Category Archives: child advocacy

Will there be justice for Alanna Gallagher–the girl in a tarp?

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I have been waiting for news about Alanna Gallagher, and now I know her name.

Her body was found bound and nearly naked in a tarp dumped on a suburban street.

The children who found her thought she was discarded trash.

The person who did this to her treated her like garbage. Worse than garbage.

Her name and precious little face add further dimensions to a brutal murder. I am grateful that there is a reward for information and I am grateful that the FBI is involved, but I have to raise my usual lament–

A beautiful child was tortured and murdered and she is not news to you, to us, to our country.

The truth is our country is accustomed to the brutal murders of children. What’s one more?

What’s one more to you?

You gonna do something about it? Are the women of Texas? Is Wendy Davis?

When one human life is devalued, so are all the rest.

The Real Cost of Abortion

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An abortion costs approximately $500. If a woman opts for a late term abortion it can cost in the thousands.

$500 to $2000 to evacuate a living child from your uterus. If you multiply these numbers by the number of abortions in each state, country, continent, you get a pretty big number. You get a multi-billion dollar industry.

Abortion is a business and everyone gets paid.

But if I bet if someone offered you all that money in exchange for even one of your children, you wouldn’t take it.

You would not hesitate. Our children are the real treasure. Worth all the money in the world.

At the Saginaw Intersection

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The last article I posted was heartbreaking–this blog post gives more information and is unbearable.

No one should treat another human being with that kind of savage cruelty.

All we have to look for a–a red truck with a paint splotch.

So start looking. This little girl deserves justice. The children who found her will need help to carry this terrible memory.

And none of us are safe.

Senator Davis–please.

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This is on your doorstep, your watch. Do something—poor little one

I know you will say what every other elected official has said to me about the dangers our children face–

it is not my issue.

Make it your issue. Please do something to bring about justice for this poor child. Justice for her and protection for all our little ones.

Please. I am begging you.

What my daughter said about abortion

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Let me say this: if my adopted children had been aborted my daughter would have had a normal life. Yet there is not a soul in our lonely little family who thinks that was the answer. Every life has value.

I read my daughter my last post. When I froth at the mouth I know I need an editorial opinion.

She said this–

I think of nature shows I have seen. Elephants will grieve over lost babies. A mother elephant will mourn over the body of her baby born too young to live. Her family-mothers, sisters, aunts, will gather around her and pick up the bones and touch them to remember her–the little one missing.

It seems like people are celebrating killing off babies. It also seems like people cover their guilt by calling it a fetus, not a baby, so they don’t have to picture a living thing that they are killing.

This Generation of Women and abortion

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I am astounded by some women. I have yet to hear an abortion story that did not involve pressure to abort, yet here come the vigilante cowgirls advocating celibacy to pressure the menfolk to let you kill your own babies? Medea would be impressed. Darwin maybe? Jesus not so much.

First, let me make it clear–if you are a pro-choice filly in the state of Texas I absolutely agree-you should definitely go with the celibacy protest.

Last time I checked celibacy was the safest way to not get yourself pregnant. So good work girls. Good thinking!! No sex! No gestation! No abortion!

But here is the deal–all the women in the great state of Texas and in the United States today of child bearing age are alive despite Roe v. Wade. Each one of us could have been an abortion. And some of us survived them.

There are hundreds of women who share the heartbreaking reality of being abortion survivors. They lived despite their mothers’ intentions to kill them.

Look them up. Hear their voices.

And the post-menopausal? Shame on you all, you old fools. Don’t tell me how we should all “make some noise” to kill our children and their children.

You gave us Roe v. Wade. You decimated our kindergarten classes, our playmates. You have indeed had your say, old girls.

And I, for one, am ashamed of your bloodied hands and shameless talk.

Too blind to see it is we ourselves who are dying.

If someone tells you they have been abused

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Worth repeating.

