Pro-Life Testimony
I do not come to the Pro-life movement for some altruistic reason. I come
through my own experience and suffering with this issue.
Warning: graphic disturbing picture below
I was climbing the ladder of success in the acting and performing world. I had, co-starring roles for Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and worked in many top New York recording studios. I was not at all Christian back then. My girlfriend was an actress who was studying at the American Music and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). When she told me she was pregnant we both felt we could not go through with the baby because our careers were just getting rolling. I helped pay for the abortion. She tumbled into an intense depression. I tried to avoid the pain and dove harder into my career.
(left: David MacDonald, photo by Cynthia Bredfeldt)
Soon after that, I was cast in a Broadway show called "Baby" about three couples where the wives/girlfriends were pregnant. It was the only Broadway show ever to cover the topic of pregnancy in such detail. I left the show before rehearsals to do a TV series for NBC called "Flashdance." The series was cancelled and the actor who replaced me in "Baby" was nominated for a Broadway Tony Award for the role I gave up. The cast album is here. I now understand that my subconscious would not let me do a show about becoming a father when I had just aborted my own baby. After our breakup, my girlfriend married a singer who is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It was a weird feeling to see their child in People Magazine. I pray for them.
I did not learn my lesson. Soon after that I met a girl who was a doctor (M.D.) and a professional dancer with well known dance troop. She was also being considered to become an astronaut and the first Canadian woman in space.She became pregnant even though she was on the pill (it shows that contraception doesn't work). We agreed that it was an inconvenient time to have a baby because we were "building our careers." We aborted the baby.
Although my girlfriend wanted the abortion also, the moment she was on the operating table and the doctor was using a suction machine to remove the parts of our baby, she had a powerful urge to say "put that back!" It was devastating to her emotionally. No amount of medical training, no amount of glamorous success in dancing could explain away the emptiness. With all of her education in medical school, with all her brilliance as a dancer, there was no explanation for this emotional tumble, except that we had done something horribly wrong. No amount of success could cover her motherhood. After the abortion, an emptiness swallowed me. Like many couples who have abortions, not long after it we broke up. I wrote a song:
you and me
have killed the seed
that was planted in our souls
now there's only you
and only me
and a memory of our world
we had it all and watched it blow
away, and where it goes
we haven't got a clue
nothing we can do
I thought the song was about the lost relationship. In hindsight, I can see my soul calling out against what I had done to my child. My spiritual emptiness was clear in the song. The darkness surrounded me. I've since learned that many couples break up after an abortion and very often both the man and woman go into the emptiness of depression.
I was the Rock & Roll Cat for the US National tour of "Cats." I fell to 115 pounds and I was supposed to be playing the cool Rum Tum Tugger - Rock Star Cat. I looked like hell, the devil had me. I fell into an eating disorder, anorexia. I got very sick with a sore throat. The doctor told me not to talk for three weeks. I was cocky and said "Hey, I have 10,000 people a week and an $80,000US/year starring role. I can't stop singing." He said "well then do what you want!" I kept singing.
I blew my voice out completely, I lost the show. I lost my career and I couldn't talk for 3 years. I communicated with a pen a paper. I was 24. The reasons for the abortion evaporated with my career. I drifted into depression and the cycle of addiction. I left New York City and returned to Ottawa - physically and emotionally broken.
Around this time, my 17 month old baby nephew Andrew was beaten to death by the baby-sitter who was sentenced for 5 years in jail for second degree murder.
The murder was all over the papers and the trial was very public. One night during the trial, at 3 a.m. I woke up crying out to God about the situation. I was wondering why I found myself in the middle of such horrible circumstances. I was writing in my journal "God, it's not fair, why am I in this situation, I did not kill that baby?"
Suddenly my hand started writing by itself. As I watched my hand, I didn't know what I was writing until I finished. Then I looked at it and my jaw dropped. It said
"You killed babies!" I instantly understood that the abortions I was involved with were murder and that although the abortions were legal in the eyes of society, in God's eyes they were comparable to what the babysitter did to my nephew. I went from pro abortion to pro life literally in 10 seconds! In the midst of this crisis, God showed me the sanctity of life from conception and how He loves all children, including the unborn. Oh Lord forgive me.
I never rose again in the entertainment field, and the reasons for the abortion fizzled away and left me with the simple realization that I had committed murder against one of God's beautiful children - my child.
God is a forgiving God and he has freed me of the guilt. But he is also a just God. He showed me clearly the severity of what I did and what it cost me.
This is me at LifeChain. And at the prolife march in Canada.
I have been singing for the pro-life march on Canada's Parliament Hill every year and speaking to young people in Canada, the US, India, Guam, Poland and anywhere I'm invited. I speak about the importance of choosing life and choosing God. Let's pray they listen.
I wrote this song:
i was climbing the ladder
i didn't know my morals were shattered
by my ambition
i was looking for glamour
i didn't know I was taking a hammer
to my conscience and everything I should have treasured
i was lost in this world
that knows nothing about love, nothing about life
Chorus
Mother Mary i can hear your prayer
for all the mothers and the fathers out there
who battle for the right to choose
but don't know what they are going to lose
hey Jesus i can hear your voice
"life is the only choice"
turns out what I was chasing
was nothing more than racing
into emptiness, chasing the wind
i lost my mind and everything i owned
i lost my child and i lost my soul
in the mad rush for security,
i didn't know life is precious
from beginning to end
it's something we must defend
i woke up crying
and I felt like dying
the night I realized what I had done
Father forgive me
let your Spirit be with me
i wish i hadn't been so confused
i wish i'd known what i was going to lose
i wish i'd heard my baby cry
"mommy and daddy let me stay alive"
hey Jesus, I can hear your voice
"life is the only choice"
©2002-2007 David MacDonald
David's full Testimony is here
Video of concerts
Photos of concerts
Three years in the making, contains three National March for Life theme songs written by David MacDonald and other songs about life and family including the theme for Canada's March for Marriage "One Man One Woman." |
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The Pro Life Pro Family CollectionOther pro-life songs by David
Abortion is Killing the Hope of the Future
Yes to Life
Legacy of Love
Equal Rights for all Human Beings
Let Them Live
| Copyright notice |
