This year, many of you, like me, are getting ready to graduate, and I'm sure you're excited for all the events to come. But I want you to stop and think about something for a minute.
Think of just five people in your class who contributed to your high school experience.
Maybe the class clown, who made every situation a joke. Or maybe the smartest girl that you finally, finally scored higher than, even if it was only a quiz. Maybe your first boyfriend, or your best friend who was always there.
Missing persons
Whoever those five people are, I want you to think what your four years of high school would have been like had they not existed. What would life be like if those five special people had never been there, if they never got a shot at life?
Think what life would be like for you, if they had been aborted.
Abortion takes 46 million lives a year worldwide. There were 1,365,730 this year in United States alone. Since the Roe vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court in 1973 made it legal to abort babies, the U.S. has killed more than 38 million lives.
Those lives never got to see how beautiful and amazing life is, as well as how difficult and challenging it can be.
Fellow students
More than 1,365,000 lives never experienced high school, filled with Friday night games, proms, SATs and friends.
High school is a time to share and to experience all the trials and joys life can bring with all your peers. That is why the people that you shared these four years with are so special. They are not only experiencing everything alongside of you; they are also teaching you about life.
It is a time when, no matter what happens, however good or bad, you don't have to go through it alone.
Snuffed out
However, the unborn who were aborted shared their experience with no one, suffered alone, lost out on a life that might have been. And we, too, suffer from not having known them.
Right now across the country, 1,365,730 mothers will choose to abort their babies. Of those, roughly half a million are under 19; and 44,000 of the abortions will be right here in New York State (not even counting New York City).
Abortion is not an answer to an unwanted pregnancy. Abortion is forever. Once you make the choice to kill your pregnancy, you cannot take it back, and you have to live with that for the rest of your life.
Fellow students
The fact is that between 17 and 18 years ago -- between 1983 and 1984 -- 1,577,200 mothers decided to abort their babies. Therefore, your graduating class of 2002 is missing more than 1,577,000 graduates nationwide. So if you thought that abortion didn't affect you, you're sadly mistaken.
This spring, when you get ready to walk across that stage and shake your principal's hand as he or she hands you your diploma, remember all those who did not get the chance to be with you and your fellow classmates.
Remember the 1,577,200 other members of the class of '02.
(If you or someone you know are faced with a pregnancy that you don't think you are ready for, call Birthright at 1-800-550-4900, or visit www.birthright.org. Get the facts about other options.)