Fetal Position: inside the world of Lia Mills, the 16-year-old leader of a new generation of anti-abortion activists
Lia Mills didn’t start Grade 7 with a plan to become famous. The year was 2009, and she was enrolled in a gifted class at Gordon A. Brown Middle School in East York. Everyone in her grade had to participate in a speech-writing contest. Winners would deliver their speeches in front of the school, and the school’s winner would battle district-wide. Most of Lia’s classmates chose serious, heavy topics such as human rights. Lia wanted to speak about abortion. She didn’t know much about it when she chose the topic, but the more she read, the more determined she became. She felt it was something God wanted her to do.
Lia’s parents, a plumber named Steve and a chartered accountant named Kimberley, are devout Christians who belong to a non-denominational Toronto church and are raising Lia, her younger sister and her two brothers in the faith. They are against abortion, but they’re not activists and have never been involved in the anti-abortion movement. Kimberley had never heard her daughter express any interest in the subject, and worried that it was too controversial. She asked if she wouldn’t change her mind.
Her teacher also felt the subject of abortion was inappropriate. She told Lia she couldn’t compete in the public speaking event unless she chose a different topic, and suggested some options. The librarian gave her books on Canadian heroes.
Lia is determined by nature—always has been. She was a competitive dancer, sometimes practising nine hours a week. Her mother describes her as a 747 engine stuck inside a paper plane body—a strong personality that can’t be swayed. Lia stood in front of her class and delivered her anti-abortion
speech anyway.
To Lia’s surprise, her teacher was so impressed that she picked Lia to go on to the school level—but there were caveats. Lia had to perform her speech in front of two other teachers first. She was also asked to remove one line, a reference to God: “Fetuses are definitely human beings, knit together in the womb by their wonderful creator.” Lia prayed, and decided ditching the line would dishonour God, who had inspired her speech in the first place. She told her teacher she couldn’t do it; she would withdraw from the competition. Her teacher gave in. “It was like a sign that I was doing the right thing,” Lia says.
She gave her speech in front of the school. Her teacher—who, despite her own pro-choice beliefs, had become Lia’s biggest champion—worked behind the scenes to help convince the school’s principal that Lia’s was one of the best speeches and she should compete at the district level. Lia was ecstatic. Her friends handed out flyers encouraging everyone to cheer her on.
As Lia was preparing to compete, Kimberley decided to film her performing the speech. She planned to post the video on YouTube, to share it with friends and a couple of religious organizations whose research Lia had used. In the five-minute video, titled “12-year-old Speaks Out on the Issue of Abortion,” Lia stares into the camera, wide blue eyes locked on her viewer. “What if I told you that, right now, someone was choosing if you were going to live or die?” Her enunciation is exceptional. “Thousands of children are right now in that very situation,” she continues. “That someone is their mother. And that choice is abortion.”
Lia lost at the district level, but won on the Internet. When Kimberley first uploaded the video, the view count hit 25 pretty fast. Then 100. “Oh my goodness,” Lia told her mom. “Look at all these people.” Within a week, the views started climbing by the thousands, and then the tens of thousands. Lia knew her mom had a lot of friends, but 100,000—really? The family watched in amazement as the view numbers climbed past 1.2 million, putting Lia in the company of Hollywood starlets and cute kittens.
Whether she ever wanted it or not, Lia was now very, very famous.
The scrapbook Lia made to remember her first year as an anti-abortion activist is filled with thank-you notes. Some are from individuals, including women who saw her video and decided not to have their planned abortion; others are from major U.S. anti-abortion organizations. Among the pages, decorated with polka dots and sparkly cut-outs of the phrase “Love life,” there are also dozens of press clippings about Lia from the faith-based publications ChristianWeek, Clubhouse and the AFA Journal, put out by the American Family Association.
After the video went viral, Lia was inundated with invitations from both Canadian and U.S. anti-abortion organizations. They wanted her to talk about her story as much as her views on abortion. At the time, Kimberley handled the logistics on all the requests (Lia took over a couple of years later). Lia was shocked and flattered by all the attention. She accepted as many invitations as possible, and, because she believed she was performing God’s work, she did it for free.
Dozens of radio stations interviewed her, and she was featured on Spanish TV. One U.S. organization held a national video contest for youth called Lia’s Challenge. It handed out two $1,000 scholarships to kids who filmed their own original anti-abortion speeches.
