At this very moment, I am sitting in a large classroom proctoring an exam for about 80 seniors at a high school in Northern Virginia.   This test is given to students in the International Baccalaureate program, a program designed to challenge the best students in this high school.  The kids sitting in front of me at their desks are the cream of the crop.  Starting next fall, they will be going to prestigious colleges, preparing to be our future leaders.  They’ve got their whole lives in front of them.   

About half of the kids in this class are girls.  If the statistics hold true, however, a few of the girls in this group will soon get pregnant.  Yes, a very small percentage might actually elect to become pregnant but most of them will simply wind up having made a mistake.   How can this happen, you say?   Well, while most of the girls in this group in front of me are very smart young women, there are temptations waiting for them when they leave home and go up to Yale or the University of Virginia.  When they arrive, unshackled, they will be subject to numerous temptations.   They will be wooed by the sororities, suddenly exposed to drinking parties, they will start dating.  They may think they have fallen in love for the first time and, one night, they may exhibit those feelings in a sexual way.

Now, with a group like this you would assume that they would be smart about their sexual experience.  But even smart people can make mistakes.  In a moment of passion with their first love, perhaps emboldened by that alcoholic beverage they have been thinking about having for many years, they make love and forget or refuse to use protection.   Dumb, absolutely dumb.  But it happens. 

The next morning, the young couple realizes what they did and they both panic.  Now, if they are thinking clearly they could go to a doctor and get a prescription for the morning after pill.  But that’s assuming they know about its availability.  And, if they do know about it and get the prescription, when they go to the pharmacist he or she might be one of those pharmacists that refuses to dispense the morning after pill for moral reasons.  Discouraged, the young couple might just give up and start praying. 

A few weeks later, a few agonizing weeks later, the young girl misses her period.  She takes a pregnancy test and confirms she is pregnant.  She is now in a total state of panic.  She calls the young man and he is in denial, he wants absolutely nothing to do with this young woman who he just met a few weeks ago.   She cannot call her parents, they just would not understand.  She spends several sleepless nights envisioning becoming more and more pregnant.  She then starts wondering about leaving school and giving up her dreams of becoming a civil engineer.  She wonders what kind of job she’ll be able to get while raising her child.  Where will she live?  Who will take care of the child when she is sick?  What will happen to my life?

And the pro-life response to this girl?

Too bad, you made a mistake, you have to live with the consequences.