Growing up in California, it is almost expected for young adults to be pro-abortion. In high school, and even in college, I have been in classes where for one reason or another we get lectured on being pro-choice, but we never get to hear the other side of the argument. I was 11 years old when I was first told about abortion in a sex-ed lesson. To me, it didn’t make sense from the beginning. My 11-year-old mind couldn’t comprehend how people can be so cruel to the point where taking a child’s life is not only seen as good but necessary. To me, life begins at conception and ends with natural death, with no exceptions. It was around the middle of my freshman year of high school that I started to volunteer at my local church as a Youth Leader for the sacrament of Confirmation. My role was simple, it was to spread the word of God and help other teens through their journey of Confirmation. I would say that this is when I stopped standing on the sidelines and came forward to fight and advocate for my beliefs on abortion. We dedicated a lot of time to making sure the teens knew what the Lord said about abortion. Jeremiah 1:5 tells us, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations”. This says that God knew who you were even before the moment of your conception and that he has a plan for you. The Confirmation program organized many prayer services outside of our local Planned Parenthood which the Youth Leaders and the Confirmation Candidates attended. In the end, I was able to volunteer for my church for 481 hours of service as a Youth Leader until COVID hit in my senior year. I understand not everyone is religious and approaching the abortion issue with religious evidence will make some people automatically stop listening. With the recently leaked SCOTUS draft on Roe v Wade, talk about abortion amongst my friends has sparked up. Many of them, if not all, are pro-abortion. Since most of them are not religious, I try not to use religion to justify my opinion to convince and show them that abortion is wrong. I have been able to convince a few. It’s hard to use science to convince them that life begins at conception because they have been blinded into thinking that the fetus is simply “a bunch of cells” and not an entirely separate life, but thanks to the discussions we have on the topic, a lot of these friends now recognize the separate life at 5 weeks. This is around the time the baby has its first heartbeat. To me, these discussions have proven that all people need to see the truth is education. The reason I am so passionate about being pro-life is that I understand that each life is precious. The protection of innocent lives is something that one should never be ashamed of. I believe that it is the duty of everyone that is pro-life to educate others. It is only through educating others that we will be able to expose the evils of abortion and the beauty of life.