To the Iowa State Legislature,
My name is Brian Donegan. I am a 28 year old citizen of Lawrenceville, GA (a suburb of Atlanta). I am writing to ask you to bring to the floor and pass a Personhood bill. Usually I would not stick my head into other state’s legislative affairs but this issue is way too important for me not to act upon.
I was born on September 19th, 1982 at Dekalb Medical Center in Decatur, Georgia. I was born legally blind, with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, without a physical nose on my face, and many other birth defects that I like to call blessings. After my birth I was tested for every disease and disorder known to mankind. All of those tests came out negative.
Despite those results, my doctors and nurses told my parents I would not live six weeks. If I somehow lived past those six weeks they said I would be practically a vegetable. Despite those long odds, my parents decided to love me, care for me, and support me as long as I was alive.
After one month in the hospital, I was discharged and allowed to go home for the very first time. I was baptized on All Saints Sunday at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church. I had beaten the “six weeks” odds but the fight was not over.
In November of 1982 I developed pneumonia. With as many challenges as I faced, it necessitated a return to the hospital on November 13th. However once I was admitted things went from bad, to worse. My heart began to fail and my skin started to turn blue due to lack of oxygen.
Just after Thanksgiving I underwent emergency life-saving surgery (the first of over 15 surgeries I have had in my short lifetime). Thanks to the skill of my doctors, nurses, and surgeons, the love of my family, and the blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ, the surgery was successful and I am still alive.
Despite the long odds I faced at birth, I am now 28 and a half years old and have graduated High school and college. I am very blessed by God in many ways and each new day I am alive is like opening a brightly wrapped present on Christmas morning.
If I ever need a reminder of how precious life is and how blessed I am all I have to do is turn my right wrist. Below my hand is a scar. That scar is left from the emergency IV that had to be placed there in November of 1982 when the doctors could not find a vein to stick the needle into. That scar is a living, breathing reminder of how precious life is, and why we should promote a culture of life in this Nation.
I don’t pretend to be a source of knowledge of the complexities of the miracle of child birth. I’m a man, not a woman. I understand that there are emotions and feelings that I cannot comprehend. In addition, I realize that there are women who would like the right to choose. I’m not heartless. Has it ever occurred to anyone out there that when a fetus is aborted, a woman may be exercising her right to choose but there is a life that stands in the balance that has no choice in the matter?
While others may disagree the facts are plain as day to me. Life begins at conception. God has a plan for each life that is conceived. Fulfilled an un-born fetus could grow up to be the next Einstein, the next President, or the next Elvis Presley. The unborn child could go on to find the cure for Cancer, AIDS, maybe even Muscular Dystrophy. Not allowing an unborn fetus to fulfill the plan God has laid, in my eyes, is murder in the worst degree. Why? The life held in the balance has no choice whatsoever.
Why must a Culture of life be promoted in America? The alternative is not pretty. Let’s go in the wayback machine to the 1930’s in Europe. The Nazi culture of death led to the Holocaust. There is a lot made of the many brutal and senseless murders of millions of Jewish people. However, the Nazis didn’t stop there. Also murdered were people of other races, creeds, colors, sexual orientations, and those with disabilities..
I’m not trying to say that a culture of death is going to result in a 2nd Holocaust in the same manner. There is nothing that can compare to the tactics of the brutal Nazi’s led by Adolph Hitler. It is meant as a lesson that we should take to heart. A culture of life will cause people to prevent even a remote similarity from occurring. Due to the technology today, mothers have access to many tests to get a glimpse at what their children may turn out to become right out of the womb and how healthy he/she will be.
Living in a culture of life, the chances are better that parents will continue with the process, even if the tests come out with results that are sobering. A culture of death will result in more abortions and children being killed off without a choice once they are born with severe disabilities and birth defects.
Why Iowa and why now? With every Presidential election cycle starting in Iowa America looks toward the Hawkeye State for leadership. Everything that happens in Iowa is magnified. If Iowa establishes Personhood and protects innocent life from conception to natural death other states will follow suit.
When our Founding Fathers declared us free from British rule in 1776, they wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
As Americans we have a right to life. Please protect that right by passing Personhood.
Sincerely,
Brian Donegan
-Lawrenceville, GA
