Abortion’s War on Possibility and the Beauty of Adoption

The following speech was delivered by Ryan Bomberger (Chief Creative Officer, The Radiance Foundation) at the National Press Club in DC on Tuesday, December 4th at a National Media Summit sponsored by The Justice Foundation.

Throughout human history, life has been rescued, elevated and celebrated by acts of inexplicable courage and compassion. It is this continuing cycle of our humanity that extols others above ourselves. This is what defines the prolife movement. It is rooted in the foundational belief that human dignity isn’t for the privileged and the planned, but for all.

Abortion denies us the heroic nature of our humanity. It deprives us not only of the beautiful possibility of a unique new life, but of the opportunity for women and men to be powerfully transformed.

There are only two life-affirming alternatives to abortion: parenting and adoption. When the birthparents can’t provide a home for their child, adoption is a beautiful option.

Adoption unleashes purpose.

I know this because, despite being labeled “unwanted”, I was adopted into a multi-racial family of 15. Nine of my siblings were also adopted. We represent the tangible example of Possibility realized. And today, I’m the father of four—three of which were “unplanned”, two of which were adopted. Yet they’re all loved like crazy.

This fall, The Radiance Foundation, which my wife Bethany and I founded in 2009, created a moving new adoption TV ad campaign. Working with Real Options pregnancy medical clinics and Bethany Christian Services (the world’s largest adoption organization), the ads capture the essence of adoption. Turn the unplanned into a loving plan. This is the slogan for this new initiative. The ads honor birth parents and allow them to see beyond the moment into the lives of adoptees who reassure them that they have been “adopted and loved”. It reaches out to expectant mothers and shares an option so few are ever made aware of, let alone shown the beauty and impact of such a decision.

We want to help foster an environment where people pursue adoption more and the public is educated about the beautiful stories that typify the adoption experience. It’s about love, hope, and sacrifice.

The abortion industry, on the other hand, celebrates the sacrifice of others. It is mired in the most extreme form of narcissism that evangelizes others to save oneself, while allowing others to perish.  It leads groups like Planned Parenthood funded pro-abortion group, SisterSong, to make bizarre claims like “abortion makes women better mothers”.

Tragically far less women make an adoption plan today than before Roe. The stigma of single parenting has nearly vanished with nearly 41% of all births in the U.S. to unmarried women. Abortion has also eliminated more than 54 million brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, doctors, teachers, sons and daughters since the War on Possibility began. Prior to Roe (from 1952 to 1972) nearly 8.7% premarital births resulted in adoption. Granted, I’m not an advocate of the shame and forced nature that defined some of those adoptions. It’s not the same situation today. Birthparents are in control and have options within adoption: open, semi-open, or closed. Yet, sadly, less than 1% of unmarried women make that choice. In this pro-life battle to save the lives of both women and children, we often lose sight that parenting is not always the best life-affirming option. Children who grow up in single parent led homes are five times more likely to grow up in poverty than those who grow up in a two-parent married (wife/husband) home.

So adoption not only unleashes purpose, it fights poverty.

Contrary to all evidence available, Planned Parenthood and its abortion allies claim that abortion is a woman’s “uplift out of poverty”. Women, ages 18-64, are more impoverished today (15.5%) than in 1973, where poverty for women was the lowest recorded by the Census Bureau.

Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, who they unapologetically celebrate today, wrote often about motherhood being “bondage”. Poverty is bondage, not having the gift to bring forth life. Sanger, member of the racist and elitist American Eugenics Society, claimed that children are “marked when they’re born” as “diseased, delinquents, and felons”. These vile words served as the bedrock to her Birth Control Movement and remain the foundational underpinning to the “pro-choice” movement. Sanger’s colleague and fellow eugenicist, Henry Goddard, condemned adoption as a “crime against the family”.

This eugenic mindset isn’t the stuff of last century. It’s tragically alive and well today. Planned Parenthood vehemently opposes adoption claiming that “The psychological responses to abortion are far less serious than those experienced by women bringing their unwanted pregnancy to term and relinquishing the child for adoption.”

40 years of abortion can’t even give adoption the same moral equivalency as abortion. It promotes it as far worse. Planned Parenthood wages a War on Adoption every day, aborting nearly 400 children for every 1 woman that is referred for adoption. “Choice” crushes possibility nearly 1000 times a day inside of Planned Parenthood clinics.

Every day, we have an opportunity to unleash purpose in a child waiting to be loved. Notice I didn’t say an “unwanted” child, but a child waiting to be loved. We’re all wanted by someone. I was one of those children back in 1971. The late Steve Jobs, Apple CEO and phenomenal visionary, was back in 1955. Imagine the world without our Macs, our iPhones, our iPads, or our iTunes! Steve Jobs changed the world; adoption changed his. In fact, in his autobiography, he sought out his birthmom later in life to make sure she was ok and to tell her “he was glad he didn’t end up as an abortion.”

We are too.

His birthmom turned the unplanned into a loving plan. My birthmom, despite a traumatic pregnancy, did the same.

Adoption is an act of love. Of mercy. Of justice. And of infinite possibilities. Adoption transforms not only the life of the child, but families, communities, and in some cases…the world.

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©2012 Ryan Scott Bomberger