Ministers of Parliament lined up to meet Lia. She shook the hand of Kitchener-Conestoga MP Harold Albrecht, without even realizing who he was; it was only later someone told her he was not just another fan. Lia received the Susan B. Anthony List Young Leaders Award, given to women under the age of 30, in D.C., and met congressmen and congresswomen. Wherever she went, people asked for her autograph.
At the annual March for Life rally on Parliament Hill in 2009, Lia was a featured speaker. Some 12,000 people attended. “I was like, ‘Wow that’s a lot of people right there. This isn’t class anymore,’ ” Lia says. Many of the people in the audience were in their teens and 20s. Standing on the Hill, she had an epiphany: thousands had dedicated their whole lives to the anti-abortion movement, but that was still not enough to stop abortion.
That first year Lia missed a lot of school, but completed her assignments ahead of time, on weekends and at night. Her fellow gifted class students frequently discussed abortion, even when they were supposed to be doing something else. “My teacher had to shut us up and be like, ‘Guys, no, right now we’re doing math,’ ” Lia says. “ ‘We’re not talking about justice issues.’ ”
Like most people in the anti-abortion movement, Lia describes herself as pro-life: the term embraces her belief that life begins at conception, that euthanasia is wrong, and that the dignity of life must be respected at all times. To keep spreading her message—to become a leader of the movement—would require work and a plan. Lia took over her YouTube channel from her mom and began to develop videos herself, tackling viewer requests and questions. She had a mission to manage.
Lia is now a tall, slim 16-year-old with mascaraed eyelashes and a sheet of highlighted honey-blond hair. Like many teens, she decorates her wrists with fat rubber bracelets. Hers, red and purple, say Life
and Friends.
She has the impressively elastic voice of a natural actress. When she jokes about stereotypes and prejudices about religious people who, like her, believe in prayer and God, her voice becomes gruff and low. When she pokes fun at her over-serious tone, it becomes goofy and high. And when she talks about saving the unborn, it burns with the fire of conviction.
Her ability to establish immediate engagement is why anti-abortion groups want her to educate and recruit other teens and tweens. She is a natural leader in what is considered a critical time for the anti-abortion movement—now, with many of the movement’s founding and most stalwart activists getting old and the anti-abortion war moving onto the Internet, they want to grow their youth bloc.
Lia says it’s still weird to think that she inspires people. In part, it’s this modesty that appeals to so many other teens. She can rhyme off the statistics, studies and arguments, but she never comes across as preachy. She is on all the time: relatable, approachable and genuine. When she says her generation can bring an end to abortion, she relays the belief with such bubbly enthusiasm, it’s contagious. And when she tells audiences that she and her friends spent her 16th birthday writing 4,500 anti-abortion postcards to MPs, it sounds fun, not loser-y.
While she sometimes accepts a small honorarium—$50 to $100—Lia says she is not motivated by money. She asks only that her travel expenses be covered. Even then, she travels cheaply, staying in guest rooms, on couches, or at bare-bones hotels and motels. She will endorse any initiative she finds exciting, and she is so excited about pretty much everything anti-abortion.
Lia appears in videos for the Campaign Life Coalition, the Canadian political arm of the anti-abortion movement, and endorsed a Toronto program to train high school anti-abortion leaders and launch anti-abortion clubs. When she isn’t busy educating other teenagers, she’s educating politicians. In late fall, she made her third trip to Ottawa with 4MY Canada, a youth-run group that lobbies MPs to support the anti-abortion position through legislation. She also participates in “life siege,” in which protesters cover their mouths with a piece of red tape inscribed with the word “life” and picket in silent solidarity with what they call the pre-born.
While abortion is often viewed as a settled issue in Canada—mostly because many politicians prefer not to talk about it—funding and access are variable (there are no abortion services at all in P.E.I., for example). The lack of clear legislation is equally untenable for the anti-abortion and the abortion rights movements. All the anti-abortion movement really needs is for teenagers to push the fight past the finish line. “I dream big,” says Lia. “I really believe I’ll see abortion end in my lifetime.”
