MS. GILLY ON ROW V. WADE AND BEING PROLIFE

This week I heard of the possibility of the overturning of the controversial 1973 abortion bill in the US.  I Thought about it, and thought of the exact moment I became prolife. 

In 1969 a pretty young school teacher named Lorna Denyse Hewgill wed a farmer/business man Douglass Harvey Ardiel.  They settled in to a comfortable small

town life.  They noticed that throughout the early and mid 1970s that many of their friends were having children.  The story I would be told as a teenager

two decades later was that they wanted my mom to get her degree and my dad to become more successful in his and my uncle’s business.

By 2002 I was 23 years old and did not hold any overly strong views on any subject.  Though I had grown up in a more conservative community I, as typical

of generation X thought “can’t someone else do the major thinking?”  

That is, until a few days before Christmas that year when a card from my loving and

God fearing grandma arrived.  I don’t remember it all, as most of what the card said was lost to the mists of time, but one of the lines was “it’s you, it’s a

miracle.”

That Christmas Eve my family had our annual Christmas party.  By around one in the morning Christmas morning most people had cleared out with the exception

of long time family friends.  We got to talking, and the subject of adoption came up.  Where I grew up it was not uncommon for people to adopt at least

one child, or know someone who had.  My mom began talking about how in 1978 she and my dad had gone to see those family friends who had just adopted their

son.  She had said that the doctor had told them that adoption might be the only rout to parenthood.  

Saddened but hopeful, they started the process with

the county, but early in 1979 my mom found out she was pregnant with me, and then in quick succession had my sister.  I was dumb struck, but the unfinished

puzzle and questions as to why my folks were older than most of my friends parents suddenly made sense.  

I had to confirm for certain, but I learned that

God had placed that card in my grandmother’s hands, in to the mailbox, and on the counter of my parents farmhouse.

I suddenly became really obsessed with adoption stories, and started to form a prolife and adoption advocacy position.  Accepting Christ also sealed these

opinions.

Gillie