George,

Here are 101 reasons why I am pro-life and why others should be. Reason 1 is: "I am alive!" As my father's 12th child and my mother's 3rd child, born during the heart of the Depression, my fate could have been different. I am glad I am alive. Make your own list of reasons as to why you are or ought to be pro-life. Reading this letter will help people understand the significance of being "pro-life before and beyond birth."

On April 12, 2009, the day after his academically-oriented conversation with Charles Marsh, Director of UVA's Lived Theology Project, at the University of Virginia, John M. Perkins delivered two unorthodox and inspiring lectures which I attended at the St. Paul's Memorial Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.

John M. Perkins, founder and president of the John M. Perkins Foundation in Jackson, Mississippi, a human rights activist pastor, and best-selling author, speaks on behalf of the Christian Community development Association. During the first lecture he talked about his personal development and life's work that spanned the last half century. During his second lecture which focused on "Leadership and Justice," he made a statement that I have not been able to release from my psyche. He said "I am for pro-life before birth and beyond birth." This statement is the focus of this discourse.

Because I am pro-life I will forego a discussion about pro-abortion even though I consider abortion to be humane and divine in certain instances, especially, if it means saving a mother's life.

I want to briefly tell a story that I remember from the year I became a teenager to address the anti-abortionists' pro-life stance. Before telling this story let me ackowledge that many anti-abortionists are highly vocal, politically-connected, and some of them have committed or incited others to commit violence that included murdering pro-abortion physicians and vandalizing abortion clinics.

Perkins' statement "I am pro-life before and beyond birth" has aroused within me strong emotions, no less in their intensity than those possesed by anti-abortionists. I, too, am not just for pro-life during the nine months the mother is pregnant and the day her child is born. Indeed, I am pro-life the nine months preceding birth of a child and the next 123 years of his/her life, or, until his/her death.

This story illustrates the point I wish to make. During World War II a young man, five years older than myself, was drafted into the Army. Just a little over a year later his corpse was returned to America from Europe where he had killed seven Nazis before being fatally wounded. He was honored as an American hero, and awarded a medal for bravery in time of war. This African American had been denied his civil rights before being drafted and even while in the Army he had been assigned to a segregated unit similarly to the segregated one-teacher school, and only school, he had attended for eight years before being inducted into the military.

This is the point: suppose America had honored and respected this young man's mother who died during his childbirth as they did him when he became a soldier and moreover when he became a fatality; suppose America had responded compassionately to his struggle to survive before he became a soldier; suppose America had let him know on the day of his delivery from his mother's womb that he mattered, no less than he mattered while fighting in battle. Suppose... suppose... suppose... .

The story of this young man is the story of millions of Americans who are trapped in poverty. Yet, many Americans have little concern about the poor but rejoice when they hear about an increase in the number of millionaires and billionaires who exploited other people, including the poor, and often did it legally and with license. Could it be that the current turbulence in the financial market is a correction in flight or, more correctly, a "correction in plunge," that, among other things, will enable those who celebrate millionaires and billionaires to become conscious of the role they play in promoting inequality and inhumanity?

To reiterate, I am pro-life before and beyond birth...from conception to the grave. For those whose pro-life interests cease with a woman yielding the fruit of her womb, I will not support you. My support is for people who are no less concerned about life after birth than they are about life before and during birth. The waste of a life after birth is a thousand times more dreadful and deathly than an aborted fetus/embryo, irrespective of the term of the fetus/embryo. As pro-life people, as much as it is within our power to save the unborn, let us do so, but if the choice is allowing a fetus/embryo or a person alive to perish let it be the fetus/embryo who have not breathed outside of the womb, not a person alive.

May all Americans become pro-life on the order of John M. Perkins. This means that people who are pro-life before and after birh must accept the challenge to help raise the consciousness of those who have placed a limitation on the meaning of pro-life and passionately declare that the unborn are not more important than more than three hundred million Americans and more than six billion people inhabiting Planet Earth. It also means that America willl have to invest in humans, including mothers' lives like the one mentioned earlier who died in childbirth, fathers, and children, before, during and after birth, especially, in children during their growing-up years, and accord them similar honor and respect as granted to soldiers.

Think for a moment about the struggle many people had prior to becoming soldiers and others who never became soldiers, some of whom could not qualify to defend their country or make the contribution expected of citizens.

"Be pro-life before and beyond birth."

Uriah J. Fields (Electronic mail, May 1, 2009)