On August 6, 2012 a pro-abortion writer using the pseudonym Lynn Beisner wrote an online article entitled “I Wish My Mother Had Aborted Me.” The writer comes to this conclusion because of her personal experience of abuse as a child and the struggles she has had to overcome.

Beisner recoils at stories such as the one belonging to Rebecca Kiessling, a woman who was conceived in rape–a situation where many people, including pro-lifers, would say it is okay to abort the baby–and is now a wife, mother, attorney, writer, and pro-life speaker. Beisner believes that “if we want to keep our reproductive rights, we must be willing to tell our stories, to be willing and able to say, ‘I love my life, but I wish my mother had aborted me.'”

In recounting her own story, Beisner states, because of her mother’s own experiences of traumatic brain injury, rape, parental suicide, and an unplanned pregnancy due to coercive sex:

With that constellation of factors, there was a very high statistical probability that my mother would be an abusive parent, that we would spend the rest of our lives in crushing poverty, and that we would both be highly vulnerable to predatory organizations and men. And that is exactly what happened. She abused me, beating me viciously and often. We lived in bone-crushing poverty, and our little family became a magnet for predatory men and organizations. …

If this were an anti-choice story, this is the part where I would tell you how I overcame great odds and my life now has special meaning. I would ask you to affirm that, of course, you are happy I was born, and that the world would be a darker, poorer place without me.

It is true that in the past 12 years, I have been able to rise above the circumstances of my birth and build a life that I truly love. But no one should have to make such a Herculean struggle for simple normalcy. Even given the happiness and success I now enjoy, if I could go back in time and make the choice for my mother, it would be abortion.

The world would not be a darker or poorer place without me. Actually, in terms of contributions to the world, I am a net loss. Everything that I have done—including parenting, teaching, researching, and being a loving partner—could have been done as well if not better by other people. Any positive contributions that I have made are completely offset by what it has cost society to help me overcome the disadvantages and injuries of my childhood to become a functional and contributing member of society.

As I read these words, my emotions didn’t turn to hate or anger or (even) disgust. Instead, I could only pity her and those who hold her views.

I felt pity because the writer lives in a totally utilitarian world in which the only value a person has is measured by what she contributes to society. And if she doesn’t contribute as much as she takes out, then her life is totally useless and she considers herself so valueless that she believes it would have been better if her mother had aborted her years ago.

I felt pity for the writer because she can see no other reason for her life than to make a difference in this world, and even then, the differences she makes as a mother and as an academic (as stated in her bio) don’t really seem to matter because she thinks that her mother’s choice to not abort her ruined the fractured life of her mother even more.

I felt pity because Beisner’s thoughts portray a life that doesn’t seem to understand that all life is precious, no matter the circumstances of the beginning of that life, the past or current state of that life, or the way that life will end. She misses the point that all human life is precious and valuable because of God’s creative work and Jesus Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. Because there is something beyond what we can see before us, our lives have value and meaning beyond measure.

And though Beisner and I don’t agree on this topic, I would have to say that, yes, the world would be a darker and poorer place without her because it would be missing one more of God’s children due to our sinful human nature.

That’s why we must never give up this fight. We do it not only for the temporal lives of the babies saved, women and men healed, handicapped cared for, and elderly honored. We do it because these are opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others. We do it because God “is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV).

Lynn Beisner–whoever you may be–you are in my prayers.