I was adopted, along with my three other half-siblings, into the best family one could ask for. Today, our lives are filled with love, joy, and an abundance of blessings. I now have twenty-four nieces and nephews, with three more on the way. I have an amazing, loving, generous, and faith-filled family. I’m getting married in May 2026 to an amazing man who loves me and treats me like gold. I am incredibly blessed.
My birth mother could have decided, “I’m not ready to be a mom.”
She could have said, “This world is too broken to bring a child into.”
She could have said, “I don’t want to give up the things I want to do.”
Maybe she did think those things. I’ll never know. But by the grace of God, she chose life anyway-and because of that choice, four lives exist that otherwise wouldn’t.
Yes, our first years were hard. Painful, even. But I would choose a difficult beginning over no life at all every single time.
My oldest sister, who was adopted when she was twelve, now has two beautiful children of her own-children she loves fiercely. Their lives exist because hers was allowed to exist.
Abortion is never the answer. No matter the circumstance.
God gives life, and God alone has the authority to take it away. Humans are not God, despite what the world says. We do not have the right to end another person’s life—whether that person is 7 weeks old in the womb or ninety-five years old battling cancer.
Suffering and pain is a part of life. It helps people grow and change into better, stronger, and more compassionate people. I would not be the person I am today without the many different challenges and painful experiences I have faced in my life. Suffering has always been a part of life, and rather than trying to erase suffering by erasing people, our culture needs to accept it and respond with compassion, responsibility, and love.
My life began in hardship, but it is beautiful. It is worth it.
Every life is.