Tim Walberg: “I thank my colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey, and I thank you for your leadership as a medical doctor. It is a…”

“I thank my colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey, and I thank you for your leadership as a medical doctor. It is a real special thing in this Chamber that we have pro-life patriots who represent medicine, the profession of law, mothers, fathers, people who understand life from the most intimate fashion. I happen to be a pastor. It was 40 years ago that I had just accepted the call to my first church out of divinity school. I was busy in that ministry and getting started and didn't take too much notice of Roe V. Wade. But it was in 1978 when that issue hit me full square in the face, when two wonderful young people in my church came to my office and said, Pastor, we have a problem, and went on to talk about an unplanned pregnancy that they had. As we discussed, they committed to the fact that they intended to keep the child as a gift of God. But ultimately the story didn't go that way because their parents--who were fine, upstanding church members yet determined that these children wouldn't have that as a detriment to their life--encouraged them to, as they called it, terminate the pregnancy. It broke my heart, and I watch the pain in these two young people go on even to this very day 40 years later. I committed to my God that I would stand for life strongly and have the privilege of doing that in the pastorate, in counseling sessions, on boards of adoption agencies, and crisis pregnancy centers as well.…”