The Emerging Face of the Right-to-Life Movement: Wisconsin Right to Life’s Teen Leaders Testify for Life -- Part Two of Two

By Joleigh Little

Every single one of them could have been lost to abortion.

That reality struck me as I watched one amazing, articulate, beautiful girl after another amazing, beautiful, articulate girl take the chair to address a state senate committee. The bill, SB 398, is an attempt to repeal Wisconsin’s protective pro-life statute 940.04 which would immediately shelter unborn children from abortion upon the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

The girls are members of the abortion generation. They are sisters, daughters, nieces, cousins, and friends. They are members of Wisconsin Teens for Life and graduates of Wisconsin Right to Life’s summer leadership training camps.

In short, they are the face of the right-to-life movement, and they are beautiful.

In front of a hostile committee chair, one by one they testified that abortion has decimated their generation. Many had personal stories about how they escaped the abortion holocaust. Every single one of them made their parents and the entire right-to-life movement proud.

Seventeen-year-old Alyssa Allbaugh, of Richland Center, shared the story of her mother’s high-risk pregnancy with a child who, doctors said, would either die or have serious physical disabilities. Thankfully, her mother had the courage to carry that child, Alyssa, to term.

“First of all,” Alyssa challenged the committee, “we need to stop putting so much focus on choice so that we can put more focus on chance. I was given that chance of life, but 48 million people weren’t. Think of how many Nobel Prize winners, doctors, teachers, and senators were killed among those people.”

Angel Petite, 18, of South Range, shared the story of her own premature birth.

“At 27 weeks I had a heartbeat, brain waves, was able to sense and respond to pain and every system that is found in a fully developed adult was present in me. Even though I was so developed I still could have been aborted and my life would have ended. I would not have been able to meet my family, to attend school, to grow up, to participate in my government, or to sit before this committee today.”

Tatiana Elowson, of Superior, was adopted as a baby from Honduras. She shared the story of her birth mother’s courage in choosing life.

“If a 16-year-old-girl in a third world country realizes that the greatest gift given is life, then what is our excuse here in America?” she said. “Freedom is about America’s ability to give the life of equal opportunity to everyone, not the ability to pick and choose which life deserves that opportunity. Yes, there is such thing as an unwanted pregnancy, but I am proof that there is no such thing as an unwanted baby.”

Mariah Smet, 15, of Fond du Lac, spoke of family members lost to abortion and the broken mothers left behind.

“People they love pressured them and doctors who are supposed to heal took life.... After an abortion there is nothing except death. After a pregnancy, regardless of how hard it might be, there’s a new life—a baby.”

Sixteen-year-old Priscilla Breininger closed out the teens’ testimony by speaking about her family’s experience with adoption.

“There are more people waiting to adopt than there are children to adopt. So in reality, no child is ever truly unwanted. I can personally testify to the advantages of adoption because my family has already adopted three children over the past six years and we are in the process of adopting three-year-old triplets. One of the triplets was born with several handicaps. He has only one functioning eye, he had a bilateral cleft palate, and he suffered from hydrocephaly.

“Today he enjoys playing with his toys and his brothers and sisters and his favorite movie to watch is Dora the Explorer. Some would have advised his biological mother to abort him because of his handicap, because he would have been an ‘unwanted burden.’ I am so very thankful that his mother decided to carry him to full term because he, along with the rest of my siblings, are truly the greatest blessing my family could ever have received.”

After testimony like that, there is little I can say except that investing in and training the next generation of pro-life leaders is one of the most important things we can do as a Movement on the national, state, and local level.

They will carry our cause into tomorrow and challenge our nation to restore a respect for life, of that I am certain. But, and perhaps more critical in the short term, they are a passionate voice for life today. (And, they make a resounding impact on senate committees!)

Joleigh Little works for Wisconsin Right to Life as Wisconsin Teens for Life director and Region 5 & 6 coordinator. For more information on how you can start a Teens for Life group in your local area, please contact her at jlittle@wrtl.org.  

Part One