Brenton Craggs
Vote NO on CI-128
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My name is Brenton Craggs, and I am a 35-year-old attorney who is alive today despite abortion attempting to prevent me from being here . . . twice.
How is this possible? Let me take you back.
My Mom
My Mother, who is one of the best people I’ve ever known, was born the fifth of six children to an alcoholic household in a poor farm town in upstate New York in 1947. She was an unplanned and unwanted baby who grew up with only two outfits to herself. She and her siblings had to pick crops starting at age ten so they would not go hungry. When government inspectors came around, she and her siblings would hide in the crops. The migrant workers would help her and her siblings move heavy equipment.
Her Mother, my grandmother, told her later in life that had abortion been legal in 1947, she would never have been born and that she did not love my Mom until my Mom was two years old and fell out of a second-story window, landing in some bushes. My Mom was abused growing up, was frequently blamed for her Father’s alcoholism, and had little help in life.
My Mom’s story is a real-life illustration of a situation where many argue abortion is justified. Yet she survived the womb, worked hard to get into college, and worked two jobs while going to school full-time to become a first-generation college graduate. She worked in many different fields, from serving as a law office secretary to working as a social worker in the ghetto of Detroit to working as a vision therapist in Flint and even volunteering to teach children art and music and sew costumes for plays at my high school. She is the definition of a strong, independent woman who is now 77 years of age and continues to be a blessing in the lives of all those she touches.
Me
My parents dated for many years before they got married and had me. By that time, my Mom was 41 years of age which makes any pregnancy risky for both the Mother and the baby. My parents knew that the risk of down syndrome or a variety of health or developmental issues was more likely, but rather than wanting to abort their first child they wanted to be prepared for whatever challenges lay ahead.
My parents located a specialist who performed what was, at the time, a revolutionary new scan and genetics test which could indicate any potential issues with the pregnancy. What they did not know at the time was that this Doctor performed abortions and “selective reductions,” where he would implant multiple embryos and pick and choose which embryos survived and which were aborted.
At the time of the scan, I was the size of two inches. In the scan my parents saw me complete with my fingers, toes, eyes, ears, spinal cord, and heartbeat. When the Doctor pressed on my Mom’s stomach I fluttered in response to the change of pressure around me, which indicated sensation. I was small but I was distinctly a person. My parents looked on in awe.
After the scan, my parents met with an employee of the Doctor regarding the results of the chorionic villus sampling test, which would not arrive for 6 to 8 weeks. The employee said that once the results came in they would schedule the abortion.
Both of my parents went off on this employee. The employee was shocked. He asked my parents, “why are you getting the exam if you don’t want an abortion?” My parents informed him that it was because they wanted to be prepared to love and handle any health issues their baby might potentially have. Sadly enough, this employee could not wrap his head around his concept.
My Mom had one pregnancy after I was born that, unfortunately, ended in an early miscarriage. I wound up being the only child my Mother gave birth to.
Today
Had either my Grandmother or that Doctor gotten their way I would not be here today. My Dad would not have found his wife of over 35 years, my Grandmother would not have had the child that did the most to take care of her later in life out of all of her children, and the lives my Mother and I have touched and improved never would have been impacted.
The stories of my Mom and I illustrate what the pro-abortion activists won’t tell you. A child born into extreme poverty can still pull themselves out of poverty and can live a long, happy life instead of being aborted. A child conceived later in a woman’s life is not guaranteed to have birth defects. An unborn baby, barely an inch or two in height, feels pain, has the same limbs you do, and is a separate human being from the Mother who carries that baby.
What’s sad is that abortion until 24 weeks is already the law of Montana. In Montana, we kill babies, like my Mother and like how I was, every single week, and the Mothers who are also the victims of the lies of the abortion industry and this horrific trauma are hurt in ways we can never fully see.
Many support the “right to choose” under the notion of “safe, legal, and rare.” What CI-128 does is throw the “safe” and “rare” parts of abortion out the window.
CI-128 expands abortion in Montana to unlimited abortion on demand up to the moment of birth while preventing surgical abortion clinics from being held to basic health standards and preventing parental notification when children receive abortions. The language, which is largely hidden from those who have supported it, is so broad it would arguably allow for killing a fully developed child who has been born and has the umbilical cord still attached. It empowers child traffickers and pimps who take advantage of young girls and women by allowing their abuse to be hidden.
This election cycle, I implore you to listen to the science, to reason, to basic logic, and to God.
Vote no on CI-128.
