by Natalie Marie Nyquist
The petite teenage girl looked too delicate to withstand the merciless onslaught of reporter’s questions. Yet her chin was held high as she stepped onto the makeshift platform and stood before the microphone. The crowd quieted as they saw her approach. Like a wave on the ocean, silence spread until the entire room’s attention was focused on the lone speaker.
She was very pretty, with luxurious waist-length brown hair that curled as it fell over her shoulders. Her startling green eyes were filled with a pain and grief so deep that it seemed to pierce the heart of everyone who looked at her. Yet shining through the suffering was a magnetic light of hope that seemed incongruous to the words she must speak. Smoothing a hand down her flowered jumper, she gathered her breath and leaned into the microphone.
“Hello. Thank you all for coming today. It is my hope,” her voice caught, and she had to take a slow, deep breath before continuing. “My hope and prayer is that you will honor my request to represent my story accurately and fully—or not at all.”
“My name is Mara Christina Taylor. I am seventeen, and a senior at Oak Park High school on the east side of the city. Last year my life was completely turned upside-down when my father finally answered the question I’d been asking—who was my birth mother? You see, I had been told about how my mom was infertile, and how for years she and my dad longed for children. Dad said that finally they found a doctor to help them. That was not the whole story. The truth is, they heard of a scientist—I’m not sure who and would rather not know— here in Scotland…” Mara bit her lip as she struggled to say the difficult words. “A scientist who worked with aborted fetuses.
“I guess this is common—I had never heard anything like it, and the very idea was disgusting to me. But my dad said that they were desperate for a way for my mom to conceive, and so they went to him. The guy told them that he was experimenting with harvesting organs from the babies. It was a huge secret because that was illegal at the time.” Mara shuddered, and a tear ran down her cheek.
“I am here today because it is time that the world knew my secret. The evil that has been committed must not be allowed to stay hidden under the veil of ignorance for another day. Even as I speak more horrific experiments and testing continue. I can’t stop it all—only God can do that—but I can tell you what I know, and hopefully someone out there who reads what you write, or sees my picture and hears my story will be moved to assist me in taking action against these atrocities.”
“This scientist had a living baby girl which they aborted from a young teenage prostitute. They proceeded to take the eggs from that baby and implant them into my mother. She carried me to term and then my parents had their baby.” Mara paused to lock eyes with a handful of reporters near the front. “And I knew nothing about this until I was sixteen. I had always wondered why I looked nothing like either of my parents.”
“But no one can ever say that I looked like my mother. Because no one ever saw my mother. She was brutally murdered before she ever had a chance to breath air, or feel the sun on her face. Quite frankly, my real mother was never born.” Mara’s voice grew more impassioned as she continued.
“No one can ever tell me that abortion doesn’t kill children. If it’s just a blob of tissue, then tell me, how am I here? How can a…” she choked on her tears. With a shaky intake of breath Mara raised her head again and forced herself to continue. Her pain-filled voice rang out across the room, now as silent as a tomb. “How can a mass of non-living tissue, an inconvenience like a tumor, have a child? Don’t you see how utterly foolish that is? Each fetus aborted is a complete, living person just as worthy of life as you or me.
“My mother was the human from whose egg I was conceived, though I grew in another woman’s body. One woman who thought she could never have children was able to carry me and give birth. That is a good thing. But it’s never good when it is at the cost of another human life. My mother was killed and her ovaries harvested so that someone else, someone more… ‘deserving’ of life, could have a child.”
She paused for a long moment, her gaze sweeping the room. “Tell me, do two wrongs make a right? Just because a girl was pregnant and did not want to be—does that make her a victim? Does that give her the right to choose to kill another? Does abortion make everything ‘all better’?”
“Most people would say so. It’s their quick and easy answer. But it leads to a lifetime of guilt and regret. This is why I am going to do whatever I can to make others aware of the truth of abortion, and the truth about the research being done with fetuses. It’s disgusting, it’s perverted, and it’s wrong. No one has the right to decide whether another person dies. God says that He alone holds the keys of life and death. Those scientists are trying to play god—and they are doing a lousy job at it!”
Mara stopped, her whole body trembling. “The experimental fetuses they used in the project to conceive me were all named Mara 1, Mara 2, etc. My parents named me after the project, since it was so successful.” Her voice mocked the words.
“I do not know how many babies were butchered before eggs were successfully implanted in my mom, but I do know it was at least several dozen. If the picture that brings to your mind does not scare you—does not make you long for an end to this sin—then not much will.”
She looked down at her hands, folding and unfolding them slowly. “I did not meet Jesus Christ until a few months ago. Before I knew Him as my Lord I was involved in a lot of things I shouldn’t have been. As a result, I am now pregnant.” She eyed her protruding belly ruefully. “I suppose you could already tell that. But what you don’t know is the news I received last week at my check-up. It seems that there is…a problem with my baby. My doctor says that she has Down’s Syndrome, and maybe some other defects. Do you know what she suggested I do about it? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count. She said it would be best for the baby if I ‘terminated the pregnancy.’”
For long moments Mara let that news sink in; then she leaned forward and whispered her final words to the world. “Never. No one will kill my baby. My baby shall live.”
Note from the Author: While the above story is fictional, the situation is all too real. We would like for such horrors to be only the result of an over-active imagination in some bizarre science fiction movie, but the fact is that these atrocities are being committed around the world today.
Now you know the facts—what are you going to do about it? May I suggest that writing letters to your senators and congressmen is a much more effective method of making a real impact than adding your name to some silly email forward. But we can do more. The truth is out there if we are willing to search for it. Let’s find the real facts on this critical issue of life of the unborn. It is one of the biggest issues today, if not the most important. The novel that led to this article was written by Randy Alcorn, entitled Deadline. He also has an excellent non-fiction title called Pro-life Answers to Pro-choice Questions, which I highly recommend.
Want to do something about these horrors? Volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center, learn more about the facts, but most of all, pray. Our world is corrupt but our God is holy. He is the Rock of sureness in a perverse and uncertain world.
Abortion would be all about a woman’s choice...IF there wasn’t another human being involved with his/her very existence hinging on that woman’s choice. That’s a huge “if,” and what comes after it nullifies what comes before.
-Aaron Wilkinson
Quotes from Randy Alcorn:
If abortion doesn’t kill children, why would someone be personally opposed to it? If it does kill children, why would someone defend another’s right to do it? The position of being personally against abortion but favoring another’s right to abortion is therefore self-contradictory and morally baffling. It’s like saying—exactly like saying—we’re personally against child abuse, but we defend our neighbor’s right to abuse his child if that is his choice.
“Unwanted” describes not a condition of the childbut an attitude of adults.
If children are viewed as expendable before birth,they will be viewed as expendable after birth.
Even if someone believes people are no better than animals,why would they abhor the killing of young animals,while advocating the killing of young children?
Though the chances of a woman’s safe abortion are now greater, the number of suffering women is also greater because of the huge increase in abortions.
Abortion assures that 650,000 females aborted each year do not have control over their bodies.
Visit Randy Alcorn’s website at
www.epm.org for more information
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!(I did, My dad shot a deer, I'll write about it later.)