Jenny Ingles is the Diocese of Lansing’s Director of Fertility and Life Ministries. Upon today’s Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, Jenny gives thanks that her late mother chose life over abortion. Jenny explains:
“In 1983, the year I was born, there were over 40,000 abortions in Michigan and I feel fortunate that my mother did not abort me. She was poor, unmarried, unsupported, and had just started a job that she hoped would one day allow her to get out of the poverty she had always known. Her two closest friends had had abortions. So, when she became pregnant with me, it would have been a perfectly acceptable decision had she chosen to end my life. I don’t know why she didn’t. I never asked her before she died.”
“So how do I feel today on, this, the 51st Anniversary of the Supreme Court Decision Roe v Wade? Fortunate, obviously, but also sad. I feel sad because of all the lives of the children that have been lost due to the decision. I also feel sad for all the mothers who had abortions, and for all those who have been affected. It’s hard to wrap my mind around all the devastation that this decision has caused. There were over 30,000 abortions in Michigan in 2022.”
Hence, let us pray: God our Creator, we give thanks to you, who alone have the power to impart the breath of life as you form each of us in our mother's womb; grant, we pray, that we, whom you have made stewards of creation, may remain faithful to this sacred trust and constant in safeguarding the dignity of every human life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.