Child’s questions prompts public pro-life work

Roxane B. Salonen

The keynote speaker for this year’s FirstChoice Clinic fundraising banquet, Kay Cole James, said she was led into the center of the pro-life scene in the early 1980s by her young son.

“It all started with a simple question,” James said to the 800 guests who had come to hear her speak March 1 at Fargo Holiday Inn’s Great Hall. “‘Mom, what is this?’ That simple question changed the James family forever.”

James had been volunteering at a local Birthright clinic and had inadvertently left a few posters showing graphic images of aborted fetuses out in the open in her bedroom.

After doing her best to explain the horror of abortion – a legal procedure that kills innocent babies in the womb – to her 8-year-old, another question emerged: “Mommy, why don’t you make them stop?”

Not long afterward, James was asked by the National Right to Life Committee to debate the abortion issue with a representative of Planned Parenthood on national television. She balked, but her son persisted. “Mom, you said that if God gave you a chance, you would do something to stop it. Will you do it?”

James did, and, along with her husband, Charles, has been involved in the movement for three decades now, including as founders of Black Americans for Life.

With her perspective in hand, James took the crowd back in history to how the abortion debate has changed over time. “Back then, the question was, ‘Is this life?’ Science and technology have now caught up with that,” she said.

“Then the debate was, ‘Well, maybe it’s life, but it’s not necessarily human life,’” she said, to which she responded, “Alright then, why not leave it alone, see if it grows into a carrot or something?”

Later, the proclamation, “We reserve the right to terminate our pregnancy,” took center stage. To this, James came back with, “Well what woman doesn’t want her pregnancy to terminate at some point? Give it nine months and, rest assured, it will terminate!”

She also touched on the debate over viability, saying she questions whether children are ever truly viable – able to live on their own. “We had to sell our house just to get our 30-year-old son out of the basement!”

James concluded by saying, “In a free and civil society, there are some things about which there should not be a choice.” She likened the common argument, “I’m personally opposed but I wouldn’t deny that right to someone else,” to the slavery question of old, saying if that mentality had been allowed to prevail, she and her relatives would still be in a field somewhere picking cotton.

“We are Christ’s ambassadors in a foreign land,” James said. “We are his representatives here on earth...If the Lord’s going to show the world love and compassion, He’ll do it through our arms.”

Though a sold-out event, this year’s banquet included 50 more people than usual, thanks to technology. Mentioning a group that had come from Devil’s Lake by bus, Executive Director Pauline Economon also welcomed “the good people gathered in Mandan at the Seven Seas Hotel attending our live simulcast.” With that, she noted FirstChoice Clinic’s hopes to expand to Western North Dakota.

Economon reported that, in response to a White House request, Congress recently pulled funding for abstinence-centered programs, despite important studies showing their effectiveness, making the clinic’s plea for financial support more urgent than ever.

She said the “Make A Sound Choice” school-based abstinence-centered program has been a tremendous success, and welcomed several of its leaders to the podium to share their stories of how the program has created positive changes in area schools.

The evening also included a testimonial talk by former FirstChoice Clinic client Stephanie Malby, who recounted the fear and loneliness she experienced after she became pregnant in college, many miles from her support network. Malby said that through the loving guidance of the staff at FirstChoice Clinic, she chose life for her baby, Wyatt, and has never regretted it.

“I want women to know that an unplanned pregnancy does not mean that life is over,” Malby said. “For me, it was an unexpected turn, but the beauty that God has brought into my life as a result is something that I will be eternally grateful for!”

For more information on FirstChoice Clinic, visit www.firstchoiceclinic.com or call (701) 237-5902. Salonen, Fargo, is a free-lance writer, author, and one of several hosts for Real Presence Live, which airs Mondays from 9 to 11 a.m. on AM 1370 and AM 1280.