Worth putting on your refrigerator:

When I first found out that my adopted son had sexually abused children I was in shock. The hours and days that followed were filled with anger, pain, and terrible questions.

They were also filled with calls to the state to report him and forensic interviews.

I understood that I had to revise my view of my son–he was capable of unspeakable harm.

How do we handle stories of unspeakable harm? Not well. We handle them with avoidance, ostracism, excuses, and silence. We blame the victims.

Don’t. Don’t do these things to a crime victim. Do this instead:

Be there and listen. Victims of abuse are all around you. Most will not share their stories because they know if they do they will be viewed as contagious.

Abuse is not sui generis contagious. Ignorance is. Refrain from perpetuating any stereotypes about the abused or their families. Remember, they are the victims.

Explaining to a child how and why an older person would take their innocence is a heartbreaking conversation, but it starts with repair–

What I told my kids was this–sex is like driving a car, good but challenging and not for kids.

Kids should not have to deal with sex–either in advertising, media, a bikini culture, pornography, or abuse.

It is our job to protect them, and we can’t do it by keeping our heads in the sand.

And if they have been hurt by sexual exploitation it is our job to be there to heal what has been broken–the human heart.

God is listening (even if Wendy Davis isn’t)

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A friend of mine told me last night that he doesn’t talk to God because God doesn’t talk back.

Well…

He does actually.

In fact if you cultivate ears to hear He can be quite specific. The problem is we tend not to listen (sort of like Wendy Davis, apparently…where is that woman?!)

I know. You think I am a nut. But whether you believe it or not I blame some of that on God listening.

Let’s take the pink sneakers for instance. I was pretty disgusted by the way the media co-opted the story of five month old unborn babies getting torn from life itself and made it a cozy-cute story about footwear.

I kept thinking about all the dead children who will never wear their pink sneakers. So I prayed–God, if you want me to do something about this help me find a pair of tiny pink sneakers.

I think I kinda upped the ante because I went to a single resale store and prayed again–ok, God, I need the perfect slippers. I had to hunt a bit to find the kid’s shoe section. There were only a handful of shoes there, but the ones I had prayed for were sitting on the shelf. God listening.

Every story changes if you believe in an interventionist God. It changes again if He is a God of love. Again if justice is in His strong right arm. And finally if you acknowledge He expects something from you.

He does. Are you going to listen?

Don’t know how? Not that hard. Try this–

Read something from the Gospel every day.

Turn stuff off. Candy Crush may be great, but God takes focus.

Look for signs of His presence, power, and love–you know, sunsets, kittens, Leonardo da Vinci. Stuff random and senseless can’t do.

Ask Him.

I have known God personally for years, some of them tough and effacing. In all that time there has not been one question He hasn’t answered.

He is worth the trouble, the quiet, and the separation from the herd. Let’s face it sometimes the herd can get a little noisy, pink sneakers and all.

Just: a book review

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No one in their right mind writes a book review of their own book so people don’t have to read it.

So here goes:

I wrote Just because books had helped me through some tough times.

It is not a work of literature. It is a cry for help. I wanted to add to the voices of men and women who had helped me–mostly celebrity survivors who had been courageous and told their stories. Oprah, and Ellen, Sugar Ray, Ashley Judd, and Todd Bridges…

What would have I done without them?

So this the story: we fostered and adopted children damaged by neglect and abuse.

Life with them was so hard. It became even harder when we found out my adopted son had molested some of my children and others.

We pushed for legal consequences.
We dealt with the damage.

I was surprised by how little protection the justice system gave us. The book was a cry for help and a warning.

What I would add to that as an epilogue of sorts is that there is another book too painful and personal to write about what I call the shunning syndrome.

If you are brave or foolish enough to speak openly about being victimized by sexual abuse, you lose almost everyone you love.

Tough book to write. Even tougher to live. Par for the course for humans–we let our wolves drive our flocks.

But beyond the lonely places, we are fine (thank you).