Pam Stenzel was conceived in an act of violence. Today, she’s a living witness to the dignity of every human life-especially those who aren’t politically convenient to defend.
40 Days for Life: How did you learn the circumstances of your conception?
Pam: I always knew I was adopted. In high school, my mom showed me the birth certificate. It listed only information about my biological mother. When the social worker from the adoption agency retired, they had a big picnic for all
of the families that she had helped. We were invited, so I asked, “Why do I not have information on my biological father?” She shared that my birth mother had been in
foster care and that she had been raped. That was a seismic earthquake. As adopted kids, we dream about who our birth parents are. Maybe they were young and in love, but they just couldn’t take care of me. Instead, I realized the depth
of the pain and trauma that my birth mother must have experienced.
40 Days for Life: How did that news affect you?
Pam: My first reaction was first, “What must my birth mother have gone through?” The other big struggle in my mind was theological. “God, did you plan me? Was I a big
mistake?”
God does not plan rape. But God still had a purpose for me. God is in the business of redeeming. And so in that trauma, there is hope. The person who bore all of the pain in my conception, in carrying me, and in my birth and adoption was my biological mother. She is my hero.
If you advocate for abortion as an answer for rape, you’re taking the life of an innocent child and you’re further traumatizing the mother because you don’t allow God to redeem those horrible circumstances and bring something good out of it. The only person helped by abortion is the rapist. He’s the one who enjoys the fruit of abortion, because there is no proof of his assault.
When people say there should be abortion in the case of rape, what they’re saying is that they care about the rapist. It’s completely misplaced compassion.
40 Days for Life: Even many pro-lifers support abortion in cases of rape and incest. What is it like to know that even among your fellow pro-lifers, your own existence has to be justified
Pam: On almost every bit of pro-life legislation, they throw the rape and incest excuse out there. They’ve never fully argued for the humanity of the unborn. Every time that you say, “I am against abortion, except, except, except for
whatever reason,” what you’re actually saying is, “I am okay with killing unborn children under these circumstances.” We have had these arguments in the pro-life movement for decades. “Well, Pam, the law won’t pass if we don’t make these exceptions.” We’ve played a political game, not a moral game. And the reality is that we should always speak about what is morally right.
40 Days for Life: Are there any notable stories that you have about times when someone had to confront your existence not as an abstraction, but as a real human being?
Pam: I’ve had numerous occasions where people have said, “We always thought, ‘What about rape?’ We never saw it from your perspective.” That’s a pretty consistent thing. I’ve been speaking in high schools and have had numerous occasions with teenagers who changed their opinion.
I was speaking at a high school in North Dakota, and a young girl just started sobbing. After my talk, she said she had gotten pregnant the year before and placed the child for adoption. It’s a small town, everybody knew, and she had been getting a lot of bullying. Some classmates said it was a terrible thing-how could she give up her child? She said, “Today, in front of my entire school, you explained why I chose to give my child a family, and you called me a hero.”
40 Days for Life: Pro-lifers on the sidewalks have had more success encouraging moms to parent than to place their children for adoption. We, too, hear, “Adoption? I could never give my child away.” But they could abort that same child? Why?
Pam: First, adoption probably needs to be introduced as an option before the actual point of crisis; otherwise it’s going to be immediately thrown out. The other thing is that the sidewalk is a stressful place to discuss adoption. But in the
pregnancy center, one of the things I always say is, “You don’t make a decision to place for adoption the day you find out you’re pregnant. You have months to make that decision.” Women experiencing a crisis pregnancy deserve every option in front of them that doesn’t involve the death of their child. The folks on the other side only want to offer one option. That’s it. The only option they care about providing is abortion, and they’re not about offering any other option to moms in crisis.
40 Days for Life: Going back to the rape and incest exceptions, what’s an effective way to change hearts when these conversations come up?
Pam: Lead them back to the main discussion: “Do you believe that the child in the womb is a human person?” Once you get them to agree that this is a person we’re talking about, it focuses the discussion. “Under what circumstances do you think it’s okay to take the life of an innocent human being?” That’s where we’re having an honest conversation