It’s hard to gauge whether the movement is close to achieving its desired tidal wave of public support. One 2011 Environics poll, commissioned by the anti-abortion group LifeCanada, reported that 72 per cent of Canadian adults want to see some form of legal protection for “human life in the womb.” Nearly 30 per cent want that protection to start at conception. Last April, Kitchener Centre MP Stephen Woodworth put forth a parliamentary motion to form a commission to study when a fetus becomes a human being, protected under the law. The vote—203 against, 91 for—revealed a surprising amount of support for the anti-abortion cause, more than what most anti-abortion organizations expected. Young activists played a role in pushing MPs to support the motion: shortly after Woodworth tabled it, a 17-year-old named Alexandra Jezierski lobbied Canadians to mail 100,000 pro–Motion 312 letters to Stephen Harper and MPs. They sent 119,000. Jezierski credits Lia Mills for encouraging her to act. “She had a way of motivating me,” she says. “I just couldn’t sit still.”
If God chose Lia’s path, he did not make it an easy one. Her first YouTube video fuelled a firestorm of commentary. While a lot of people loved Lia, many hated her, too. A lot of the comments were well reasoned and rational, but others called Lia’s parents “scum” or “Christian drones” who used Lia as a puppet. There were plenty of crazies—commenters who said they hoped Lia would get raped (by a stranger, or a date, but ideally by her father) and be forced to carry the child to term. Others said, “It’s a shame you weren’t aborted.” She was called a “dumb bitch” and a “fucking christfag.” Someone wrote, “I would LOVE for this girl to get pregnant and find out her baby is deformed and will suffer all its life.” There were also hundreds and hundreds of death threats.
Kimberley and Steve shielded Lia from the scariest comments, deleting them as they showed up. Lia did not want to see the threats against her, either, but her parents felt if they hid everything negative from Lia she would have no idea how deep a chord her speech had struck. So they told her there were people out there who wanted her to get raped, who wished she had been aborted, who said they wanted to kill her.
Kimberley would lie awake wondering if someone would find out where they lived. As the threats became nastier and more numerous, members of the family’s church encouraged them to take the video down. Others felt it was something God wished for Lia’s life. Her parents couldn’t decide what to do. They thought, We didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and changed the video’s settings to private.
Almost immediately, the family was contacted by anti-abortion groups that wondered what had happened. They encouraged the family to pray. They believed Lia had a calling. Together, the Millses prayed and fasted—to strengthen those prayers and their communication with God. Then they called a family meeting.
Kimberley and Steve tried their best to keep neutral as they told Lia and her siblings that if Lia decided to continue campaigning against abortion, it would affect the whole family. Things would change in ways they couldn’t predict. The threats would likely never stop. Everybody had a vote, and the majority would rule. But it didn’t matter because there was no split: everyone voted for Lia to continue. Her older brother, 15 at the time, said, “Since when do we make decisions based on fear?” Lia’s sister, three years younger than her, echoed the sentiment. “This is something God wants for Lia,” she told her mom. “Who cares if it’s hard?”
As Kimberley suspected, the threats haven’t stopped. Comments on Lia’s videos (she has now posted two dozen) attack her appearance and threaten violence. Lia admits it can be nerve-racking to know there are so many people who don’t like her. There have been times, after dark, when she has avoided taking the TTC home from school.
While Lia has crafted her anti-abortion identity and fame under the surname Mills, it is not, in fact, her real last name. No one in the movement calls her by any other name; most don’t even know it’s a pseudonym, made up to protect her parents and her siblings, none of whom are in the anti-abortion spotlight. (When she makes new friends, many are surprised to discover she’s that Lia.)
Kimberley found it especially unsettling when, early last year, she discovered that an anonymous group had not only figured out Lia’s real surname, but also the full names and, in some cases, contact information of her family members. Lia and her family had no idea what the group planned to do with the information, but the fact that they had taken the time to dig it up made the threat clear enough. Her parents called the police—who said they could do nothing until the threats escalated from online to real life.
The family has since moved and fiercely protects their new address. I’m told only that they live close to, but not in, Toronto. Every time we meet, it’s at Edwards Gardens, near Lia’s old house and where the family used to love going cycling. Steve travels into the city almost every day for work (Kimberley has since left her corporate job to stay at home with her new son).
Kimberley believes, as only the truly devout can, that God will keep Lia safe from the people who despise her. “I’m not worried, ultimately,” she says. “I believe if this is something God’s called her to, God will protect her.”
