Governor Newsom,
Proposition 1 will be detrimental to women in California who deserve not shame and discouragement, but support, empowerment and encouragement when facing an unplanned pregnancy. When an ad campaign, paid by California taxpayers, targets women and tells them they are not capable of carrying a child, being a mother, or even giving them the chance to consider an adoption.
A woman in Orange County, back in the late 1960s, was married, had four small boys, and found herself in an unplanned pregnancy after having a one-night stand with another man. She felt her only option was to drive to Mexico and abort the baby.
During that two-hour drive south, she had time to reflect on her options. By the time she reached the abortion clinic she had made the choice to choose adoption for her unwanted baby. She knew the baby would be wanted by someone.
I am that unwanted baby girl.
My life began in Santa Ana because my birth mother made the choice for life.
My adopted parents were hardworking immigrants. My adopted father was a plumber, a proud member of UA582 Union Pipe Trades for over 60 years. He passed away this last March at the age of 96, and I was blessed to be his daughter.
This unwanted baby girl, almost aborted, has made a difference in the state of California as a tax paying, law abiding citizen, a loyal friend to many, a mentor to young women and a foster/adoptive parent to at-risk children and teenagers. Today, I serve as CEO of the national nonprofit organization Save the Storks. Our mission is to create a story of hope and empowerment for every woman facing an unplanned pregnancy.
If Proposition 1 passes, it will be yet another setback for women. Why? Because millions of women who made the choice for abortion deal with depression, anxiety and addictions. Post-abortive women are 155% more likely to commit suicide.
Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry have hidden the truth about abortion. Pro-mom organizations who truly care about women, their physical, mental and emotional health, their futures and their families often go unrecognized for the life-affirming programs and services they provide.
California has incredible rescue missions, pregnancy clinics, wraparound services, foster family agencies and ministries that empower women when facing an unplanned pregnancy. When a woman doesn’t feel ready or capable of being a mother, these organizations step in to help her be a parent, or find parents who will adopt her child/children.
Please, consider sharing the choice for motherhood and the choice for adoption when you speak to women. And make sure you have all the facts and statistics. Women I personally know have reported that they were rushed into an abortion by workers at clinics. They regretted their decision after. This is not just my opinion or anecdotal, but a fact. According to Support After Abortion, 22 million people are currently hurting after their abortion experiences.
Women in California deserve better, and their preborn children deserve better.
The above was written by Diane Ferraro of Save the Storks and appeared in a Nov. 2 posting on the Christian Post.
Wonderful story. Vote NO on Prop. 1.
At some point Catholic Answers is going to have to move out of California to avoid being hypocrites. Same with Thomas Aquinas College. At some point Catholics will have to move out of the state because it has become thoroughly evil. You can’t justify staying in that evil state because it provides you with a cushy income and you like the weather. Really, though, I think it will be the lack of water, lack of energy, and the out-of-control crime that will convince many to leave California, not faithfulness to Catholic principles.
Move out of California? Hypocrisy? Hypocrisy is the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform. Please explain, and I ask this as a California resident for 72 years, how living in this state by itself constitutes unchristian behavior, and thanks in advance for a coherent explanation.
St. Paul wrote 2 letters to the
Catholic community in perverted Corinth.
He told ’em a lotta stuff.
Did he ever exhort them to leave Corinth?
“Do not be yoked with those who are different, with unbelievers. For what partnership do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? What has a believer in common with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)
If you stay in California, you are yoking yourself with darkness, contradicting Scripture. Everyone who stays is a hypocrite, saying they believe but acting differently. It’s well past time to leave Sodom and Gomorrah.
God does not judge you based on where you live and what your neighbors do.
1 Corinthians 5:9-11
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people,
not at all referring to the immoral of this world or the greedy and robbers or idolaters; for you would then have to leave the world.
But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person
No, we desperately need a great big crack-down on crime and immorality. Work hard to reclaim California– and the entire Left Coast– Calif., Oregon, and Washington– for Christ. Christ took a great big long whip, and drove the evil money-changers flat out of His Temple. Let’s do that in His name, in Calif.
Go ahead. Good luck. Life isn’t a movie.
Your analogy does not make sense.
Thank you Diane Ferraro. Yours is a thoughtful first-hand testimony that can’t easily be discarded by the categorization that it constitutes a “war on women” or any other canard. I pray your testimony receives a very wide exposure and changes hearts and minds.
I already voted “no” on Prop 1, and voted as prolife, pro two parent heterosexual family as possible. We need our tax system to encourage people to marry and stay married for the sake of their children and society. God bless this young woman for telling her story, and God bless her birth mother for doing the right thing in not aborting her and giving her up for adoption, and God blees her adoptive parents for raising her.
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We all make mistakes but should not compound them by making worse mistakes. We only dig ourselves a deeper place in hell — here and in the hereafter.
NPR broadcasted the horror of a recorded live abortion yesterday, of an 11-week-old unborn baby. It was also posted to Twitter. A murder. An unborn baby’s heart starts to beat at around the fifth or sixth week– and the heart is fully developed by the tenth week. Where is the horrified outrage, the deep mourning and cries of anguish, at the death of the poor, murdered baby, on the NPR broadcast? A throw-away child of the selfish, immature Me-Generation’s sex revolution.
My comment of Nov. 4 at 6:35 was edited a little– the Moderator took out my exclamation point (!) at the end of my short sentence, “A murder!” Why? Our family has a young family friend from Boston, who quit a prestigious job at NPR some years ago, because it became way too difficult, working for the liberal media in any capacity, as a good, devout Catholic, and a devoted Catholic husband and father.
No one has ever admitted that having an abortion hurts.
I read the article on CNA. It is so bad they have to give you fentanyl.
The patient was in so much pain they would not play that part on the air.