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WASHINGTON, D.C., January 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When pro-life advocates say they long to see the end of abortion, their opponents often reply, “Well, would you adopt one these children?” Numerous speakers at the 2014 March for Life answered that question with a resounding yes, hugging their adoptive children on stage, saluting the women who chose to give them life as “heroes,” and describing how adoption helped them overcome the pain of past abortion.

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“Adoption, a Noble Decision” was the theme of the 40th annual March for Life in Washington, and one of America's best known family counselors modeled the depths of love adoption can instill.

After Dr. James Dobson was introduced by his adoptive son and talk show co-host, Ryan, the two warmly embraced on stage, a moment that brought a rousing round of applause from the tens of thousands assembled for the event on Wednesday afternoon.

“My birth mother was 17 years old,” Ryan Dobson told the crowd. “She wasn't married. She didn't have a boyfriend. She didn't know what to do.” Facing an unplanned pregnancy, her family and church connected her with a pregnancy resource center, “and people just like you opened their arms to her, showed her the love of Christ, and gave her an alternative.”

“I'm alive today, because of this movement,” the younger Dobson said.

His father described adopting Dobson as “one of the highlights of my life.”

Ryan Dobson was one of two speakers who had been adopted thanks to their mothers' courage – and the counselors who helped them choose life.

So was Molly Ann Dutton, Auburn University's 100th homecoming queen, who ran on a platform promoting adoption as an alternative to abortion. In her two-minute speech, she said that her birth mother had been sexually assaulted, and pressured to abort Molly.

“Faced with the ultimatum to either abort that child or face a divorce,” the young California woman “found Lifeline Children's Services” in Birmingham, Alabama.

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“She walked in, and she walked out ready to give me up for adoption,” Dutton said. “By that decision, here I am standing before you 22 years later.”

“Not only this, but I've had the opportunity to share that with 25,000 college students,” she added. “What the enemy has intended for harm, the Lord has used according to His will and purpose…I'm just so blessed to be able to be here before you.”

But the blessing of adoption goes both ways. Nicole Peck of the Silent No More Campaign described how a teenage abortion ruined her life, a pain that deepened when she learned she could not have a child of her own.

She said as a teenage athlete, abortion providers gave her no warning or option except terminating her baby. “I vividly remember the sound and the intensity of the vacuum,” Peck said. “They took my money, my baby, and my self-respect.” After the abortion, “I thought that life would return to normal, but I was never the same again,” she said.

Ten years of suicidal thoughts followed. “I felt damaged, unlovable, empty, and so alone.”

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Then she learned she could not conceive. “Infertility was my cross,” she said. “By God's grace, I married a wonderful man and we were blessed with two adoptive baby boys. Their mothers are my heroes. They gave their children life, and they gave us a family.”

“You do have a choice, America. Choose life! Choose adoption,” she said.

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That choice is one selected by relatively few women. March for Life President Jeanne Monahan said there are 64 abortions for every child placed in adoption.

Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler, herself an adoptive mother, noted, “In 2007 there were only 18,078 infant adoptions in the United States, yet there were 1.2 million babies who never had the chance to live, to grow, to be part of a loving family that is waiting for them.”

“Women who choose life for their babies…should be encouraged and supported,” Hartzler said. “They make a household into a family. I should know. That's what happened to my husband and me over 14 years ago, when a brave birth mother chose us to be the parents to her baby.”

The fact that so many Americans long to adopt children destroys one of the abortion industry's most ubiquitous talking points. “Some pregnancies are unexpected, but no baby is unwanted,” Hartzler said. “Right now, one out of eight couples are having trouble getting pregnant. And hundreds of thousands are waiting in line for adoption – caring men and women who long to be called by the precious words 'mommy' and 'daddy.'”

“Our society and our leaders must stop upholding abortion and start encouraging adoption,” she said.