March 27, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – When she made the decision to compete to be Miss North Dakota, 20-year-old Macy Christianson said to herself, “If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it for God.”
The former Miss America contestant, who as Miss North Dakota now travels around the state speaking to schools and advocating against drunken driving, says she takes advantage of “any opportunity I have to stand up for what I believe in.”
She recently testified before the North Dakota state legislature and thanked them for defending life and the lives of pre-born female babies in the womb.
“I have four younger siblings,” Christianson told LifeSiteNews in an exclusive interview. “The youngest one’s five years old and we go all the way up to my older brother, who’s 23. And I just look at my little siblings and I just can’t imagine a world without them. It … breaks my heart to think that some kids aren’t getting that chance to live.”
Her Catholic faith also shapes her pro-life views because “we believe that every human being should have a chance at life,” Christianson explained.
A baby should feel safest “within its mother's womb,” but there are “so many babies being killed every single day in that safe place,” she said.
“It’s not against women, it’s for women” to be pro-life, said Christianson. In addition to having eugenic roots, abortion kills pre-born women, she said. “I think the disconnect there is that it’s not our body and we change our thinking into, ‘another human life is part of our body just because it’s inside of us.' … I don’t think [abortion] is for women because we’re killing women that could have the potential to be amazing leaders in our world. … They don’t have a chance to live.”
Faith is a 'really important part' of her life
Christianson, who tries to “go to Mass every single Sunday if not more,” said she is eager to “show my faith without being imposing.”
“If people don’t know that I’m Catholic or they don’t know that I’m faithful … I hope that they can come to that conclusion just by meeting me, just by seeing my smile,” she said.
When she decided to become involved in pagaents, she did it because she wanted to be able to impact lives.
“I decided that I was gonna do it for Him,” she said.
Christianson's anti-drunken driving advocacy stems from a decision her older brother made to drink and drive when she was still in high school.
“It was a really serious accident,” she said. “He almost lost his life because of it.”
Now, as Miss North Dakota, she talks about the effect it has had on him and their family.
“We all respect each others’ platforms,” she said of the other Miss America contestants. “There’s no negative judgment. … I’ve made life-long friends through this and they’re amazing women.”
The Miss America competition “was a different atmosphere, especially than what you see in North Dakota,” but it “hasn’t been hard to hold onto my views” as a public figure, she said. Her faith plays a “really important” part in her life.
Christianson is taking the year off from studying psychology at the University of North Dakota but will return in the fall. She hopes to be a marriage and family therapist.
She thinks it's funny that elementary school students are in awe of her crown when she speaks to them about positive decision-making. She tells them, “It’s just a piece of metal at the end of the day. What matters is what I do with it.”