By Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director
Dear young woman,
You don’t know me but I feel compelled to reach out to you. I want to apologize to you about that awful billboard. A county health department was wrong to put it up.
Perhaps you drove by it. Or saw it on social media. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that you are being told you can only take control of your future by rejecting motherhood, by aborting the innocent life growing within. I am sorry that the pregnant woman on the left looks destroyed while the college grad on the right glows with pride, implying that there is only one true path to success. That’s a false narrative that builds on fear. It’s meant to scare you into believing that a pregnancy will totally ruin your future. And I want to tell you, from personal experience, that’s just not true.
I was overcome with anxiety and uncertainty when I found out I was pregnant my freshman year. The campus doctor urged an abortion. In her mind, I would be a fool to trash a good scholarship at a prestigious university. As the billboard depicts, she saw only one path, and gave me only one choice.
I’m sure she considered herself compassionate, even empowering. She wasn’t. I wish I could meet her now. I want to show her MY billboard.
I want to show her my husband, five children, three grandchildren, and my Master’s Degree. And I want to tell her I have no regrets about walking out of her office that day with a baby girl growing in my 18 year old belly, transferring to a school back home, and graduating four years later. I want to tell her a baby did not destroy my future, but an abortion would have.
I acknowledge that the journey was not easy. Not by any means, but every sacrifice, every bump, every single hardship was so worth it. That is a story for another day.
Please take note, dear sister, that you need not surrender your child’s life in exchange for a future. They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, it’s possible the child from an unexpected pregnancy will add a brightness to your future that you could never have envisioned.
The best paths to a successful and meaningful life are those that honor the sacredness and dignity of life.
Don’t let a misguided billboard, a campus doctor, or anyone fool you into thinking otherwise.
Yours in Life,
A former young woman, Bonnie