Dave Sterrett - We Choose Life: Authentic Stories, Movements of Hope

On a cool October day, Angela Balderaz, a Hispanic woman in her early twenties, stood near me outside Southwestern Womens Surgical Center, an abortion facility off Greenville Avenue in Dallas. She was not there to have an abortion, but to be a voice of hope and to share her story with those of us who were praying outside the facility. About one hundred of us had gathered that fall day across the street from the clinic. We sang worship songs and read Scriptures. Some held signs that read Pray to end abortion and Choose Life. We were Protestants and Catholics, elders and youths, families and single people. We werent there to yell or condemn. We were there to pray that abortion would end in our city.

Angela stepped forward on a podium and began to speak. She told the crowd, My story, like everyones story, began in the womb. My biological mother was a woman of the streets, a prostitute. My father was a well-known drug dealer in the city of Dallas in the 1980s. My mother conceived a child and she chose to go to an abortion facility to have an abortion. But as days passed after the procedure, something did not feel right. She felt a baby moving in her womb, and my mom took matters into her own hands. She increased heavy drug and alcohol use hoping that her baby would not survive. Even so, on June 6, 1987, she went into labor and I was born.

God had protected Angela. I could sense Gods power on Angelas life. She continued, About a year passed, and my mom conceived again. My little sister Alysia was born, and she had to stay in the hospital longer than normal because of the influence of my mothers use of cocaine and heroin. Two weeks after my parents eventually brought Alysia home, they killed her. It was a homicide. They fled the scene, and I was found after being left alone for about a weekalone but for the corpse of my sister. To this day we are still not sure who contacted the police, but the police came to the apartment and rescued me. I was in filthy living conditions, with a very dirty diaper on a bare, stained mattress and no food in the entire house.

I thought about what an evil and hypocritical world we live in. Angelas birth parents were rightly charged with homicide for the death of Alysia. But if Angelas birth parents had aborted her sister mere weeks earlier while she was still in the womb, their actions would have been protected and even celebrated by some Americans who would have claimed that killing Alysia before birth was justified in the name of womens rights or womens health.

Angela continued speaking. They took me to Child Protective Services and tried to match me with family members. But no one could afford to take me. I was put in the custody of my biological grandmother, and she put me up for adoption because she was dying from a brain tumor. My grandmother requested that I be placed in a Christian family who followed the ways of God. Two weeks after I was put in her custody, my grandmother died. Despite her wish that I be adopted, I traveled the foster care system for the next year and half, living in what were not the best of conditions.

Two years later a couple, Victor and Maxine, were contacted for the possibility of adopting me. Maxine was sterile. They had tried fertility shots and other methods but could not conceive, so they had decided to adopt. Child Protective Services told them that I had been diagnosed with muteness, because I would not respond to certain testing and could not talk even at the age of three. Maxine and Victor still wanted to adopt me.

When they went to the agency to adopt me, the social worker told Maxine, Shes your daughter now. What would you like to name her? Maxine replied, I want to name her Angela, because shes like an angel, a gift from God. The social worker started tearing up and said, Maam, that was her original name, Angela. Maxine and Victor rejoiced with tears of happiness as they thanked God and brought me into their home.

God had intervened in darkness to rescue Angela. As I thought about her story, I prayed that God would somehow intervene to rescue other children from abortion at the facility right in front of us. Jesus temporarily permits evils in this world because he has given human beings a free will, but sometimes I wish he would destroy all evil. But I know that if God did that, he would have to destroy all of mankind because of the evil we have done. Although our evil deeds may not match some criminals actions, we have still fallen short of Gods moral standards.

Angela went on, Maxine and Victor took me in and loved me. They poured themselves into my life and soon I began talking. It became clear that I could also hear and respond. The diagnosis of my muteness was a mistake. Later, by Gods grace, I excelled in school. Also, about two years later, my mother Maxine became pregnant and gave birth to my brother Jonathan. She later gave birth to two more boys. Her apparent sterility may have been a misdiagnosis, but I believe it was Gods intervention to bless my parents faithfulness. My story is confirmation that God is sovereign. He is in control.

I fought back tears as I thought about Gods overwhelming grace in Angelas life. But I also knew that at that very hour, baby boys and girls were going to be killed. Unlike Angela, they would never have the opportunity to be adopted.

Angelas story is one of many incredible stories that I have encountered in recent years as I have thrown myself into the pro-life movement. In this book, I want to introduce you to remarkable individuals like Angela: people who demonstrate the importance of fighting for the right to life.

On the day that I heard Angela speak, I sensed spiritual warfare as we stood outside Southwestern Womens Surgical Center. The facility was originally established by abortionist Dr. Curtis Boyd, a man credited with being the first physician to open a legal abortion clinic in Texas after the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973. He was involved in establishing the National Abortion Federation, and he remains unapologetic for his work. When Texas television news station KVUE interviewed him in 2009, Boyd said to the interviewer, Am I killing? Yes, I am. I know that.... Im an ordained Baptist minister. After performing abortions, he said, Ill ask that the spirit of [the] pregnancy be returned to God with love and with understanding.

My heart broke for those preborn children when I first saw Dr. Boyd speak these words in an online version of the interview. I knew that his falsely spiritual prayers were actually demonic. The very act of killing an innocent human being could only be encouraged by the evil one. Jesus said, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10 ESV). Satan has always hated life, especially the vulnerable lives of children. Herod tried to destroy the baby boys of Bethlehem at the time of Christs birth, but an angel warned Joseph in a dream to escape to Egypt.