It’s October 19, 2012, and Lia is onstage at Cardinal Carter Secondary School in Leamington, a town of 28,000 near Windsor. She is the main speaker for the Catholic school’s Grade 11 retreat day, an event dedicated to teaching students about the anti-abortion position. On a small table in front of the podium, and behind a pile of rosaries, is a sign that reads, “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.” On the other side of the stage, Christian music heartthrob Chris Bray croons interludes. Students sing along and act out accompanying moves (it can’t quite be called dancing).
As Lia launches into the first part of her presentation, “The Case for Life,” members of the school’s Dignity of Human Life Club, all in the front two rows, listen rapt. Lia tells the audience about a recent Alberta case in which a young woman gave birth, killed the baby, tossed the body over a neighbour’s fence, had her second-degree murder charge downgraded to infanticide, and in the end was only convicted of improper disposal of a body, which, Lia says, meant she’d only have to spend 16 days in jail. The judge, Lia adds, characterized the woman’s actions as a “fourth-trimester abortion.” Her version of events wasn’t quite right. What the judge really said was, “While many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less-than-ideal solution to unwanted pregnancy, Canadians generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.” The woman, Katrina Effert, was convicted of infanticide; she received a three-year suspended sentence. By the time of her conviction, Effert had spent 221 days in custody; she had 16 days left to serve on her 90-day improper disposal charge.
It’s during the activity portion of the school retreat day, however, that the true influence of Lia Mills shows. The audience is split into groups to create anti-abortion slogans and cheers. In the hour that follows, students come up with and perform several different takes on Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” (“Hey, I just made you, and this is crazy. You have rights, because you’re my baby,” and another ending with “Do the right thing, keep your baby”), renditions of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” (“We will, we will, save you”), and even a take on “Gangnam Style” (“Pro-life style”).
The last group gets particularly loud cheers when one of its members vaults off the stage, shouting “pro-life,” as if he’s jumping into a mosh pit. Lia watches it all, impressed with the enthusiasm. She is gracious when students praise and thank her for her presentation on their way to and from the stage, even after the day is over and the bell has already rung for them to leave.
On the way home from Leamington, Lia is thrilled but tired. She has shared the anti-abortion message, her support and her story with a lot of people. After the school retreat day (and a brief nap), she makes the half-hour trip to Windsor to give the keynote speech at the Windsor-Essex Right to Life Association’s 39th annual dinner. There, in front of 350 people, many of them teens, she tells the audience not to be discouraged, but also that they must not be idle. Lia closes with a rallying cry: “Let’s not allow ourselves to be guilty of doing nothing.” She receives a standing ovation. After her speech, attendees—young and old—line up to get their picture taken with her. And, as midnight approaches and the crowd filters out, three young girls decked out in pink and sparkles—two of them in Grade 7 and one younger—grab the microphone, forgotten on the podium. “We’re Lia Mills’ number one fans,” they shout in unison from the stage. “Lia Mills is great!”
Lia will soon be able to drive herself to speaking engagements. Already, her video and speech topics are expanding to address subjects like birth control and abstinence—the latter of which Lia prefers, saying she has never had a boyfriend and doesn’t want one. (“I don’t think I’m ready,” she tells me.) She already talks about other right-to-life justice issues, such as euthanasia, and has added human trafficking to her list of things to fight against.
There’s also university to think about. Lia isn’t sure she wants to go. She knows she could do so much good anti-abortion work on a university campus, but she also wants to become a full-time activist and speaker—the next Craig Kielburger.
There was a time, back when the hype of the 12-year-old anti-abortion YouTube sensation had started to subside, when Lia had a choice to make. If she wanted to spread the anti-abortion message, she knew it was up to her to keep the momentum going. But did she even want to? She made the decision the same way she makes all her decisions, big and small: she asked God. She hears him—not like voices in her head, the elastic voice squeaks with laughter, but, yes, they have conversations. Every day, all the time, like you would with your best friend. It’s no surprise what he told her. He told her to keep fighting.
“I really believe I’ll see abortion end in my lifetime.” No dogmas please, we want more educated choices.
There should be certain qualifications for discussing the abortion issue, one of them being “life experience”. Lia Mills is, no doubt, still a virgin, which should be an automatic disqualification. What could she possibly know about the overwhelming sexual urge that takes place between a man and a woman, who either love each other or find themselves overcome by sexual attraction? Human beings are imperfect and so are current birth control methods. When Lia’s views become her own instead of those of her parents, I will take her more seriously. Until then, I see her as a tool being used by her parents and the anti-abortion movement.
