How infertility gave me the gift of compassion about abortion

March 29, 2019

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I never thought I'd have any compassion or understanding for someone who has had an abortion.

The thought of killing a developing baby so offended everything in me, it was virtually impossible to imagine a scenario where I could ever get past it — especially the longer our battle with infertility dragged on. Wherever I go, I always seem to make friends with the atheists, the liberals and the outsiders, but I've never made room for those who fight on the side of abortion.

My wife Jennie and I have found a way to have joy and love despite the baby-shaped hole in our hearts, but we really do feel empty inside at times. And seeing that empty look in my loving wife's eyes was almost too much to bear. I've dealt with physical pain my whole life and I can handle a lot. What forced me to me knees day after day and night after night, however, was seeing my beautiful wife try to be strong for me.

Who doesn't love a good concert?Photo credit: Jon Boldt

I know we don't get everything we want in life, but the 14-year rollercoaster of infertility has been gut-wrenchingly painful, and not something I would wish on my worst enemy. Jennie is my best friend, and while I know the fires of life we have endured have forged a bond that will never be broken, it doesn't make it any easier — and man, do those fires get hot!

Some little boys dream of being an astronaut, some an athlete. Not me. All I ever wanted to be was a dad. Whether it was how to throw a baseball, how to cook the perfect steak or how to drive, I dreamt of the day I would be the one passing knowledge on to a little boy of my own.

I am the oldest of seven and I have three sisters, and the way they looked at my dad made me want to have a little girl of my own — I couldn't wait to be wrapped around her little finger. Just thinking of that now brings a tear to my eye and has me more determined than ever to not give up.

We just spent the last year consulting with more fertility specialists and trying different treatments, and ultimately, IVF. We found out a few weeks ago that our embryo that was created and transferred did not take, and the pregnancy never even got off the ground.

We had been so hopeful and thought for sure this was the time it would work. Needless to say, we were crushed. I tried to pick up the pieces as quickly as possible so I could be there for her, and I did, but it wasn't easy. Now we are facing what could be our final shot (unless we win the Powerball or something).

This is the moment we thought all our dreams came true.Photo credit: Jon Boldt

Throughout this process, I can't help but think of all the unwanted pregnancies versus how many people are struggling with infertility. It really started to upset me thinking about all the drug addicts and teenagers who were, as Barack Obama said, "punished with a baby." I found myself becoming angry, bitter and resentful.

Just a quick glance at the numbers is enough to make your head explode.

In 2017, there were about 880,000 abortions. At any given time, about 10 percent of women between the ages of 15-44 struggle to conceive — that is 6.1 million in total. Think about that. There are enough women who want to have a baby but can't to adopt the number of aborted babies nearly 7 times over. The cost of adoption is a whole other can of worms I won't get into, but if we could reform adoption, we could all but eliminate the need for any abortions.

Over the past couple of months, I've lost count of the number of shots I've administered to my wife. First, it was the hormones to aid in the egg retrieval process, and then it was to help the embryo to implant and continue to grow. Over that period of time, I was excited and hopeful, yet the nagging feelings of resentment wouldn't pass.

You don't want to know how much money is in this picture!Photo credit: Jon Boldt

I knew the only way to get over these feelings was through prayer and the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, so I went to work. I didn't want to be angry anymore. I wanted to enjoy the process of getting pregnant, so I hit my knees. The thoughts came slowly at first, and one was something Glenn shared that might not seem like it correlates at first, but bear with me.

This is what he said:

Hate is not the opposite of love, apathy is.

Here's the meaning: hate and love operate based on the same emotions and engagement — but with different goals and outcomes. What kills love is not hate, it's apathy. And this inspired me to come up with a solution. I felt like I couldn't overcome this without putting together a path forward, and this quote hit me like a bolt of lightning.

We don't stand much of a chance on changing the minds of the militant left, and they don't stand much of a chance of changing the minds of pro-lifers. The battle lies in the mushy middle where apathy has a stranglehold. Apathy is the enemy to both pro-life and pro-choice advocates — whoever wins that battle wins the war.

So many people say they would never have an abortion, but they support someone else's right to choose. That's the group we need to connect with. The upcoming movie, Unplanned, is one way we can pierce their hearts and open their minds to see the evil abortion truly is. We must do this all without judgement in our hearts, and instead, act with love and compassion.

We need to separate the real people from the organizations: Planned Parenthood and the politicians who have pushed this agenda so far that we are now debating whether or not it's ok to kill a baby after it's born. I can't believe this is where we are. This agenda is pure evil and we must take a stand.

