God Was Talking to Me

The eye lens of an unborn baby on ultrasound

We were packing up.  I had spent the whole morning on the sidewalks of the abortion center training two new (fabulous) volunteers for Cities4Life. Our wonderful Wednesday team had all headed out. Five women had chosen life already and we were rejoicing. Everyone had already left except the ultrasound sonographer, the Mobile Ultrasound RV driver, and me when I saw a woman walking down the abortion center driveway.

I hurried over. "Can I help you?"
"Do you do free ultrasounds?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. I glanced at our sonographer's car. Had she left already?
I found out the woman's pregnant daughter was waiting in her car, and she was scheduled for an abortion. The woman thought she could talk her daughter into coming on our Monroe HELP RV for an ultrasound.
"Just a sec," I said.

I raced onto the RV. Kelly, the sonographer was still there, gathering her things. She was willing to stay and do the ultrasound, and our dear RV driver, Patrick, was willing to wait for us to bring the woman on-board to scan and counsel her. (He didn't even have a chair, but stood outside in the 80 degree sun for an hour or so waiting for us to finish.)

I hurried back and told the woman to bring her daughter. We could do the ultrasound. It turns out the daughter and the mother were very conflicted. The young lady, H, faced difficult circumstances. She wavered each day on whether to abort or not. However, her abortion appointment for earlier in the week had to be rescheduled. When they came for another cancelled appointment, her mom had noticed the RV and as they tried to reschedule, talked H into looking at her baby on the ultrasound.

"I need to know how far along I am," H told me, "To see if it is a baby or not."

I opened our pamphlet that shows the baby at each week of development in the womb. Slowly I turned the  pages, letting the photos of unborn babies speak for themselves. From 3-4 weeks on, the baby looks unmistakably human. I asked her if she could show me the point at which the baby changed from non-human to human, or from non-baby to baby. She could not.

Then I asked her to tell me about the circumstances that made her feel she needed to abort. She listed them. I asked if any of them changed the intrinsic value of a human being. She admitted they did not. I assured her we could help her with all the obstacles she voiced, but even if we couldn't, would the baby be of any more or less worth? "No," she said.

We went in to the ultrasound room. Kelly is astonishingly skillful, and the baby put on the show of her life. She held her hands to her mouth, stuck out her tongue, twisted and turned. And then, the biggest miracle: Kelly was able to get a picture of the baby's eye lens. Never in my 3 1/2 years of counseling women had I seen that. I hugged H and thanked her for bringing this incredible baby to us.

"So how do you feel now?" I asked.
"Well of course I am choosing life," she said, "I am excited. All those changes to the appointment, and then you guys being here...I think God was talking to me."
"Yes," Kelly and I agreed, "We think so too."

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Psalm 139:13

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.