Jean Garton: Pro-Life Convert -- Part Two of Two

Amazing what you find when you clear off the top of your desk. Not only did I find a tremendous resource, the discovery reminded me of the powerful story that I had almost forgotten.

Those of you whom I lovingly refer to as fellow pro-life veterans easily can recall two of our most prominent converts. One is Dr. Bernard Nathanson, whose 1979 book "Aborting America" was a revealing glimpse at a man whom at that point had taken a few steps on a journey which culminated in a full turnabout on abortion.

Once the operator of the largest abortion mill in the world, Nathanson eventually became a pro-life stalwart and creator of the immensely powerful video, "The Silent Scream." More recently, Norma McCorvey--the "Jane Roe" of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision--has embraced the cause of life.

But not as many people, even inside the pro-life family, know the history of another pro-life convert. She is the renowned author of "Who Broke the Baby?" one of the two books that turned me (and no doubt countless others) from an instinctive pro-lifer into pro-life activist.

That author is Jean Garton, the founder and president emeritus of the Lutherans for Life, and a friend of many, many years. To be honest I hadn't thought of Jean's story for years until I discovered the fall 2007 edition of Lutheran Woman's Quarterly on my desk under a stack of papers.

In "A Celebration of Life," Jean recounts her life and how she and her husband (and three children) struggled when her husband decided to become a Concordia Seminary student… at age 40. "We arrived at the school with a healthy bank account--enough to see us through four years of training--and with three healthy children," she wrote. "However, that was not how we were to leave the school."

Their oldest, Dale, contracted a rare blood disease and was not expected to live beyond her teen years. Their resources almost completely gone, were it not for the generosity of a neighboring church, they would not have had anything to eat.

Then, four years later, seminary preparation complete, hardly had her husband become pastor of his first church when Jean found herself pregnant…at age 40.

This struck Jean as grossly unfair. "Our three children were finally in school, and my husband was finally out of school," she writes. "It was my time now, wasn't it?"

Although this was prior to Roe, there were plenty of slogans that told Jean that it was her "right" to abort and that, indeed, "Every child a Wanted Child." Unable to find a doctor to perform an abortion, she set her jaw and resolved to get through the pregnancy until it "terminated" itself in birth.

"I joined an activist group seeking to promote abortion-on-demand," she writes. "I spent six months studying the abortion issue from numerous perspectives in an attempt to find confirmation that abortion, as its advocates claimed, helps women, doesn't take a human life, and is a choice God allows us to make."

How did she "come out the other end of that exhaustive research"? "[W]ith a changed heart and mind and with a commitment to be a voice in defense of the unseen, unheard, unborn child."

Donn, her "caboose," proved to be a tremendous joy, she writes, and "in addition, I was blessed with the forgiveness this straying sheep [Jean] so desperately needed."

In 1979, this almost aborted little boy accompanied the Gartons as they traveled to a Lutherans for Life convention. The State Police tracked them down, and they learned that their son, Dean, had been murdered in Dallas.

"Dean, our first born, our planned son, our wanted son, dead, while seated between us bringing great comfort was Donn, our second son, our unplanned son, our unwanted son, whom I had wanted dead."

And then a "most wonderful surprise" from God. Her daughter, Dale, not only had survived, but even as the family was struggling with Dean's death, found she was pregnant with triplets!

"From the moment those little babies entered our lives--while still within the womb--the healing of our family began," Jean writes, "and the pain of Dean's death was gradually replaced with the celebration of new life."

And then a paragraph fraught with emotion and meaning.

"It is often said that life is full of twists and turns, but I have found that it sometimes goes in circles," she writes. "Originally an abortion advocate, I came full circle to become a pro-life advocate."

Likewise--and "most amazingly," that "unwanted pregnancy became a very wanted child."

Jean's article has not yet been archived on the site of the Lutheran Woman's Quarterly. When it is, I shall notify you immediately.

Part One -- Obama "Brought Back to Earth"? Hardly