We never could have imagined the conversation that would happen just moments after the guests were leaving our super bowl party in 2011. Our daughter’s boyfriend came to us and said, “we need to talk.” Our daughter stood just behind him with her head down. I knew in an instant what was about to be said. So I simply asked, “Are you pregnant?” I was braced and prepared for a “yes”. I knew this is something we could get through as a family. What I was not prepared for was, “Yes and I am having an abortion.”
We reassured her that was not a good answer and that we would get her through this. I scheduled her a doctor’s appoint for the following morning and it was confirmed. She was pregnant. We started noticing her behavior becoming more angry. Any conversation we had with her became explosive-- or her end and mind. My husband was the voice of reason and seemed to be a calming influence on her.
She was so insistent that she was having an abortion that we asked her to at least go to the local pregnancy center and get counseling on all her options. She agreed. I began praying like never before. I felt l ike I was losing my mind. The very thought of her having an abortion brought up so much of the personal trauma I went through in losing 7 babies in miscarriage. I simply could not wrap my mind around how my daughter could come to the conclusion that this would be a good solution.
I was concerned for her emotional well-being as well. She had experienced major trauma in her own life and we had spent several years helping her work through the trauma and the resulting self-injury she inflicted on herself to help ease her emotion pain. She was prone to great anxiety attacks and wrestled with depression. I knew that her going through an abortion would only magnify this by adding even more trauma upon the existing trauma.
There were times we did not know what was going on with her. She was shut down like Fort Knox. No information was going in and none was coming out. We noticed she was on the internet and phone a lot but could never figure out with who.
Taking It to the Next Level
During one of our conversations about other options available to her besides abortion and begging her to read the medical information about post-abortion syndrome, she finally yelled at me and said, “I’m having an abortion and there is nothing you can do to stop me. I can get a judicial bypass so I don’t need your consent!”
This is the first time I had ever heard of a judicial bypass. I was standing on the firm conviction that the Texas Parental Consent Law would protect us on this issue! I could not have been more wrong!
I began researching what this judicial bypass was and it was terrifying to discover that a judge could just simply override parental consent if he felt the child was mature enough to make the decision and was knowledgeable enough about the procedure.
Make no mistake, my daughter is highly intelligent! She began reading at age three and was reading Nancy Drew chapter books at age 5 with full comprehension. Intelligent? Yes! Mature? She would have full blown panic attacks just to walk inside a 7-11 alone to purchase a pack of gum.
What infuriated me most was that a judge could override parental consent based on one conversation with the child and have NO knowledge himself of her medical or mental health history. Neither of which have anything to do with her intellect! She was and is still a brilliant woman! I knew the trauma my daughter had been through at a young age. I watched her go through years of counseling and therapy to help with her self-injury and depression. I also knew this judge was not going to be there to pick up the pieces of my daughter’s broken life when it would finally hit her that she killed her child.
One day, out of the blue, I decided to go home for lunch. Upon arrival I noticed my daughter home during the middle of her school day. I asked what she was doing home and her behavior became concerning. She was making secret phone calls and looked a bit panicked. So I cancelled my client appointments that day and stayed home which further angered her. I knew something was up, but could not figure out what.
I began putting the pieces of the puzzle together. She had gotten in touch with a pro-choice group in Austin who had provided her with an attorney at no charge and this lawyer was on her way to pick up my minor daughter at my home. I told my daughter I was not going anywhere and that I was going to wait to talk to the attorney myself and let her know that if she took my daughter anywhere it would be without my permission and consent and that I would file kidnapping charges on her since my child was still a minor! I knew a lawyer could understand that concept!
After further conversation between my daughter and the lawyer, she decided it was best not to confront the parent. I later was told by my daughter that the lawyer had made arrangements to pick her up at school-- without our consent or the school’s permission to leave campus!
I remember thinking how surreal this was. How could it be possible in Texas that a judge could strip parental rights from someone without knowing the medical or mental health history of someone?
I began researching pro-life groups and asking for help. I was referred to Life Dynamics Incorporated in Denton, Texas (940) 380-8800. They were able to put me in touch with some lawyers who volunteered to take our case on pro-bono to help us fight the judicial bypass. We learned that we were too late. During the time we were trying to attain legal representation my daughter’s attorney had already taken her before the judge in Fort Worth who stripped our parental rights. The judicial bypass was faxed to the abortion mills in the DFW area and were told that if my daughter were to show up at any clinic that she had legal permission to get an abortion without parental consent. It seemed all our legal recourses were gone. We had no way to stop our daughter at this point. Our parental rights were stripped from us with the swipe of a judge’s pen.
The Battle Was Far From Over-- God vs.
the Pro-Choice Establishment
With all legal recourse gone, I knew it was time to seriously amp up the prayers from anyone willing to pray on behalf of my daughter and the baby within. We were in a situation that only God could intervene and turn around now.
Unknown to me at the time, my daughter had already gone to the abortion clinic and had her pre-abortion sonogram and they determined she would have to have the abortion that week due to her measuring 13 weeks. She made the appointment for the next day.
Unaware that was what was going on behind the scenes, I had contacted a pro-life leader named Pam Stenzel who had a national audience and shared our story and asked her to send a call for prayer out to her partners. She wrote back and said she had over 5000 responses from 14 countries who were praying for my daughter and her baby. We had friends, family, and a praying church standing side-by-side with us in the battle over the lives of my daughter and her son.
The power of prayer should never be underestimated! My daughter had no idea so many people were praying. In retrospect, we know it was the hand of God that intervened! My daughter showed up for the abortion procedure that she had scheduled for the next day when they told her she was measuring 13 weeks.
As people were storming the gates of Heaven in prayer and intercession for my daughter and her baby, the doctor began to prepare for the abortion. As she began the sonogram to start the procedure -- she had to stop. The baby that had measured 13 weeks the day before was now measuring 16 weeks and it was illegal to perform the abortion at this clinic.
People continued to pray. My daughter was having to wrestle through deciding if she wanted to go though a late-term abortion. People were praying she would feel the baby kick or have a heart-change. I was still unaware of all these happenings behind the scenes in her world.
As we look back, my daughter said it was that week that she started having a change of heart and made the decision to keep and parent her baby! As 5,000+ people from 14 countries began to pray, God moved and saved baby Jesse’s life! Jesse was saved from the death-sentence that was scheduled by divine intervention. But even more impressive than that, the love of the body of Christ that interceded on behalf of my daughter and her baby ended up saving them BOTH! My heart warms every time I see my daughter hug and kiss her son as she tells him, “You saved my life!”
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