A personal pro-life testimony

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, January 19th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.

But first, I want to give a quick word about our live pro-life discussion happening tonight. We’re bringing together a panel of WORLD Opinions columnists to talk about the current state of the pro-life movement, as we approach the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Albert Mohler will serve as our moderator for this conversation. You can see the livestream tonight at 8 pm EST at wng.org/live.

BROWN: Well, as we mentioned, this weekend is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. If you have little ones around, this is probably a good time to hit pause and come back later to listen.

Back in 1984, President Ronald Reagan issued a presidential proclamation, designating the third Sunday of January as a day to affirm life and expose the darkness of abortion.

I met a Florida grandmother who plans to mark this day by sharing her pro-life testimony.

AUDIO: [Shakes fence]

MYRNA BROWN CORRESPONDENT: That firm grip belongs to Evelyn Owen. The 73-year-old is using a chain link fence surrounding her four-acre pasture to rouse her newest business partners…

AUDIO: [Baaaa baaaa]

…six Dwarf-Nigerian goats: five females and one buck.

MYRNA TO OWEN: What’s that sound you’re making? That’s their sound, baaa. I’m substitute goat here.

AUDIO: [Baa baa]

Owen is a widow with kind eyes. She says she’s no stranger to rural life or hard times. While we wait for Starlight, Moon Pie, Blaze, Saddle and Cookies & Cream to make an appearance, she talks about her growing up years.

OWEN: I grew up in Central Florida. I had no brothers. My father…we lived on a ranch and he used my sister and I as cowhands. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. She didn’t work, but she had a hard life because dad would get angry and would beat her.

Owen says most people in their small town knew about the violence in her home. That’s why she became a loner.

OWEN: Everybody was afraid of my father, so nobody dared date me.

After graduating high school in the late sixties, Owen enrolled in junior college. She dreamed of becoming a dental hygienist. She worked part-time in fast food.

OWEN: I didn’t need the money, but I wanted the social life, so I went to work for Burger King.

One evening after work, a few coworkers who shared a garage apartment invited Owen and several others to come over.

OWEN: I remember thinking, well finally maybe I can get some friends. I remember them offering me a cup of soda and I took it because I was thirsty. I was so naive. I did not know that they had put Roofie in that coke.

The date rape drug made her drowsy and disoriented.

OWEN: I remember getting very, very sleepy and they had this parsons bench with no cushions in it. Was just wood and I curled up on it just to go to sleep. Everything is so foggy, that you are just not aware of what’s going on. And I did not have enough knowledge to know what was going on.

Owen says at some point during the night a boy with dark hair woke her up and led her to a bedroom.

OWEN: And I just couldn’t resist. I just wanted to go to sleep and I did afterwards. I went to sleep and woke up the next morning and the house is empty. My purse is there, my car is there… praise the Lord. And I realized what had happened, but there was nothing I could do about it. I never went back to confront him or anything because at that point, I thought well, he’s just had his way and that’s it. But I ended up pregnant.

Her first response to the news: denial.

OWEN: This can’t be happening to me. This is ruining all of my plans. I’m going to become a dental hygienist. I’m too responsible for this. How in the world am I going to tell my parents? My father will kill me.

While she grew up unchurched, Owen says her mother told her bedtime Bible stories and her grandmother spoke often about Jesus. But Owen didn’t know Him as Lord. So, when the thought of abortion came up, she considered it, although in 1968 it was still illegal.

OWEN: What I did was I went to a doctor, put on a fake wedding ring and pretended I was married and asked to have an IUD inserted and knowing that it would cause a spontaneous abortion. But, the doctor very wisely realized from an exam that I was pregnant and he would not do that and so I went home and said well that’s that. I’m having the baby.

But instead of telling her parents she was now four months pregnant, Owen pursued another route. She took advice from someone she’d never met.

OWEN: I wrote Ann Landers or Dear Abby, one of those and she told me about a home for unwed mothers in Jacksonville. Right after Christmas, I just left notes on my pillow, took the car, drove to Pulaka, left it at the automobile dealership to get an oil change, walked next door to the Greyhound bus station with my little suitcase, got on it with a ticket to Jacksonville and the whole way there I opened my New Testament and I just read. It was just me and Jesus. That’s when I got saved. I realized I couldn’t make the right choices in my life, that I would mess up everytime. I needed to have a Savior and have a Lord.

Even with her new-found faith, Owen says she still vacillated between strong feelings of shame…

OWEN: That I wasn’t a good girl. I didn’t want to let my parents down.

…and a deep desire to protect her unborn child.

OWEN: Back then it just wasn’t accepted like it is today. Your child was called a bastard. It was an out of wedlock child. And they were looked down upon and excluded or even shunned.

Owen spent the next five months at that home for unwed mothers, sponsored by the organization, Volunteers of America.

OWEN: It was a two story old colonial home. Upstairs were all the bedrooms and downstairs was the kitchen. We had to do our own cooking. Ms. Murray, the house mother, taught us how to cook, clean.

Mrs. Murray, a minister’s wife, played another vital role in Owen’s life. She convinced the 19-year-old to reach out to her parents.

OWEN: I dialed the number and she was praying the whole time. I was scared, but I told them where I was and that I was pregnant and oddly enough they didn’t react like I thought they would.

Owen says her parents were understandably shocked but surprisingly supportive.

OWEN: Before I gave birth my father and mother actually came up brought a load of watermelons, because he was a watermelon raiser, to the home for everybody. And he told me, he said, you have a home. If you want to keep the child you can bring him home.

But Owen didn’t want to expose her baby to the violence she had grown up around. She told her father no and delivered a baby boy in June, 1969. Owen got to hold her son once, before making another life-changing decision.

OWEN: I had plenty of time alone talking with the Lord, just pray, pray, pray and get a clear answer. Read scriptures, get a clear answer and His answer was very simple to me. He will have a better home. He will be safe. Give him up for adoption.

So she did. Two months later, Owen met her husband Bill, a bi-vocational pastor. They were married for 50 years and served as missionaries until his death in 2019.

OWEN: My husband knew. I was totally honest with him before he married, but I didn’t tell my friends or my people in my church or anything until I had children almost grown. They were teenagers. That’s when I told them they had a half brother.

And she didn’t stop there. Over the years she's told her story to many women, helping them make godly decisions about their unborn babies.

OWEN: When I realized that what I had been through could be used to help other girls, that’s when I knew that God could bring good out of this. And indeed He did.

Owen says she also shares the unfinished parts of her testimony.

AUDIO: [GOATS BLEATING] Yeah… come on… you big babies

As Owen’s flock of goats finally starts to trot towards us, she recalls the day she met the baby boy she gave up for adoption. She hired a private investigator to find her son, who eventually reached out to her.

OWEN: And I walked up to him. He was standing in a pew and he hugged me. That’s the only hug I’ve ever gotten from him.

Owen says they talked for three days. The husband and father of four wanted to know more about his conception.

OWEN: He seemed to be a little shocked that it was under those circumstances. But I assured him, God had a purpose for him. He was not unplanned, God had a plan for him. And God’s using him. I'm so pleased that the Lord gave him a Christian home, good upbringing. He's everything you would want in a son.

Her son says he isn’t able to have a relationship with her yet. But Owen says…

OWEN: He knows I’m here. (laughter) And it’s ok. I’ll see him in heaven. He’ll be perfect and I’ll be perfect.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Cantonment, Florida.

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