Throughout the article, I hear the voice of a little girl. Lia appears to have a binary view of the world, dividing it into ‘black’ and ‘white’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘for’ and ‘against’. It seems as though she developed a narrow view of a very complicated, messy issue at a very young age, and continues that market that early message. The most telling part of this piece, in my opinion, is this:
“There’s also university to think about. Lia isn’t sure she wants to go.
She knows she could do so much good anti-abortion work on a university
campus, but she also wants to become a full-time activist and
speaker—the next Craig Kielburger.”
No desire to expand her understanding, or to expose herself to new ways of understanding. I find this extremely disturbing, almost as disturbing as her anti-abortion views.
Never heard of her.
Interesting what constitutes ‘fame’ these days.
YouTube has hundreds of videos of people getting hit in the crotch that have millions of hits. Toronto Life has zero articles about them. Is it possible that Toronto Life views this person’s ‘fame’ as somehow more meritorious?
Life begins at conception, blah, blah, blah – heard it before.
She is entitled to her views, which she has clearly adopted from her parents and church. Thus far I am not seeing the merit of her contribution to the fairly dated abortion debate.
Curiously Toronto Life focuses on this nobody instead of local youths like Marshall Zhang (created new treatment for cystic fibrosis at 16). Something tells me that someone knows someone. I mean it is Toronto Life that tells you every year that 50 people you have never heard of are the most influential in this City.
What a beautiful article! First of all, I admire her deep courage, which is very obviously rooted in her conviction that God is behind her. Despite the threats, the negative comments, even frictions with authorities, she continues with as smile and without worries. Second, I’m really happy to see that her opinions were voiced at a public school, and her teacher showed an appreciation for her work despite it being against her belief. I think our education system, and society in general (in Canada) needs more opportunity to dialogue, instead of shooting down ideas before they are even considered.
Great article, Lauren!
She has hit on the age-transcending fact that human life is simply, human life. It is human from its beginning to its end, not another species that, as stated in ridiculous and willful pretense in the current Canadian law, “becomes human when “it” proceeds from the body of “its” mother…” as if a magic fairy where waiting in the delivery room to wave her magic wand and make the baby suddenly “human”.
What is disturbing is that many people find other people who value all human life equally from its beginning to end, as disturbing. It gives the whole concept of “the right to choose” a hypocritical face hiding under a mask of freedom to choose one’s own’s views.
“Life experience” has nothing to do with someone’s position on abortion. Going through puberty, getting horny, and wanting to have sex, doesn’t somehow change that a fetus isn’t human. That’s probably the stupidest argument I’ve ever heard anybody say.
That’s like saying you can’t have an opinion on murder unless you’ve actually experienced immense anger towards someone which would make you want to murder them – yeah, because the issue of murder is justified by FEELINGS, right? Much like aborting a baby is, according to you?
The abortion issue has nothing to do with how much sex you have. It has to do with a pregnancy once it has already occurred, and what pregnancy is – UNIVERSALLY – and not about how “planned or unplanned” it was.
Guess what, some things are black and white / right and wrong. Slavery, the Holocaust, rape, and yes abortion.
This little cunt needs to be stopped
In the bible it repeatedly speaks of killing children in the most brutal of ways and God approved then so what changed?
Isaiah 13:18
– [Their] bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall
have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare
children.
Kings 6:29
– So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next
day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.
Isaiah 13:16 – Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
Numbers 31:17 – Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
Isaiah 13:18
– [Their] bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall
have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare
children.
Hosea 9:14 – Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
Hosea 13:16
– Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God:
they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces,
and their women with child shall be ripped up.
2 Kings 15:16
– Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that [were] therein, and the
coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not [to him], therefore
he smote [it; and] all the women therein that were with child he ripped
up.
Deuteronomy 2:34
– And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the
men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to
remain:
Kings 8:12
– And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know
the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong
holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the
sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.
Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 “If a man
have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father,
or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not
hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and
bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And
they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and
rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And
all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou
put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”
Leviticus 26:30 “And ye shall
eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.”
Leviticus 20:9 “For every one
that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath
cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.”
Psalms 137:8-9 Prayer/song of
vengeance “0 daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be
that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and
dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”
Judges 19:24-29 “Behold, here
is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and
humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man
do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took
his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused
her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let
her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door
of the man’s house where her lord was, till it was light. And her lord rose up
in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way:
and behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house,
and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said unto her, Up, and let us be
going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man
rose up, and gat him unto his place. And when he was come into his house, he
took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her
bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.”