The deeper I've thought and prayed about this subject, the more I feel relieved of the burden to judge anyone for any reason.

It is beyond me to understand what's going through the mind of a teenage girl who thinks her life is over when she finds out she's pregnant. Likewise, the pain of a sexual assault is something I cannot begin to fathom, and compounding that with a pregnancy is a decision I have no room to judge. The deeper I've thought and prayed about this subject, the more I feel relieved of the burden to judge anyone for any reason. We will all be held to account for what we've made of the life granted to us by our Creator, but we are not meant to be the judge.

It's time to throw winning and losing out the window along with all the tactics that have failed completely. We cannot change hearts and minds if all we are trying to do is change the scoreboard. This issue is about people, love and compassion — and loving someone doesn't include keeping score.

I believe there are four ways we can change our behavior in order to achieve different results. But the key is making these a part of us, not a tool to get what we want. Here are the four behaviors :

FORGIVE: We must forgive those who have chosen to abort. It's not only the compassionate thing to do, it's what is required of us by our Savior, Jesus Christ. Plus, forgiveness always edifies and uplifts all parties, allowing reconciliation to happen.

LOVE: Find ways to show love to those who have already made this choice as well as those who are now facing this decision.

STRENGTHEN: Strengthen those who are in this situation and educate them on all the options available to them. So many times the choice seems to be either "ruin your life" or "abort." There are so many other options, and education is key.

STAND: Take a stand, and don't let the forces of darkness win. Refuse to give in, and help people shake the apathy from their slumbering eyes.

Politically, the focus needs to be on waking the sleeping masses, because the left and the abortion racket do not have the polls in their favor. By and large, people tolerate abortion to a certain point, but very few actually embrace the choice, and, in fact, a lot of those who have had abortions deeply regret it.

The trial my wife and I are facing isn't entirely unlike that of a woman who is facing an unplanned pregnancy. Both have options and choices, both involve the creation of another life and both have eternal consequences. Apathy would convince my wife and me to give up trying and enjoy a life of traveling, doing fun things and getting a good night's sleep. It also would convince the unintentionally pregnant woman that her choice doesn't really matter in the long run — it's just a clump of cells that she can get rid of and forget.

We must fight apathy with all we have in us, no matter the issue. Let's put down our cell phones and turn off Netflix once in a while, and live life.

We must fight apathy with all we have in us. Let's put down our cell phones and turn off Netflix once in a while, and live life. If we can combine being pro-life with pro-choices, meaning educate and give more options, I believe more will choose life.

This time around, we'll be transferring two frozen embryos and the doctor says the odds are good at least one will take — and it's 50/50 we'll end up with twins. Who knows? Maybe our dreams will come true this round. Or maybe we will continue to be our nieces' and nephews' favorite aunt and uncle while we explore other options.

No matter what happens, I know love and life are most important, and I will defend both with every ounce of strength God will grant me. I will gladly stand shoulder to shoulder with any and all who will join me.

Even if you've had an abortion.

PHOTOS: What Glenn saw in North Carolina was INSANE

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Last Thursday, October 3rd, Glenn traveled to North Carolina to join Mercury One as they provided critical aid to those devastated by Hurricane Helene.

What Glenn saw during his brief visit looked like scenes straight out of an apocalypse movie: houses torn from their foundations and tossed to the side, sometimes entire towns away from where they were built, semi-trucks rolled, railroad tracks swept away, bridges washed out. It was a level of destruction Glenn had never before seen.

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But perhaps the most shocking encounter of his whole trip was when Glenn discovered a lone FEMA crew. It was a miracle that Glenn even spotted the FEMA truck, as it was parked away from the main road without any signs or markers to indicate to any passerby in need of its existence. Glenn and Congressman Cory Mills decided to talk to this FEMA crew, the only one they had encountered on their trek, and see what they were up to. As it turns out, not much. The FEMA workers admitted that they had only arrived the day before (nearly a week after the hurricane) and still did not have any sort of supplies. They claimed that people would know where they were located via the local news, despite the fact that most people did not have access to power, cell service, their home, or even their cars. Moreover, there seemed to be confusion about whether they were to go door-to-door in order to render aid to those in need.

.@CoryMillsFL and I spoke with the ONLY FEMA crew we could find in Asheville, North Carolina. It was stationed OFF the main road where NO Hurricane Helene victims could easily see them:

“We got here yesterday.”
A WEEK LATE.

“They could go online, make a phone call, or use our… pic.twitter.com/IU5I6KAL5r
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) October 4, 2024

FEMA dropped the ball on this entire affair, and it is only going to get worse. FEMA is claiming they blew their yearly allowance on aiding illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, another hurricane is approaching Florida and is expected to make landfall on Wednesday. It seems unlikely that FEMA will be of any use to Floridians in need, and they will have to rely on the aid of their fellow Americans.

