(Oregon Right to Life) — Seventeen, homeless, and pregnant, Janice Moss never saw abortion as a liberation from difficult circumstances, but as something that was being forced on her against her will. When her scheduled abortion was unexpectedly cancelled, she regarded it as a miracle. Decades later, with a thriving family and a successful life, she has no regrets about choosing life.
Born in Alameda, California in 1955, Moss’s early years were anything but ideal.
“I had a really rough childhood, and I was on my own at 16, doing a lot of hitchhiking,” she told Oregon Right to Life in a Tuesday phone interview. She suffered physical abuse as a young girl and twice attempted to take her own life. Her best friend was struck by a car and killed when she was just seven years old. Two months after that, her stepfather died.
Throughout her growing up years, her family was unstable, moving every few years – from the projects in Oakland, California, to Washington State and numerous stops in between, Moss never truly had a place to call home. As a teenager, she hitchhiked from Oregon back to California, where she found a place to stay with “a step step cousin.”
“It was pretty much a drug house, which I wasn’t aware of,” she said. “I know there were thirteen people living in this three bedroom, two bath house.”
It was during her time at this residence that she became involved in a relationship with one of the young men living there. A few months later, a neighbor – a mom of three who was ten years older than Moss – stopped by. During her visit, she shared a startling observation.
“She comes over and she says, ‘Janice, you’re pregnant,’” Moss recalled. “And I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ She said, ‘Yeah, you’re pregnant.’”
Though Moss was in denial, she agreed to her neighbor’s request to give her a urine sample that she could take to a Los Angeles clinic for testing. When her neighbor returned, she shared the results:
“You need to take prenatal vitamins,” she said.
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Working at a restaurant and fortunate if she could eat once a day, Moss felt ill-equipped to carry a baby. And the father, who had recently returned from a trip across the country, didn’t take the news well.
“It’s not my baby,” Moss said he told her, even though she hadn’t been involved with anyone else. She reached out for help to a relative, but was bluntly encouraged to get an abortion.
“I didn’t have any choices, so I went ahead and made the appointment to have the abortion done,” Moss shared. “I didn’t want to have it done, but I made the appointment.”
The night before the abortion, she found herself alone in the house – an unusual occurrence. Though she hadn’t been raised with a strong faith, she remembered hearing about God when she was a small child. That night, she called out to Him in anguished prayer.
“I just yelled at Him in my tears,” she told Oregon Right to Life. “I said, ‘I was told that You would always love me. Well, where are You?’”
The next morning, she arrived at the abortion facility for her appointment.
“I keep going, ‘I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this,’” she said. But every second brought her closer and closer to a procedure she knew she didn’t want and would never be able to undo.
“Now I’m in a room, and I know that I’m the next person to go in,” she recalled. That’s when the door opened and she was told: “We can’t do the procedure today.”
According to the abortion facility employee, Moss’s abortion had been authorized through welfare. The facility needed to contact the welfare office for confirmation before carrying out the procedure. But, unbeknownst to Moss, that day happened to be a holiday, and the welfare office was closed. The abortion couldn’t take place.
Looking back, Moss said she sees that unexpected roadblock as a miracle that saved her baby’s life.
She never went back to the abortion facility. The neighbor who had first noticed her pregnancy came alongside her, even supplying her with a bus ticket to Oregon – where she had family – and a spot at a Salvation Army home in Portland for women facing unsupported pregnancies.
Finally safe and receiving help, Moss marvelled at the life growing within her.
“I talked to him all the time, rubbed my belly, and I said, ‘Look, I don’t have a lot to offer you, but what I do have to offer you is love, and I will never let you down. I will never desert you, I will never beat you,” she said. “I will always protect you, and I hope that that will be enough.”
On Father’s Day, 1973, she gave birth to her baby: a strong, healthy boy (even though she’d been sure she would have a girl) she named Lee Michael. She decided she wouldn’t give Lee up for adoption, but would raise him herself. She began renting an apartment owned by a kind widow, providing her a safe place just for herself and her newborn baby.
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Soon after getting settled in, Moss’s younger sister invited her to an event in McMinnville referred to as “dragging the gut,” in which young people cruised their cars up and down the main street as a way to show off and socialize. That’s where she met a young man named Cal, sparking a friendship that would turn romantic months later when he kissed her at a New Year’s Eve party in Amity as the clock counted down the final minutes of 1973.
“I had never been kissed that way before. It was like sparklers and skyrockets and everything,” she said. They began dating, and that’s when Cal shared something that Moss chalked up to one more thing “that only God could orchestrate.”
“My middle name is Lee, and I always said that if I ever had a son, I would name him Lee,” Moss said Cal told her. The two married in 1975 and are still married today – 50 years later.
Moss’ life in those decades explodes the myths perpetrated by pro-abortion activists that a young girl like her – a homeless teen with a history of abuse – needs abortion to be freed from difficult life circumstances.
Moss and her husband went on to have two more children. They started a business in specialized medical equipment, seeing it grow into a nationally recognized company and even working with the Portland Trail Blazers and the Seattle SuperSonics, among others. At age 30, having been unable to complete high school as a teenager, she earned her GED.
“I only did it then, because the kids were getting higher up in school, and I didn’t want them to think that I was not intelligent,” she joked. Thanks to their business success, Moss and her husband were able to help their kids pay for some of their college education, while teaching them to budget and make wise choices with their own money.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing: they endured tragedy when their youngest, a daughter, passed away at age 20 of a rare and aggressive cancer. But as committed Christians, Moss said she and her husband “have a very strong walk with the Lord.”
“I’ve been so blessed to be used by the Lord to bring others to Him,” she said. “He’s our only hope, as far as I’m concerned.”
In her own family life, Moss said she made a deliberate choice to give her children the kind of childhood she wished she’d had. “I wanted them to grow up and feel secure,” she said. “I always had the attitude that there is nothing you can’t do.”
That optimistic message took root powerfully in her oldest son, whose own story shatters the callous mistruths often repeated by abortion advocates about the predicted quality of life for babies conceived in less-than-ideal circumstances.
Today, Lee routinely travels the nation as the president and CEO of a fast-growing company. He has found significant personal success. But he doesn’t take all the credit for himself.
Several years ago, on Mother’s Day, Moss’s daughter-in-law said, “Don’t you know that Lee talks about you all over the nation?”
Moss was surprised. But Lee explained that he’s often asked how he became the president and CEO of his company without even a bachelor’s degree to his name. Whenever he’s asked that question, he always tells the story: “Well, it started with a 17-year-old girl, unmarried, who chose to give me life.”