Deuteronomy 23:1-25
“No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. “No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord. “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.
So this is what the LORD Almighty says about them: “I will punish them! Their
young men will die in battle, and their little boys and girls will starve. Not
one of these plotters from Anathoth will survive, for I will bring disaster upon
them when their time of punishment comes.”
(Jeremiah 11:22-23 NLT)
Withhold not chastisement from a boy; if you beat him with a rod he will not
die. Beat him with the rod, and you will save him from the nether world.
(Proverbs
23:13-14 NAB)
At that time Joshua invoked this curse: “May the curse of the LORD fall on
anyone who tries to rebuild the city of Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn
son, he will lay its foundation. At the cost of his youngest son, he will set
up its gates.” (Joshua
6:26-27)
You are my battle-ax and sword,” says the LORD.
“With you I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms. With you I will
shatter armies, destroying the horse and rider, the chariot and charioteer.
With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and
maidens. With you I will shatter shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen,
captains and rulers. “As you watch, I will repay Babylon and the people of
Babylonia for all the wrong they have done to my people in Jerusalem,” says the
LORD. “Look, O mighty mountain, destroyer of the earth! I am your enemy,” says
the LORD. “I will raise my fist against you, to roll you down from the heights.
When I am finished, you will be nothing but a heap of rubble. You will be
desolate forever. Even your stones will never again be used for building. You
will be completely wiped out,” says the LORD. (Jeremiah 51:20-26)
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will
not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the
man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not
allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract
with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he
may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter.
If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her
food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of
these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.
(Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
If you refuse to obey all the terms of this law that
are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name
of the LORD your God, then the LORD will overwhelm both you and your children
with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief,
making you miserable and unbearably sick. He will bring against you all the
diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and they will claim you. The LORD
will bring against you every sickness and plague there is, even those not
mentioned in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. Though you are as
numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not
listen to the LORD your God. “Just as the LORD has found great pleasure in
helping you to prosper and multiply, the LORD will find pleasure in destroying
you, until you disappear from the land you are about to enter and occupy. For
the LORD will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the
other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors
have known, gods made of wood and stone! There among those nations you will
find no place of security and rest. And the LORD will cause your heart to
tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. Your lives will hang
in doubt. You will live night and day in fear, with no reason to believe that
you will see the morning light. In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were
night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ You will say
this because of your terror at the awesome horrors you see around you. Then the
LORD will send you back to Egypt in ships, a journey I promised you would never
again make. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves,
but no one will want to buy you. (Deuteronomy 28:58-68 NLT)
If you refuse to listen to the LORD your God
and to obey the commands and laws he has given you, all these curses will pursue
and overtake you until you are destroyed. These horrors will serve as a sign
and warning among you and your descendants forever. Because you have not served
the LORD your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have
received, you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you. You
will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. They will
oppress you harshly until you are destroyed. “The LORD will bring a distant
nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like
an eagle. It is a nation whose language you do not understand, a fierce and
heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young.
Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will starve to death.
They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, bringing
about your destruction. They will lay siege to your cities until all the
fortified walls in your land – the walls you trusted to protect you – are
knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the LORD your God has
given you. The siege will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own
sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you. The most
tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his
beloved wife, and his surviving children. He will refuse to give them a share
of the flesh he is devouring – the flesh of one of his own children – because he
has nothing else to eat during the siege that your enemy will inflict on all
your towns. The most tender and delicate woman among you – so delicate she
would not so much as touch her feet to the ground – will be cruel to the husband
she loves and to her own son or daughter. She will hide from them the
afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat
them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress
that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. (Deuteronomy 28:45-57
NLT)
The youth are not blinded by the holocaust that goes on daily behind
closed doors. Their parents have become comfortably numb to the fact
that we are butchering children at a disgusting rate right here in
Canada. These same adults react with horror and outrage over the
senseless bloodshed in the CT tragedy while they care not that the same
number of children, just 5 years younger then those killed in CT, are
killed in the first 10 seconds of the business day in North American
abortuaries. Get used to the rise of the pro-life youth and the decline
of the culture of death.
