Bernice called from the Oakland area, a woman in her mid-thirties. She said she was "thinking about an abortion." The mother of three children-aged 13, 10 and 7-she had had a brief relationship with a 30-year-old single man resulting in her pregnancy. Her boyfriend had ambivalent feelings about the baby.

     "I don’t know why I did it," she said, "but I saved the literature my daughter brought home from ELMHURST JUNIOR HIGH last year, and that’s why I’m calling you." We had a long conversation in which I emphasized the strength she needed for her to have this baby is in Jesus Christ. She said she had done many bad things in her life, hadn’t been to church in years and felt that God was now punishing her with this pregnancy. (She also said she had been reading the Bible on occasion and talking to her children about God.)

     "The Lord is drawing you to Himself with this baby," I assured Bernice. "Are you being sincere? Do you want to change your life?" I asked. "Yes, I do want to change," she answered. She talked about the embarrassment she would have to go through when she applied for Welfare for the baby, and I told her that the only person she should want to please is God. If she had an abortion, she would be depriving an unborn child of eternal life - the right to be born again. This baby would give her love and joy, and her older children would be thrilled to have a little brother or sister.

     Bernice gave me her name, address and phone number, and I told her I would mail her additional literature and call her in a few days. I also told her she could call me at any hour - day or night. "I’m so happy I talked with you," Bernice said as we hung up.

Maria, an unmarried girl, called on a Wednesday afternoon. "I live in Manteca," she said, "and I’m interested in getting the birth control pill." I quickly answered. "The birth control pill does a great deal of harm to women physically." Changing the subject, I asked cautiously, afraid she would hang up on me any minute, "Do you go to church?" "Yes," she answered, with a little hesitancy in her voice. "Well," I said, "you know having sex before you’re married is wrong. The Bible says it is one of those sins that will keep you out of the Kingdom of God."

     Maria then gold me that she is still a virgin, that she had been going with her boyfriend for about a year and a half, and they were now considering having sex together. "Maria," I said to her, "don’t throw your virginity away. It is very, very precious. When you get married, you will want to wear a beautiful white dress without feeling like a phoney. Your boyfriend may lose a lot of respect for you if you have sex and never marry you, and then you’ll feel like you’ve been thrown away and you’ll feel cheap." "Yeah," she answered, agreeing with me. "Do you know how to stop yourself from having sex?" I asked. "Ask God’s help and do some practical things like not seeing each other so often."

     At the end of our conversation which lasted several minutes, I said, "Maria, have I convinced you not to have sex with your boyfriend?" "Yes," she answered. "It was what you said about the WHITE DRESS that got to me!"

Jim called me on a Monday morning in April from San Leandro - obviously distressed. He immediately launched into an explanation of why he was calling: "I’m the father of a 17-year-old girl. My wife and I were going to take her to have an abortion - the appointment is for an hour from now, but we’ve decided not to keep the appointment. My daughter is too upset over this, and we want to make sure it is her decision, not ours." Jim told me that his daughter had always loved babies and had made the comment, "All right. I’ll do this just to please you."

     For about forty-five minutes I talked with Jim, telling him he had made the right decision. I asked him whether or not he believed in God. He said he did and that he and his wife attended a Catholic church. I told him abortion was very wrong - that it is murder - and explained the physical and emotional effects it would have on his daughter. "Do you and your wife ever pray together?" was my next question. "No," he answered. We just go to church." "The best thing you can do in this situation is to start praying," I told him. You have to take your eyes off the world and see this in an eternal light. This baby is put here by God to know Him in this life. God made 10 Commandments, not 10 suggestions. One of them is, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL."

     I reminded Jim that this baby was his grandchild and that in a few months it could be the light of his life. "If your daughter has this baby, she may change almost overnight into a young woman, rather than a rebellious 17-year-old (he had been complaining to me about how difficult it was to talk to her.) If she has an abortion, she may repeat this procedure within the next year. Some girls have several abortions in one year." At the end of our conversation, Jim admitted that he had changed his thinking about abortion. A few weeks later I reached Jim on a Saturday morning. He immediately told me that his daughter had miscarried. "Jim, do you realize that God has blessed your family," I said. "Just think about this. You and your wife and your daughter could be living with a tremendous guilt. Instead an act of God took the baby instead of you." Jim confided that "they all felt bad over the loss of the baby." His daughter told him that she and her boyfriend were both in tears afterwards.