March for Life

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I may have a slightly different tone here. I was born in an unwed mother's home in downtown L.A., and so were all my siblings. In my late thirties, I got an email out of nowhere, and it said: Hi, David. I am a friend of your sister's. Here is your information. Here is your birth mother.

We had a family discussion. I sent a very carefully worded note, and a couple of weeks later, I got this phone call, this tiny voice crying--and I am crying now also on the phone. And she is saying: I go to mass almost every day. On your birthday, I am terrified. Are you having a good life? How has your world been?

And I am crying on the other side, basically saying: Look, I have had a great life. I got adopted by a family that brought me to Arizona. I get to live in the Phoenix area. I have a wonderful brother and sister, who were also born in the unwed mother's home.

It became an amazing experience. My mom, who is right here, and this is my birth mom right here, they became best of friends. I have never told this part of the story here, but my birth mom--both of them have now passed away--had an early type of Alzheimer's, a type of dementia. But my mom here had sent her all sorts of photos of me being a child. So when you go into the house that they had there in California, there would be my two 6' tall blonde half sisters and then pictures of me as a baby growing up.

In her mind, I was always there. I was always part of the family. The dear Lord does heal.

But one of her best friends at the funeral turned to me and said: David, did Mary Lynn ever tell you the story of when we were in the car on the way to Tijuana to go get an abortion?

As they got closer and closer to the border, she began to cry. Then they got closer, and she started to hyperventilate. Eventually, she became so crushed with fear and sadness and terror, the girls turned around and went back and talked to her mother. A few months later, I was born at that Holy Family Unwed Mothers Home.

Now I am this age, and I have an adopted little girl, who is the third generation adopted in our family.

For those of us who passionately care about life, I think it is important we also tell the stories of how grateful some of us are to be alive; the amazing life my little girl is having and how grateful I am to her birth mom for giving us the greatest gift my wife and I have ever had; and understanding that the ultimate definition of love is life. Maybe others out there can have the amazing experience I have had with meeting my birth family and my family and my siblings' birth families. It is just one amazing experience of joy of life.

That needs to be what, I think, we focus on. There is good here if we just change our hearts and our minds.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much for sharing that.

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