Want to help out your fellow countrymen where our government has failed? You can donate at Mercury One and rest assured that your money will be used to step in to help hurricane victims where the government is failing.

The case for mass deportation

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Unchecked illegal immigration into America may be the most dangerous issue our country faces today, and with every day it goes unsolved, the risk of a terrorist attack of 9/11 proportions only increases.

Despite the risk, we can't even touch the subject without the Left and the mainstream media having a meltdown. Even suggesting that the tide of undocumented immigrants may pose some sort of national problem will quickly get you labeled as a racist, stumping intelligent conversation before it can even begin. But as any right-minded Conservative will tell you, calls to close the border and deport the people who stole into our country have nothing to do with race.

In his most recent TV special, Glenn described in detail what sorts of dangers we have let into our countries, with facts and figures that prove that if we don't act soon we will be in deep trouble. Glenn made it clear: we need to conduct a mass deportation or risk being torn apart from within. Here are three reasons that make the case for mass deportations:

Islamic terror cells are forming in South America.

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Congressional testimony from the Committee on Homeland Security in 2011 revealed that Hugo Chavez held a "Secret Summit" involving the Supreme Leader of Hamas, the Chief of Operations for Hezbollah, and the Secretary General of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Caracas, Venezuela. It is clear that ever since (and possibly before) there has been a Radical Islamic Terrorist presence in Venezuela. Right now there is an Iranian beachhead off the Venezuelan coast on Margarita Island, where the Iranian government is running criminal activities and recruiting and training Venezuelan gangs. These gangs have used our border crisis to infiltrate the U.S. The most infamous of these gangs, Tren de Aragua, has been declared a terrorist organization by the State of Texas.

Terrorist-backed gangs are smuggling in weapons and tearing through the country.

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What are these Iranian-trained and backed gangs doing in America? As you can imagine, nothing good. Just this year alone an estimated million rounds of ammunition, 1.2 million gun parts, 3,000 body armor vests, and thousands of pieces of other military paraphernalia have been smuggled across the border. On top of that, they have already taken over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, and are now terrorizing the remaining residents.

It's noteworthy that the gang managed to move into the apartment in the first place because they received subsidies through an NGO that was assisting the Colorado asylum seekers program, using money given to the state by the Biden administration in 2021.

Gangs have attacked military bases.

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It hasn't stopped at apartment complexes either. A leak from the U.S. Army revealed that the gangs have launched probing attacks on military facilities within the U.S. Members have been sighted taking surveillance photos of Lackland Air Force Base, as well as firing multiple shots into the facility. Another military base in Texas, Fort Sam Houston, caught a gang member attempting to gain access to the facility. This coincides with suspicious activity documented within the Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the U.S.

They are smuggling in vast quantities of military equipment, probing and surveying military facilities and key energy locations, and taking over residential areas. What exactly is going on and why isn't the federal government taking it more seriously?

VP debate recap: A Vance victory

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This might have been the most consequential VP debate in recent memory.

For those of you who missed the debate, it was a decisive victory for J.D. Vance and the Trump-Vance team as a whole. Vance presented a calm, collected, and considerate side of the Republican party that compliments Trump and helps to make their platform more palatable. Meanwhile, Tim Walz had a lackluster, though certainly not catastrophic, night. He had a few embarrassing gaffes and came across as overly nervous, but like Vance, kept it civil.

Both VP candidates entered the stage as relative unknowns to most Americans, and by the end, both men had given an accurate representation of their characters. Here is a brief recap just in case you missed the debate:

J.D. Vance looked great

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Vance came out of the gate swinging, with a stellar opening statement that helped set the stage for the rest of the debate. He delivered a concise yet compelling recap of his life, which framed him as everything Walz claims to be: a relatable veteran from humble beginnings who earned his position through hard work and service. He then went on to deliver a clear and palatable defense of Trump's platform and mission while cooly drawing attention to the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.

Overall, J.D. Vance looked incredibly presidential. He presented himself not just as a capable vice president, but as a strong successor to Trump and as a valid replacement if anything should happen to the former president between now and the end of his hypothetical second term. Vance also successfully dispelled the notion that he is "weird" as Walz called him, and if anyone looked strange during the debate, it certainly wasnot Vance.

Tim Walz's gaffes

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While Tim Walz certainly didn't have an awful night, he did not stack up well against Vance. Walz had a major gaffe around halfway through the debate when asked to explain the change in his position on assault weapon bans. Walz then claimed that he had befriended school shooters during his time in office. While that was clearly not the intention of what he was saying, it was embarrassing nonetheless.

