Originally published in Christian News
During a recent pro-life rally at the Alabama capitol building, Ryan Bomberger of the Radiance Foundation talked about the value of every life as he shared his story of being conceived in rape, but being adopted into a large, loving family and now being an adoptive father himself.
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“The circumstances of our conception don’t change the condition of our worth,” he declared to those gathered. “Some say that I should have been aborted. At least that’s what the world says about people with stories like mine. See, I’m the 1% that’s used 100% of the time to justify abortion.”
Bomberger said that the very reason he is able to stand before the world and be a voice for life is because his mother didn’t have him murdered.
“My birth mom experienced the horror and violence of rape, but rejected the further violence of abortion,” he noted. “That’s why I’m actually here today to be able to speak about the dignity of every human life. I am alive today because of a courageous birth mom. She chose to be stronger than her circumstances. ”
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“We all can be stronger than our circumstances — no matter what the crisis, no matter what the issue,” Bombarger exhorted.
He shared that in being adopted, he grew up with 12 siblings in a Christian household that adopted a number of children who needed a forever family.
“I have six brothers and six sisters. 10 of us were adopted. [We are a] multi-racial family,” Bombarger outlined, then quipped, “My parents are the pro-lifers who don’t care about people after they’re born.”
It is a common argument among “pro-choice” advocates that pro-life Americans are only pro-birth.
“Pro-lifers are the ones who care about people after they’re born. Amen?” he declared. “See, the thing is, when you love Jesus, the natural outflow of loving Jesus is loving people, and sacrificing what you need to sacrifice — sacrificing yourself, so that you can bring what was once broken to wholeness.”
Bombarger shared that he is now married with four children, two of whom are likewise adopted — “three of whom are unplanned [and] all four of whom are loved like crazy.” He said the fact that his mother gave him life will now reverberate for generations.
He pointed to a recent remark by Alabama Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, in which she said on the Senate floor in taking issue with there being no rape or incest exception in the Human Life Protection Act, “To take that choice (to abort) away from that person who has such a traumatic act committed against them, to be left with the residue of that person, if you will, to have to bring that child into this world and be reminded of that every single day …”
“I’m not the residue of the rapist. I’m the resilience of my birth mom,” Bombarger said. “And the only father I’ve ever known is Henry Bombarger — a man who could have lived a normal life, but he chose an extraordinary one as he stepped up to love those that other men abandoned.”
He also took issue with comments made by model and activist Emily Ratajkowski in which she criticized Alabama’s abortion ban bill and insinuated that the children of poor women will simply end up in prison if mothers aren’t allowed to abort.
“25 old white men voted to ban abortion in Alabama even in cases of incest and rape. These men in power are imposing their wills onto the bodies of women in order to uphold the patriarchy and perpetuate the industrial prison complex by presenting women of low income opportunity the right to chose not to reproduce,” she said.
“The states trying to ban abortions have the highest proportions of black women living there,” Ratajkowski added. “This is about class and race and is a direct attack on the fundamental human rights women in the US deserve and are protected by under Roe v Wade.”
“[She said] that basically if black children aren’t aborted, they’re going to go into the prison system,” Bombarger marvelled. “I have never been in the prison system, and the vast majority of black children have never been in the prison system.”
“We reject the racism of the abortion industry. We reject the racism of Planned Parenthood,” he said, generating applause.
Bombarger lamented that the battle for civil rights in Alabama is not over, as still some lives are considered to be less than human.
“Abortion is the civil rights fight of our day. And we’ll keep marching until Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton are finally trampled under our feet,” he said.
