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Shannon Williams, a first-year medical student at the University of Cape Town (UCT), this week shared a part of her life story that she has never disclosed publicly before — about a decision her parents took when she was in her mother’s womb “that’s the only reason I am here today”.
Speaking in a video clip [see below] made at a stand on campus manned by pro-life awareness group Students For Life (SFL) she said when she was a preborn baby of about three months a doctor told her parents she was a high-risk Downs Syndrome child and gave them the option to abort her. She said she was grateful they decided to love her any way.
Williams, of Cape Town, who says she gave her life to Christ at a school Christian camp three years ago, told Gateway News she loves to share the Gospel, but until this week had never publicly shared the story of her parents’ life-giving decision on her behalf.
Her parents had been trying to have a baby for seven or eight years and had all but give up when her mother fell pregnant with her, she said. When the doctors offered her parents the chance to abort her, they responded that they had been trying to have a child for so long that they were happy to receive her whatever way she was born.
“And by the grace of God I came out the way I am and now I am at UCT and I am quite grateful they did not abort,” she said.
A spokesman for SFL which has been on campus this week, raising awareness about protecting the right to life of the unborn, said Williams came across their stand and agreed to share her testimony which they then published on their Facebook page.
SFL has been taking a stand for the sanctity of life at UCT since 1993. In recent years the organisation has faced resistance from abortion advocates including the dismantling of their stand in 2017, stealing and destruction of pamphlets and posters, slander, threats and disruption of conversations. According to SFL, university security have frequently failed to take action against disrupters.
But SFL has continued to be a voice for a voiceless on campus by running abortion awareness campaigns for students and staff. It has also stood up for the rights of people such as SRC vice-chair Zizipho Pae who suffered harassment, threats and vandalism for her stand for marriage in 2015, and for pro-life doctor Jacques de Vos who has been denied the right to practice medicine for two years by the Health Professions Council of South Africa because he tried to save the life of a 19 week unborn baby from abortion.
UCT students who would like to join SFL may sign up online at https://studentsforlife.co.za/signup/