A Christian VIRGIN who opposes abortion rights for women? Wow there’s a shocker. How is this possibly news? I think that young, inexperienced, black and white thinking little girls who haven’t even gotten their first period yet – and have been raised to blindly follow a faith that oppresses progressive thought, gay rights, women’s rights, and racial equality shouldn’t get an entire article devoted to their “righteous plight” in Toronto Life. This is extremely offensive, and her teachers were right to try and show her the other side of the coin she has been lucky enough not to have experienced yet in her life. The fact that many young girls are raped, abused and in dire need of an abortion for medical reasons clearly didn’t play into this pretty young white girls life experiences as a Christian with a nice family in a nice neighbourhood. Maybe she should volunteer at a few women’s shelters, or even better at a shelter for abused girls – the same age as her – who’s lives were literally saved by incredible doctors who are willing to perform safe, LEGAL abortions here in Canada.
She doesn’t deserve the rights fought for her by so many women and medical professionals before her, and should seriously consider having “God” set her a path straight to the swamps of Mississippi where this kind of mentality should stay and die.
I stopped reading here:
In the hour that follows, students come up with and perform several different takes on Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” (“Hey, I just made you, and this is crazy. You have rights, because you’re my baby,”)
Thank you for writing this…
Life did indeed begin at conception. :)
Last time I checked – Inside the womb was supposed to be one of the most safest places around…. At least that is how it should be for the babies..
My wife and I recently lost our babies preterm.. It was a tragedy. We wanted these babies and we loved them, They were alive, they were woman and they are now missed.
I commend this girl for what she is doing and I commend you for having the courage to write an article like this…
The person writing under the pseudonyme Satan is distorting God’s word, exacly like Satan did in the desert, trying to dupe Jesus. With God’s help,we won’t fall into the trap.
Memories of me at 16 … What’s happened since then, 20 years ago? I’ve grown up and I have seen that the real world is not as black and white as a 16-year old perceives it to be. Not having had an abortion myself but having family members that went through it, frankly, it’s beyond a 16-year old’s capacity to fully comprehend the circumstances. Not that we would need the approval of a 16-year old anyway … Some say age should not have anything to do with it – I am sorry, but yes it does. Age + getting out into the real world in order to attempt to understand it entitles someone to attempt to be preachy.
Why did this get almost as many pages as the cover feature in the print issue but wasn’t shown on the cover?
Religious views aside, it would seem much more reasonable to me to spend time advocating for the lives of the thousands of fully formed people who die all around the world due to violations of basic human rights rather than trying to decide what someone else is allowed to do with a relatively small collection of cells or an undeveloped fetus inside their own body. If abortions are being performed too late or under dangerous circumstances then sure, maybe more regulation is needed. But instead of fighting to take away a right that women have fought for, why not direct your efforts toward educating girls about the consequences of sex and proper use of contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Who, besides the couple/potential parents (with necessary medical counsel), should decide whether the woman should give birth and a child should be brought into this world. A baby’s life, and especially the quality of that life, is not guaranteed just by birth. A child must be cared for and if his/her parents are not capable, they probably should not have had unprotected sex in the first place and an outsider should not force them to bring into the world a human who may not be given the quality of life he/she deserves. Why are there people out there (especially old male politicians who don’t even seem to understand basic human physiology..*cough, cough* Todd Akin and others) trying to take away my freedom of choice and control what I do with my own body? Simply put, mind your own business.
As a side note, although some of the comments written in response to Lia’s video were malicious and rape should never be wished upon anyone under any circumstance, I think it is unreasonable for Lia’s parents to shelter her from them entirely. If Lia thinks she is entitled to such strong views on a very complicated issue, she should be helped to more fully understand the many facets of it – like the fact that a universal ban on abortion for which she is advocating would force girls who are raped by their fathers or other men and become pregnant to suffer further and possibly life-long physical and mental trauma in giving birth.
Anti-abortion. Until she needs one herself! Then just watch her going to the nearest abortion clinic, like so many antichoice women.
Typical antichoice hypocrite. Of course.
But that’s the point, though. They HAVE to remain ignorant on the issue. As soon as they are exposed to REAL facts, they become prochoice.
Not to mention that she’s still young. Did you read the article “The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion?” Full of antichoice women CHOSING to have an abortion.
So yeah. Antichoice = do what I say, not what I do. THEY want to impose their views on other women’s bodies while retaining the right to do as they please.
So tell me. Why are so many antichoice women chosing “wrong” options? Or perhaps is it that access to abortion services is a human right, regardless of personal views?
