I lost my first son to abortion when I was away at college as a 19-year old freshman. I fought against the abortion, and my father drove 9 hours to meet with the family of my child's mother. He tried to reason with her parents and even suggested that he and my mother would adopt the baby. But we were told there was nothing we could do, and the decision had been made.

The grief associated with the loss led me to fail out of school, and subsequently to fail out of a second college two more times. Without the tools or resources to cope with the loss, I went down a dark path, using women, alcohol, and drugs to numb the pain.

Ultimately, I lived through a seven-year methamphetamine addiction, culminating in homelessness, unemployment, alienation of all family and friends due to all of the horrible things I did to them, criminal behavior, and lying on a dirty hotel room floor overdosing and waiting for the police to arrest me for theft from my previous employer.

By the Grace of God, I was led to treatment where the therapists helped me to connect my shame, grief, and guilt with the loss of my son. I was given the gift of remembering him, of naming him Michael, of forgiving my younger self and Michael's mother, of asking forgiveness from Michael, and of permission to mourn the loss and feel the pain.  Through this I was able to begin to heal. This was 2005, so in December of this year I will be 20 years clean.

After treatment, I went back to college and then to law school, started my own law firm, had a successful law career (primarily family law: divorce and child custody - many times helping parents and grandparents to protect their children from addict/alcoholic parents), married the woman God chose for me (who I had asked out about 10 times over 7 years before she finally said yes), had two biological children, and adopted 3 more (each of their mothers was an addict, and Henry's mom carried him to term knowing that she was going to give him life and offer him up for adoption - for me the full circle from the loss of Michael)

In 2021, despite the financial and professional success of being an attorney, God called me away from that so that I could be more present with Michelle and our kids, and I stopped taking clients. I closed my office in 2022 and began working on new projects related to fatherhood and helping fathers to be more intentional with their families. During this time, the Board of Directors of Men for Life began asking me to consider taking the position of CEO of their nonprofit and I declined repeatedly for almost 2 years.

During this time, I began getting unexpected requests to speak at events on abortion and addiction/recovery. I was unaware that someone from Louisiana Right to Life had heard my testimony and added me to their list of speakers. The addiction/recovery requests came at the same time from a Facebook post which was several years old by this time. 

While I accepted, I didn't fully recognize what God was doing or asking me to do.

In July 2024, I was on an airplane traveling to California to meet with our business consultant about my wife's dental practice and the fatherhood projects I had been working on, and God very clearly told me that he wanted me to accept the position at Men for Life. At this point I hadn't had contact with the organization for several months and didn't know if they were still looking to fill the position. I went into the meeting and set all of our agenda aside to discuss this with our consultant and he not only suggested that I should accept the position but offered to incorporate the business growth of Men for Life into the consulting he was doing for us. I emailed the board president from the return flight and asked if they were still interested and let them know what I saw as the path forward and my conditions and they agreed. I was appointed in August as CEO.

Since then, God has validated this decision over and over and over. And I have learned that there are so many men: fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, friends, who have a story of how abortion impacted them, but have never shared it because they believed that their feelings were invalid because of the pervasive lie of the abortion industry that men have no right to speak against abortion. These men find a connection through my testimony which empowers them to share their own, or to at least allow themselves to feel, to mourn, and to heal. And in doing this, they can become their full selves, better able to serve their wives and children, and communities.

I believe that my story has nothing to do with me. God allowed me to experience all of the things I experienced: loss, grief, shame, guilt, being silenced, solitude, forgiveness, redemption, addiction, recovery, overcoming, the unconditional love of my father (and my whole family), adopting a child who had the odds stacked against his being born, professional and financial success, choosing family over that worldly success... God allowed me to experience all of this so that He could lead me to my true purpose of serving Him and my family and others through sharing my story and empowering other men to come forward with their own stories and to become more vocal and more active in the pro-life movement.

That is why I am silent no more!