Another weak moment was when the moderators asked Walz to explain a claim he had made regarding being in Hong Kong during the infamous Tiananmen Square protest in 1989, which has since been proven false. Walz gave a long-winded, rambling answer about taking students to visit China and how Trump should have joined in on those trips, before being called out by the moderator for dodging the question.

Vance fact-checked the fact-checkers

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One of the conditions of the CBS debate was that the moderators would not fact-check the debaters live, but instead rely on after-the-matter fact-checking. But, CBS couldn't keep to its own rules. While Vance was describing the migrant crisis that has swelled during the Biden-Harris administration, one of the CBS moderators, Margaret Brennan, chimed in with a "fact check." She claimed that the Haitian migrants in Ohio have legal status, to which Vance clapped back by calling Brennan out for breaking the rules of the debate, then proceeded to correct her, explaining that they only had legal status due to overreach by the Biden-Harris administration.

Dockworker strike: Everything you need to know

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At midnight on September 30th, dockworkers across the East Coast went on strike, effectively cutting the country's import and export capabilities in half.

Don't go out and panic buy a pallet of toilet paper and instant ramen just yet. It's going to take some time for the full effects of the strike to be felt and hopefully, the strike will be good and over by then. But there are no guarantees, and this election cycle could get significantly more insane as we draw near to the election. And even if the strike is settled quickly, it shows growing cracks in our infrastructure and industrial capacity that needs to be addressed if America wants to maintain its global dominance.

Here is everything you need to know about the dockworker strike:

What do the dockworkers want?

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As with most strikes, pay is the driving factor behind this situation the country now finds itself in. The longshoremen want more pay, and with rising inflation who can blame them? After all, working the docks is hard and dangerous business, and fair compensation only seems... fair. But when you compare the wage of a dockworker, which is around $100,000 to $200,00 a year to the average income in America of $56,000, suddenly they seem significantly less sympathetic.

How much money are they asking for? For most Americans, a three percent raise is considered high, but the unions are asking up to 15 percent, depending on location. On top of that, they are asking for a 77 percent raise over the next six years. The West Coast dock workers recently made off with a 36 percent raise and were considered lucky. These increases in costs are just going to be transferred to the end consumer, and we'll likely see a jump in prices if these terms are accepted.

The other major ticket item is protection against automation. Autonomous ports are quickly becoming a reality, with major ports in China that are capable of handling vast amounts of cargo being run by a single office, not an army of dock workers. Naturally, the longshoremen are concerned that their jobs are at risk of being replaced by machines that can work harder, longer, for cheaper, and without risk of injury.

How will it affect Americans?

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Don't panic yet!

It is going to take some time for consumers to feel the effects of the strike and it is possible that a resolution could happen at any time.

Week one should be pretty much business as usual. It might be a good idea to stock up on fruit and other perishables, but there is no need to go COVID-lockdown-crazy yet.

Week two is when you'll first start feeling the pinch. Fresh fruits and veggies will become scarce, along with other imported goods like shoes, toys, and TVs. Prices will start to creep up as the shelves will start to look a little sparse. The supply of tools, lumber, and other hardware materials will also begin to dry up.

By week three, the cracks in the system will really start to show. Entire industries will begin to slow down, or even stop. Factory workers will get furloughed and sent home without pay. Stores will have to ration items, prices will be sky-high, and online orders will come to a standstill. At this point, the strike will have escalated into a full-blown crisis, and even if it was resolved immediately, it would still take weeks to restore everything to working order.

At the four-week mark, the situation will have developed into a national security crisis, and as Glenn describes, a poly-crisis. Small business will be closing their doors, entire brands will be out of stock, and everything that remains will be so expensive it is unaffordable. By this point, the holiday season will be drawing near and there will be a rush on any sort of gift or decor items left. At this point, irreparable damage to our economy will have occurred and it will be months if not years before it can be mended.

While that sounds bleak, with the election just around the corner, it seems unlikely that the Biden-Harris administration will let it get that bad. That being said, their administration has not been characterized by good decision-making and reasonable policy, so there are no guarantees.

What can be done?

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The big question is "Why hasn't Biden already done something?"

President Biden, who ran on the image of a blue-collar, union-worker, has been uncharacteristically absent from the issue. Despite his earlier involvement in a train strike, Biden has declared that involvement in union fights is not a presidential issue unless it getsreally bad.

So where's the line? At what point will he step in? He has to understand that an economic crisis right before the election will reflect poorly on Kamala.

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