Preteen Pro-life Speech Goes Viral
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 2/20/2009 6:15:00 AM
The mother of a 12-year-old girl whose pro-life speech has become a hit YouTube video says her daughter’s passion for the unborn is genuine.
Lia is a preteen from Canada who decided to speak out against abortion in her school’s speech contest, despite teachers and school officials who encouraged her to pick a different topic.
“What if I told you that right now someone was choosing if you were going to live or die? What if I told you that this choice wasn’t based on what you could or couldn’t do, what you had done in the past, or what you would do in the future? And what if I told you [that] you could do nothing about it? Fellow students and teachers, thousands of children are right now in that very situation,” she says in her speech.
Kimberly, Lia’s mother, says Lia was told by school officials that if she chose the topic of abortion, she would not be allowed to participate in the speech contest. But both were surprised when Lia’s pro-choice teacher had a change of heart.
“Her teacher was really impressed by this speech and perhaps moved by it, and therefore her teacher kind of was a real supporter of [Lia] winning for the class,” Kimberly notes. “And she had to go through a couple of hoops and get clearance from a couple of other teachers before she could be declared winner of the class.”
Another controversy erupted when the panel of judges had a supposed big disagreement and one stepped down. Initially Lia was disqualified, but later the panel declared her the winner. She was asked to take out this portion of her speech: “[F]etuses are definitely humans knit together in their mother’s womb by their wonderful Creator who knows them all by name.”
Kimberly says after Lia was told to remove that portion of her speech, she took time to think about her decision and ultimately decided to leave it in. Lia also competed in a regional speech competition but did not win. However, her speech has been viewed by over 200,000 people on YouTube.
Click here to watch her give the speech.
http://www.nmatv.com/video/1318/Preteen-pro-life-speech-goes-viral
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One Response to “Preteen Pro-life Speech Goes Viral”
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Your speech was heart breaking for me. I am a 60 year old women who
was told at the age of 23 that it wasn’t a life anyway. My immaturity, stubborn
self- will and rebellion lead me to this decision to kill my child. Today as I listened to your words, I wept deeply. Ever since I made this
terrible decision, the one thing I wasn’t told is that even though my
forgiving father in heaven sent His perfect Son to die for me and I
received Him into my heart shortly after this experience, I still have
to live with the guilt and shame of murdering my baby a child that I long to know. Every choice we make has a consequence and this one I will carry to end of my life. It has gotten harder as I have aged simply because I know how much more precious the gift of life is today that I ever have before. I long to meet my child that has
been kept in the arms of the Lord someday. You are a precious heart and what you speak is truth something very hard to find in America.
This truth brings personal responsibility another missing quailty in this country today. Your generation can change the world. My prayer
is that you will continue to have the courage to speak out to a dying world that still has a chance to face and deal with truth.
Thank you for making this very important speech. God Bless You.
Loretta
—– Original Message —–
From: Roberta Bradshaw
To: Katherine Bradshaw ; JeanMarie Miscisin ; Peter Bradshaw ; Debbie King ; Loretta Imbesi
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 2:47 PM
Subject: excellent speech
http://www.nmatv.com/video/1318/Preteen-pro-life-speech-goes-viral