October 24, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – This week’s episode of The Van Maren Show features a discussion with prolific pro-life activist Jason Jones, who tells Jonathan Van Maren how he was introduced to abortion when his then-girlfriend’s father had their child killed without his knowledge or consent.
“I was actually sixteen when I found out my high school girlfriend was pregnant and I joined the army, and in basic training while I was in basic training, just a couple of weeks before I was to come home, her father found out she was pregnant and forced her to have an abortion,” recalls Jones, who is president and founder of Human Rights Education Organization and Movie to Movement as well as producer of the pro-life movie Bella. “And I found out that my child had been destroyed when my high school girlfriend's father said over the line, because she couldn't even tell me. She just kept crying, saying, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.’ And then her father said, ‘we know your secret, your secret’s gone. You can come home now.’”
Jones, who had been “really excited to be a father,” calls that the “inciting incident” in his life, which changed him from not even knowing abortion was legal to “exploding in relentless activity” for life.
“I exploded. I’d say for the first ten years, even though I was involved in the pro-life movement, it wasn't very healthy,” Jones admits, detailing how he was initially driven in large part by revenge for his lost child, whcih would manifest in ways ranging from picking fights with abortion defenders to taunting pro-abortion college professors. “It wasn’t until I became a Christian that I could say that I was able to harness that explosive force that was caused by the abortion and to use it in a way that was constructive.”
Jones explains that during his early days in the pro-life movement he feared that if he converted to Christianity like his new allies, it would dissipate the anger that fueled his activism to end abortion, and he would become like what he called pro-life tourists,” who seemed to lazily outsource the task of ending abortion to “God’s will.”
“And I remembered I almost was superstitious in my fear when I assented to the truth of Christianity and was becoming baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church,” Jones says. “I almost had the superstitious fear of after my baptism and confirmation, I'll quit, or I'll be good with it all. “But what happened to me, I would say it became cleaner. Became clean. My intensity didn't diminish at all. I still exploded. But it was now sort of a combustion engine.”
Jones and Van Maren agree that a man’s willingness to embrace the responsibility of father hood is factor to abortion that too often goes overlooked.
“Every man in today's society is reacting to abortion somehow,” Van Maren says. “They're either deciding not to do anything about it, they're pushing a girl to have an abortion through either apathy or actual pressure, they're manning up and saying, 'I will do anything I can to take care of the baby'…everybody has to make a decision, regardless of whether or not that decision just is inaction.”
In Van Maren’s view, pro-lifers have been effective at addressing the harm abortion inflicts on women and articulating the humanity of the preborn, but “the person who often doesn't get talked about at all in any scenarios is the man. And I often say that abortion is unnatural for three reasons. It's because it violates the mother's maternal instinct. It violates the father's paternal instinct and protective instinct. And then, of course, it violates the child's very humanity.”
Van Maren and Jones also dive into men in the pro-life movement, including the fact that porn addiction and the sexual revolution has contributed to the lack of men defending the unborn and feeling uncomfortable at pro-life events. This powerful episode of The Van Maren Show ends with advice from two wise, experienced-in-the-pro-life-movement men. Be sure to watch or listen!
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