I was raised in a Christian home and amid a people-loving family. Growing up, I was taught that every life was significant and sacred because it was a reflection of God. I thought I was pro-life, that is, until I saw an ultrasound. Once you see the humanity of a preborn child through an ultrasound, your perspective shifts.
Key Takeaways:
• Seeing an ultrasound can profoundly transform how we perceive preborn life, making the reality of the baby unmistakable and deepening pro-life conviction.
• Personal experiences, even for those who thought they already understood life in the womb, can reveal dimensions of preborn development that challenge assumptions and strengthen belief in the value of every human life.
• Encountering the personhood of the preborn inspires a deeper appreciation for the sacredness of life and can motivate support for pregnancy support efforts, compassion, and informed choices.
I Thought I Was Pro-Life Until I Saw An Ultrasound
Before working for Focus on the Family, I was an audio-visual technician and freelance videographer. As a young grad student, desperate for cash, I took any job I could find. I shot weddings, birthdays, church sermons, local commercials, concerts, and equine competitions. My wildest job was filming the birth of my friend’s second child. With my camera peering around the doctor’s shoulder, I captured the beauty (and yucky) that comes with newborn life.
After that experience, I thought it was safe to assume that I knew a thing or two about life in the womb. However, a few years later, I would find myself crammed in a tiny room with the Focus Films crew, observing their capturing of a live ultrasound. What I saw rattled my confidence that I had previously been pro-life. Seeing a preborn child on an ultrasound, hearing a heartbeat, and noticing movement often makes the reality of abortion unmistakable.
Why Does an Ultrasound Change How People View Abortion?
I saw a preborn child on an ultrasound for the first time while filming for the upcoming See Life 2020 event. New to Focus, I joined the crew in the tiny ultrasound room as an observer. The room was tight and I spent most of the time shimming against the back wall, trying to stay out of the way.
The sonographer was having a hard time getting the baby to cooperate with the ultrasound. No matter how much she rotated the mother or changed the angle at which she scanned the mother’s belly, baby’s face stayed hidden. All we could see was that a tiny baby girl was contentedly folded over in a relaxed ball — napping, we assumed. Eventually, the sonographer began tapping lightly and rapidly on the mother’s belly.
The baby’s arms and legs stirred ever so slightly. Suddenly awake, the baby rolled her head towards the sonographer’s hands, and her eyes fluttered open. I stood, shocked, as I made eye-contact with a preborn baby.
For some reason, until I had looked that baby in the eye, the reality of preborn life hadn’t fully registered with me. The experience was so eye-opening that when my boss asked what I thought of the experience, all I could say was, “Their eyes — I didn’t know you could see their eyes!”
The visual humanity of this preborn child helped me understand why so many abortion-minded women choose life after seeing an ultrasound of their child. The humanity of the child was revealed through this ultrasound, and my heart was changed.
Seeing Life
This is the tragedy of today’s political climate surrounding abortion. Most of the world would rather scream with their eyes shut tight than listen with their eyes wide open.
Courthouses and city streets are filled with well-meaning people who don’t realize that the price they’re willing to pay for what they want isn’t worth what’s lost in the process. Is the effort to defend abortion worth the 62 million lives that it has claimed?
Yes? No? How do you know?
If you’ve never seen an ultrasound, it’s hard to understand the feeling of making eye contact with a preborn person. Oddly, what’s most startling is the revelation that you have come face-to-face with another human. It’s the feeling of seeing life look back at you that convicts you with the reality of abortion.
When Life Looks Back
My childhood home was in the backwoods of Kentucky. On any Spring night, I could stand on my back porch and peer into endless blackness. Shining a flashlight in the distance, dozens of curious and glittery eyes would be looking back. These eyes belonged to a family of deer who often slept in the high weeded field behind our house.
Having grown up seeing this sight, I found it comforting and beautiful. However, when a city-raised friend of mine came to spend the night, she was terrified.
We pulled into my driveway. Our headlights shown over the field, and, as usual, the field lit up with flickering eyes.
“What are those?” My friend exclaimed.
“Just some deer.” I said.
She turned to me, frightened. “What do they want?”
“Nothing.” I laughed. “They’re just trying to sleep.”
Peering into Darkness
Before ultrasound technology, the womb was a mysterious place. It was dark and unsearchable, like endless Kentucky fields at night. Then ultrasound, like a flashlight or headlights, illuminated that darkness. This “window into the womb” showed us the reality of what’s resting just beyond our line of sight.
Years before Roe v Wade, and sometime after, we were unsure of what the womb held. Was it a clump of cells, or was it something more? For the most part, Christians have always held onto faith concerning the preborn. We all know about Psalm 139:13-14:
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
But like how knowing that deer exist can be eclipsed by seeing their eyes, believing a person exists will never be as powerful as meeting them yourself.
Truth Revealed Through Ultrasound
When I met that preborn baby, everything about being pro-life clicked into place. The truth was revealed. It suddenly made sense that memorials for preborn loss could be healing to women who had experienced abortions or miscarriages; that a woman who has lost a pregnancy could develop depression linked to the date of her miscarriage or abortion. Preborn lives are real and their presence in our world is just as significant as a post-born person.
But it’s easy to dismiss a person’s life if you’ve never met them. How do you value an individual for all they are if you’ve never been allowed to see them for who they are?
Focus on The Family Ultrasound
I’m so thankful to work at an organization that values the humanity of preborn children and recognizes the power in seeing life. For this reason, I encourage you to check out Option Ultrasound by Focus on The Family. In addition to saving over 500,000 preborn children’s lives, our 100% donor funded Option Ultrasound Program (OUP) equips pregnancy medical centers with ultrasound machines, nurses’ sonography training, and other capacity-building grants so that women considering abortion can see their child. OUP distributes 16 types of grants, including nurse salaries, extended hours, medical training and more. Your donation to this program can be the difference between a mom choosing life or abortion.
Conclusion / Summary
Seeing an ultrasound changes everything. What began as an abstract belief about being “pro-life” became deeply personal when the author encountered the movement, heartbeat, and reality of a living child in the womb. That moment revealed that understanding preborn life is not just a political or philosophical position, but a profoundly human one.
Whether you are pro-life, life-curious, or pro-choice, every woman deserves to be properly informed of the truth about what is growing inside her. Women deserve to see the reality of life in the womb for themselves. Taking a moment to look, to listen, and to let the light pass over what can feel like a dark or confusing situation may reveal something that changes your perspective.
