My Dad is a Pro-Life Hero Because He Adopted Me After I Survived an Abortion

Opinion   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Oct 3, 2014   |   1:27PM   |   Washington, DC

Dawn Milberger is a wife, abortion survivor, and a pro-life speaker. Her story is nothing short of amazing — as she survived multiple abortion attempts.

LifeNews blogger Melissa Ohden has profiled her story before:

As Dawn shares it, when she met both of her birthparents in 1986, that she found out the truth about her survival, and she was “stunned and shocked”with the information that was shared.  One of the very first things that her birthmother said to her was, “I need to ask for your forgiveness because I tried to get rid of you…..twice.”

Her birthmother confessed that a friend of hers, a nurse, gave her injections on two occasions (of a substance that Dawn is not aware of the specifics of), in an attempt to induce miscarriage.

Still whirling from her birthmother’s statements, her birthfather began to confess his actions towards her in the womb as well.  He said, “I need to ask for your forgiveness, too, for I purposefully played with your birthmother’s pregnant stomach as a punching bag in order for you to be miscarried and gave her rough piggy back rides to make you drop.”

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As an adoptee, Dawn hopes that her personal testimony about adoption will encourage individuals to view adoption in an entirely new light, as a blessing, not a burden.

Now, Dawn has shared with LifeNews more about her adoptive father, who came from a life of hardship to be her Dad. here’s Dawn’s perpsective on her father as a pro-life hero:

As I sit and think about my forever (adoptive) family and the current issue that we as a family are dealing with, a dad stricken with lung cancer, I can’t help but think of the beauty from ashes the he taught me and brother.

My dad’s mother died when he was nine years old and his father, who ran the local smith shop and ice house in the 1940’s, died five years later.  At fourteen my dad was orphaned.

Because my dad had no other family that would permanently take him in, he went to live at Father Flannigan’s Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska until he graduated from high school.  He remembers his dad’s booming voice singing loud in church, his unmistakable laugh, his work ethic, his discipline. He remembers his mom’s long dark hair, the enormous cast iron pot she washed their clothes with lye soap in on a daily basis, as well as her compassionate embraces. He then remembers the shock of it all gone within five years.

He then knew the deep pain and loneliness of not having anybody to call family, no one to spend Christmas with; nobody to tell him that he was loved.  My dad would tell me how he wished someone would want him enough to adopt him. He missed having a family. He wanted another family, any other family. He knew the importance of family and its beauty at a very young age.

When my mom and dad were married they were shocked to find out that they were unable to conceive children. When one of their doctors suggested adoption, my dad knew exactly what he was doing. He knew how important his role was going to be. He remembered the beauty, and then the pain as well as his desires; he remembered what he prayed for so long ago and now he gets to offer it to someone else, my brother and me.

Through my dad’s pain, not only did we get to be loved in a family but we got to learn and experience the joy of opening our hearts and our home to whomever, whenever while we were growing up.  My brother and I got to grow from the positive fruit from our dad’s past experiences of being orphaned; we also got the lesson that family is not about genetics.  We learned that when you allow your heart to grow and accept others into your family, you understand that love is thicker than blood.

Although my dad’s start in life was tragic, he has allowed his past to positively mold him into a wise and caring man; which included a spirit sensitive to the lonely and a heart receptive to adoption.  Yes, I have a pro-life dad because he’s pro-love and pro-family, now I get the honor to carry the torch he lit so many years ago by speaking up for the precious defenseless unborn as well as repay him by protecting his dignity and his priceless value as a human while he struggles with the issue of lung cancer