Surfer and pro-life speaker Bethany Hamilton, who rose to fame after surviving a brutal shark attack as a young teenager that left her with only one arm, encourged tens of thousands of pro-life advocates at the March for Life on January 24 to “spread this message of hope” and counter the lie that “death is better than life.”
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Hamilton, 34, courageously pursued her career as a professional surfer despite her injury, and became the subject of the 2011 movie “Soul Surfer.” She is now a wife and mother of four and a public pro-life speaker.
During her five-minute address at the 52nd annual March for Life, she said “God has called us to protect life and to love our neighbor.”
“When I lost my arm, someone came alongside me and gave me hope,” she said. “They reminded me of God’s love and that maybe there was more to my life than I knew was possible.”
The fear she felt when grappling with the reality of her injury and what it may mean for her future, she said, was unexpectedly similar to the fear she felt when she became pregnant with her first baby.
“I remember the first moment when I had my very first pregnancy test,” Hamilton shared. “I had a similar fear. I didn’t think I could do it. I don’t know where that came from. I came from a great family, a Christian household. I was married to a wonderful man. And all the sudden I was rejecting this God-given gift and beauty that was only a blessing.”
“I had all the support in the world to bring this life, but imagine the woman who doesn’t have the support?” she continued. “She’s struggling to have hope. She is fed with lies that tell her she can’t do it, and that life has no value. She’s scared. She’s alone. She’s overwhelmed. She feels like her life is upside down. She’s being told that death is better than life.”
But the truth, she said, is that “children are true wealth, and they are truly the greatest blessing that God has to offer us.”
Hamilton encouraged this “generation of young men to come alongside and do the right thing” to support women in choosing life.
“Let us send a message of hope and love to the moms and mothers to be, and to the fathers, that they too can say to themselves: I don’t need easy. I just need possible,” she said.
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