"That's a Baby!"

Martha Depew

October 27, 2025

Recent Event Reflection

I started a conversation with a man named Ocean at Colorado State University (Sept. 2025) by asking his thoughts on abortion. He said he wasn’t sure, having gone back and forth on the issue, but he currently leaned more pro-choice. He mentioned that his mom had him at 15 and that he sometimes wished she had aborted him. I felt terrible hearing this and couldn’t imagine what he has experienced to feel that way. Later, he shared that he struggles with depression. I told him I was glad he is here and that his mom didn’t abort him, and I expressed sincere sympathy for his struggle with depression. I think part of Ocean’s difficulty in recognizing the value of the unborn came from not recognizing his own worth. We discussed various aspects of the issue, but the breakthrough came when I showed him pictures of human development. He was shocked—pointing to the six-week embryo and exclaiming, “That’s a baby!” By the end of our talk, Ocean said he was “more pro-life now.”

– Martha Depew, JFA Intern

Note: See jfaweb.org/oct-2025-andrea for another recent campus story by Andrea Thenhaus (“A Charge to Continue”).