By Mark Ellis –
As a high school senior, an unexpected pregnancy led her naively into the offices of Planned Parenthood, which had only recently opened their doors for business in 1973.
“Somebody told me they would give me some information,” Patti Smith told God Reports. “But when they confirmed I was pregnant, they set me up for an abortion the next week, without even counseling, just assuming that because I was in high school I would want an abortion.”
Keeping the baby was not presented as a viable option. “I remember the nurse saying, ‘You don’t want to ruin your plans for college do you? What will your parents say? How will you care for a baby at 18?’”
Patti summoned the personal courage to meet with leaders at her church. “They were wonderful, and said that I could do this, and they would help, they would stand behind me. That’s all I needed to know, that I could do this, and they would stand behind me.”
Her parents, although visibly upset, made no mention of abortion. “My boyfriend took responsibility for his child, and we were married before my 19th birthday. I think had I not had the support of so many people to save my baby’s life, my son Jeremy may not be here today, 50 years later.”
Patti was aware that she had been adopted. When she was 34, God began to tug at her heart about finding her birth mother. “How I met my birth mother is by a total miracle, because most people hire investigators, but I found her without DNA, because God arranged it all.”
She knew the last name of her birthmother and the city where she once lived. “I called (4-1-1) information and I said I need Longhenry names in St Paul, Minnesota. The operator gave me four numbers from St Paul, and I called the first one and a man answered, and I just told him where I was born and I was adopted, and when I was born and so on.”
“Wait a minute,” the man exclaimed. “Don’t go any further. I know you. I was going to adopt you, but it fell through. I know where your birth mother is. I’ll give her a call.”
The next 24 hours Patti waited for the phone call from her birth mother, which seemed like the longest 24 hours of her life. Finally, the phone rang. “We talked a long time on the phone and cried and she says, ‘I really want to see you.’ She got on a plane from Spokane, Washington and met me at LAX, and she spent three days at my house, with my sons and her grandchildren.”
Patti says their visit together was surreal, wonderful, tearful, and emotional. This can’t be happening. It’s just too much of a miracle…what are the odds? she thought. “I knew God put it all together for a purpose.”
Then the tone shifted dramatically. “When I asked about my father, that’s when I got a shock because she started shaking and crying.” Patti wondered if she asked the wrong thing.
“I have to tell you that I was raped, and I know his name; I’ll give it to you, but I do not want you to ever tell him where I am.”
Patti learned it was someone her mother dated for a short time. “She knew it wasn’t a very good thing. She didn’t care for him much. She tried to get away, and he got upset that she wanted to break up and raped her.”
After he learned about the pregnancy, Patti’s mother approached him in a restaurant. “He said, ‘I don’t know you, lady, go away.’”
It was a devastating blow, but she also made the choice for life. Even though abortion was illegal in 1955, there were clandestine ways to find the procedure if one had money and the right connections. “The black Market was everywhere, so she could have made that decision,” Patti notes.
Patti asked her mother a penetrating question: “How could you carry me in your womb for nine months knowing that I was a bitter reminder of the violence and evil that you suffered?”
“You were the light in a dark place in my life,” she replied. “You brought me hope in the midst of despair. I lived through that time by nurturing you, knowing I was bringing life and beauty into a dark world.”
Despite the passage of time, Patti wanted to meet her birth father. “I wanted to forgive him, but he had died the month before.”
The timing may have been an act of mercy.
Patti has become very involved in pro-life activities since her dramatic discovery. She also learned more about the stigma attached to rape-conceived children. “(People think) they’re not really quite as worthy of life as the rest of the people. We have laws that have exceptions for those that are conceived in rape as if they’re second-class citizens.”
Many pro-life politicians – and others involved in the pro-life movement – make exceptions for rape and incest.
Patti asked one prominent pro-life leader why she accepts these exceptions. “How can you be pro-life if you’re going to exclude a whole class of people?” she asked.
“Well, it’s only 1% of those pregnancies that are conceived in rape,” the woman replied.
“Why don’t you go after the father and not the baby? Because we’ve done nothing wrong. All those that are rape conceived have done nothing wrong. Our only wrong, if you want to consider it wrong, is that we’re born. Would you say to my face I should have not been born?”
Patti also talked with a pro-life pastor harboring the same viewpoint, favoring exceptions. “He said, ‘Well, if my wife was raped, I’d want her to have an abortion. But I’m glad I met you, and I’m glad you talked to me, but I still think the same thing.’”
“When someone tells me, ‘I couldn’t ever carry a baby in my womb if I were raped,’ I tell them that they are looking at a grateful rape conceived woman who was adopted in love. I am that “product of rape” or that “rape baby”.
Patti has been involved in helping a number of pro-life organizations, including Save the One, 40 Days for Life, and Lutherans for Life, and has spoken at a number of gatherings on behalf of prolife events.
“When I met my birth mom, I was able to thank her for my life and introduce her to her grandchildren. I was blessed to know her for two years before she passed on. God gave her a gift before she died. A reunion with a daughter she said good bye to so long ago. Knowing that she did the right thing. God put everything to right. He took that act of rape and violence and made something beautiful out of it – my life.
“Live a life for the Lord and be strong and courageous. Be a voice for life.”