“Religious views aside, it would seem much more reasonable to me to spend
time advocating for the lives of the thousands of fully formed people
who die all around the world due to violations of basic human rights
rather than trying to decide what someone else is allowed to do with a
relatively small collection of cells or an undeveloped fetus inside
their own body.”
But that would require antichoicers to ACTUALLY care about life, especially about the life of the mother. Which is why I refuse to call them “prolife” folks. They’re antichoice. They won’t do anything to help living, breathing human beings and that’s not their interest. It’s much more fun to put forth sexist, misogynistic views that oppress women and deny them their basic human rights.
Hi Lia. When you’re finally out of your parents Christian cult, there are plenty of progressive women who will help you. Signed, a friend.
As a student in university, I can certainly say that their pro-life cause is gaining traction, and even the majority of my friends (U of T) are pro-life (although not all want a complete ban). She’s only 12, and the issue’s complicated, but I would not shield her from those comments, and act as if internet trolls are these serious dangerous people. Check out the recent Gallup poll on abortion that shows that the most pro-life age group in America (albeit not in Canada) is the 18-24 year old group (with the exception of 65+). It would certainly be an interesting phenomenon, but I am not sure what I believe on the subject.
Life is also a human right, last time I checked, and a lot higher up then deciding whether you feel like taking care of a baby.
Yes. Women, as persons (as opposed to non-sentient fetuses) are living, breathing human beings that are fully afforded this right to life.
We can discuss this day and night, you’re not entitled to make this decision for another pregnant woman. The only decision you can make concerns your own body and your own life.
So birth suddenly makes one sentient? How does that even make sense? According to some pro-slaughter activists, “personhood” (or “sentience,” as you call it) doesn’t begin until 18 months. Babies continue to drool and excrete bodily waste, nor can they take care of themselves for the first couple of years. Young babies are kind of like “vegetables.” So then it’s okay to murder them? Because they’re not “sentient” according to your definition.
You disturb me.
The stupidity of this comment is overwhelming. Did you really just say that because YOU cant control YOUR urges, it gives you the right to kill a baby? I am an experienced adult and KNOW that if I decide to have protected or unprotected sex, the consequences are MINE. I do not have the right to decide who lives or dies because of my choices. Going on your logic we should just give everyone a pass in ALL crimes committed, if its a first offense. Until you actually have a valid point, I see you as someone who has absolutely no self control and completely void of any common sense.
And you know this how?
Read “The Only Abortion Is My Abortion”: very enlightening. Antichoice women are antichoice until they need one themselves. Then they go to their nearest abortion provider and get one. And this article is far from the only one highlighting this hypocrisy.
That’s a sick comparison and you are taking away the meaning of actual children who died and families who have suffered.
“I see her as a tool…”
Of course you do. As an (adult?) non virgin I’m sure you’re very familiar with certain tools.
You used to have principles too. Of course I’m just guessing.
As a member in a Christian church her views have no merit. Gotcha.
“Tolerance for me, non for thee!”
I’m obviously missing something here..how can this twisted post have 39 “thumbs up” ! And you all DO have mirrors in your homes?! And what’s really sad, is you probably lije what you see!
“Getting hit in the crotch”…really? Blah, blah, blah?..You say she’s entitled to her opinion..the you do the hypocritical, liberal norm, and try to discredit her, or say something really intelligent, like blah, blah, blah !
The fact that MANY of the replies to this BEAUTIFUL young ladies story are from radical feminists, or liberals spewing their usual hateful, selfish, self centered, twisted “ideology”..and how much positive feedback they receive, disturbs me!
@to_prairie_boy:disqus You are obviously uniformed of the varying opinions of abortion shared by church folk.
As much as we all dislike hypocrisy, hypocrisy does not dictate whether or not abortion should or should not be legal.
Indeed. Laws should be based on facts and logic. Abortion bans kill women and are a human right violation. Which is why Canada is prochoice. We’ve had this debate before. Absolutely nothing new has been brought forth.
This article still speaks volumes. The same women protesting clinics are the same women having an abortion the next day.
Prolife? I don’t think so. More like hypocrisy, misogyny and sexism to me. Come back when you actually have a REAL reason why abortions should be banned.
so true bob, so true, well said
Any article about abortion, always always brings out the pro death and choice nuts.
Straight off the conveyer. You honestly have no idea what you’re actually talking about.