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My mother flew all the way from India to Downey, California for an abortion. Their a sidewalk counselor saved my life. Email article by Angelique Guarneri March 13, 2010.
Nearly 50 million girls and women are missing from India's population. In the last 20 years, 10 million girls have been killed by their parents, either before or immediately after birth. In some parts of North India the ratio of women to men is as low as 750 to 1000. The district of Daman, in the Western part of India, has the lowest ratio of women to men: 591 to 1000. The U.N. warns that left unabated, these acts will lead to increased trafficking, sexual abuse and violence towards women. A couple of weeks ago, during a conversation with Cheryl Conrad, Director of Operations for Survivors, she mentioned a Walk concerning infanticide in India due to sex-selection abortions to be held in San Francisco CA. She told me that we should attend. I prayed about it, got the okay, and excitedly agreed. I emailed the event organizer, a woman named Nyna Pais Caputi, and shared our interest in attending and also how my personal testimony had a great deal to do with the event. Upon learning my story, Nyna Pais Caputi, asked me to speak at the event. Honored, I gladly accepted her invitation. I must admit I had some apprehension at first. I had never been around my own people before, my own heritage. You see, I am East Indian myself, but I had a much closer connection to this event than my ethnicity alone. As I looked through the website for the event, www.petalsinthedust.com, trying to get a grasp of the organization's vision, I viewed a trailer for a documentary Nyna and her husband Gino are currently filming called Petals in the Dust. It was here that the shocking statistics listed at the beginning flashed before my eyes, as well as many heart-wrenching stories. That's when I realized how identical these stories were to my own. My birthmother was from Punjab, India. She was married to a successful professor in Punjab, and had two beautiful daughters, but in a matter of a couple months her entire world changed. In 1991 her husband died suddenly of a heart attack. Already devastated by this shocking event, she found that she had something more to worry about She was pregnant, and on top of it all, it was a girl. For centuries the female gender has been looked upon as a burden to society in many regions of India. Families who have only female children and no males are considered social outcasts -- cursed by the gods by many organized religions. Over the years this problem has grown so prevalent in India's culture that female infanticide and foeticide has become a silent part of their lifestyle. Abortion and sex determination tests for deciding whether or not to have an abortion are illegal in India. But due to the government not enforcing these laws, these illegal actions have grown rampant in many areas. In many cases if the woman or the family of the woman finds out it is a girl, and does not want the responsibility of raising her, trying to find her a husband, and coming up with her dowry, they abort the baby or kill her after she is born, whether through drowning, suffocation, or stuffing corn husks down her throat. Knowing her culture would not tolerate her having another girl, and having no husband to support her, my mother flew all the way from India to Downey, California for an abortion. She was already eight months pregnant. By the grace of God, a sidewalk counselor named Joanna Lutrell talked her out of the abortion and into adoption -- saving my life. Joanna approached her church, His Nesting Place, which is also a home for unwed mothers in crisis pregnancy, and found a couple, Rodney and Charlotte Guarneri, who had been praying for eight years for another child. They gladly received me as their own. I knew my story was part of the larger picture and could not wait for March 6, 2010 to come! I flew to San Francisco with Cheryl Conrad and we met Nyna and her husband Gino on the way to the event. I was in awe of how informed and passionate they both were about their cause. As people of many ethnicities gathered at the Conservatory of Flowers for the opening rally, unity was in the air. Many distinguished speakers spoke to the crowd about these atrocities in India. And then it was my turn to speak. Me -- another unwanted Indian girl whose life was saved by the grace of God and the dedication of one woman who faithfully shared the truth about abortion with my birth mother. As I shared my testimony with the crowd, I sensed it touched their hearts as they realized how one voice can save a life. The walk started at the Conservatory of Flowers and ended at the India embassy in the heart of downtown. What a beautiful sight: people walking through San Francisco's streets, being a voice for women everywhere -- inside and outside the womb. Strangers joining together for a single purpose, not caring what others thought of them, simply standing up for what was right. 2 Chronicles 28:20 "Be confident, determined and bold. Let's start the work and not let anything stop us. Our Lord God, whom we serve, will be with us. He will not abandon us, but He will stay with us until we finish the work to be done in His church. In the past, I sometimes have wondered whether we can win this fight against abortion. I have let my fearful and battle-weary self become the center of my thoughts. But this scripture and the memory of the people I met that day, remind me of the truth we will win because we have something the other side does not -- Christ! |
