A High School Senior Reports on Her Advanced Biology Project

AWAKE! magazine

Dear Brothers:

I would like to thank you for publishing such informative and interesting articles. I am especially referring to the May 22, 1980, articles on “Abortion! The Deadly Invasion,” “Abortion: What the Professionals Say” and “Diary of an Unborn Child.” I would like to relate my experience regarding this material. As an Advanced Biology project, I presented this information orally to the class.

The class and the teacher really listened to the information and were very quiet and still as I presented it. I had read this information, including the “Diary,” many times before presenting it. Well, while reading it I got emotionally involved and I only got halfway through reading the “Diary” when I started crying and had to leave the room. The impact of reading it aloud really upset me.

The teacher told me I had presented some great information, and she said she had a lump in her throat while I was reading it. She made copies of the “Diary” and passed them out to my class. The whole class commended me on a great report, and almost all of the 24 in the class wanted a copy of the “Diary.”

All the rest of the day various students not in my Advanced Biology class told me that they had heard of my report and that it was really good and sad. I was amazed that so many different students had heard about it in only two hours. Well, the teacher made enough copies of the “Diary” to give to her other four biology classes. So five classes, between 20 and 30 students in each class, received copies of it.

During the course of the week, various students reported their experiences with the “Diary.” One boy told me his mother, a nurse, had showed it to her sister, who cried reading it. A girl shared it with her mother and her grandmother, who also became upset. Another girl told me I had “the whole town in an uproar.” Various people at several businesses had somehow obtained copies, and one woman, while working, read it and cried. One woman, who says she believes in abortion, read it and said: “That’s pitiful.” The girl who gave the woman that copy asked me for my whole report so she could share it with that woman.

A week later, students are still commending me on my report. But you brothers deserve the credit for arranging such interesting material in an appealing way. Though the writer of the “Diary” is unknown and many people who have read (and hopefully will read) it don’t know where I obtained the information, at least I have planted seeds for future cultivation.

I am 17 years old and a senior in high school. I have been associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses since age five, and I will have been baptized a year in March. I have always enjoyed the publications, especially the Awake! I hope future issues are as enjoyable and appealing as past ones.

Again, thank you and may Jehovah continue to be with you and may your blessings be abundant.

Christian love,

S. B. [Signed]

[Box on page 15]

Diary of an Unborn Child

OCTOBER 5:

Today my life began. My parents do not know it yet, but it is I already. And I am to be a girl. I shall have blond hair and blue eyes. Just about everything is settled though, even the fact that I shall love flowers.

OCTOBER 19:

Some say that I am not a real person yet, that only my mother exists. But I am a real person, just as a small crumb of bread is yet truly bread. My mother is. And I am.

OCTOBER 23:

My mouth is just beginning to open now. Just think, in a year or so I shall be laughing and later talking. I know what my first word will be: MAMA.

OCTOBER 25:

My heart began to beat today all by itself. From now on it shall gently beat for the rest of my life without ever stopping to rest! And after many years it will tire. It will stop, and then I shall die.

NOVEMBER 2:

I am growing a bit every day. My arms and legs are beginning to take shape. But I have to wait a long time yet before those little legs will raise me to my mother’s arms, before these little arms will be able to gather flowers and embrace my father.

NOVEMBER 12:

Tiny fingers are beginning to form on my hands. Funny how small they are! I’ll be able to stroke my mother’s hair with them.

NOVEMBER 20:

It wasn’t until today that the doctor told mom that I am living here under her heart. Oh, how happy she must be! Are you happy, mom?

NOVEMBER 25:

My mom and dad are probably thinking about a name for me. But they don’t even know that I am a little girl. I want to be called Kathy. I am getting so big already.

DECEMBER 10:

My hair is growing. It is smooth and bright and shiny. I wonder what kind of hair mom has?

DECEMBER 13:

I am just about able to see. It is dark around me. When mom brings me into the world it will be full of sunshine and flowers. But what I want more than anything is to see my mom. How do you look, mom?

DECEMBER 24:

I wonder if mom hears the whispering of my heart? Some children come into the world a little sick. But my heart is strong and healthy. It beats so evenly: tup-tup, tup-tup. You’ll have a healthy little daughter, mom!

DECEMBER 28:

Today my mother killed me.

​—Anonymous