Pro-Life Pop Star

I know nothing about this guy - had never heard of him before - but I was impressed by an article I read about him on Fox News.  Listen to this comment from Brad Fischetti:

“I grew up Catholic, and during the LFO days, at the beginning, I was definitely the one that led prayer for each show and always had a bible with me, but my life did not revolve around faith like it does today. I did reach a point where I lost my faith, that was the peak of LFO days, and it was a long journey back to it,” Fischetti said. “If you believe in God you have to believe in the devil, and believe there is a daily battle for your soul. I try my best today to live as a good a life as I possibly could.”





Fischetti is being blasted for his pro-life stance.  As the article below shows, he is well aware that he's in front of a media firing squad.  Yet he's willing to take a stand and deal with the consequences.  I may have to look this guy up!  Anyway, read the following.  The emphasis is my own.

 Brad Fischetti, a singer with the popular '90s boy band LFO, caused a media stir earlier this year following a series of tweets stemming from his personal experiences at abortion clinics. 


The musician used the microblogging site to tweet “50 girls waiting to have abortions at this one clinic today. Please pray for a softening of hearts,” and “the abortionist just arrived. Look him up on your phone (followed by the doctor’s name.)”


“All of a sudden I was bashed in the media with people telling me I was going to hell, that I am a dirt bag and I should be ashamed of myself. It’s almost humorous that people find it so hard to believe that someone who used to be famous could actually have strong convictions about something," Fischett told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column. "Most people in the limelight try their best to stay in the middle and not make anyone mad."


Fischetti said he has deeply held religious beliefs and is just trying to help the women at the clinics.


"I don’t judge them; sometimes I don’t even talk to them. I just go down there to pray," he explained.


...


Fischetti told us his involvement does not stop at the clinics, and said he's helping one pregnant young woman whose boyfriend threatened to kill her if she did not terminate her pregnancy.


“She was two weeks past the legal limit in Florida and the clinic tried to send her to their secret clinic in Washington D.C. that will practically do abortions all the way until the last day,” he claimed. “She had a change of heart and asked me to help her. She had three kids, pregnant with no money, no beds. We are helping her pay rent and bought beds for the kids. It is just heart-wrenching.”



 Check this out!  I just looked him up on LifeNews.com, and found some amazing stuff.  He's a sidewalk counselor at the Orlando Women’s Center abortion clinic in Florida.  His pro-life testimony shows that he is morally strong, orthodox, and has a good head on his shoulders.  It's refreshing to see such a man - and a Fulton Sheen quote in his testimony is an added plus!  May I also add, he's quite a decent writer.

Brad Fischetti’s pro-life testimony


I look back now and regret having such a serious platform but not using  it.

With LFO I was out there and recognizable, selling millions of records and playing in front of tens of thousands of people, but I didn’t have strong convictions about anything. I wasn’t able to stand up about anything that was really important to me.

Don’t get me wrong, when we were on top of the world I was very spiritual. I was baptized Catholic, and I grew up Catholic. I carried my Bible around with me on the road and lead prayers before concerts. As a group we were very spiritual.  But over the course of time, witnessing the horrible things that occur in this world, I could tell I was slowly losing my faith.

Then one day sometime in 2000-2001 I heard a terrible story about young boys getting kidnapped near their house by devil worshipers. Their genitals were mutilated and they were murdered. I decided right then that if there was a God, He wouldn’t let that happen. 

And so I stopped believing.  I stopped praying, stopped reading my Bible, and just lived without faith. I didn’t work against those who believed, I just didn’t.  And my life seemingly continued to go well.  (Later I discovered that “things of this world” can never satisfy the human heart.)

I lived without a faith for two or three years.

U-Turn


Then one summer I decided to take a handful of my bands from my record label, 111 Records, on a tour. We rented a big RV and hooked a trailer to the back of it. One of the girls touring with us had cancer. It was a slow moving cancer and didn’t effect her daily life too much.

But one night she starting having difficulty breathing and couldn’t feel her hands, and I rushed her to the closest ER. We were in a little town in upstate New York in the middle of nowhere, and the hospital was very small. The ER doctor wanted to send the surgeons down to operate to remove the tumor then and there, but I said no way.  I told the doctor I would drive her to her cancer hospital, which was about seven hours away.   The doc gave her weak pain killers and sent us on our way.

I started driving the RV. It was late at night, raining, and we were in the mountains with slick roads and fog all around us. I felt like I was already dead, already gone.

I took a wrong turn trying to find a gas station.  I drove miles and miles down this two-lane road looking for a place to make a u-turn.  Finally I happened upon a state police station.  So I pulled in and attempted the u-turn, when suddenly the RV got stuck on a flat boulder.  So here I was at three o’clock in the morning, in the pouring rain, stuck, with this girl in the back of the RV in pain.

And so I stepped out into the rain.  I looked up to the sky.   And I prayed. It was the first time in years.  And I said, “God, if you can get me out of this I will never again turn my back to You.”

And yes, I got the RV unstuck and got the girl to her hospital. This was a pivotal moment in my conversion. But it didn’t happen overnight.

Grains of rice


Before my conversion I didn’t like abortion, but it didn’t effect me. It was just grains of rice being aborted, I thought.

But my faith became supremely important to me, and through that the abortion picture became  clearer.

And when you learn, when you get to know what really happens in an abortion, it becomes atrocious.

I didn’t ask for this seemingly newfound platform.  And it’s hard to understand why people care so much about what I have to say when there are so many others who have fought longer and harder for the pro-life movement than I.  But if God is calling me to use what little platform I have left to help educate people, to help people understand what abortion really is, then – “Here I am Lord.  I come to do Your will.”

Many people don’t really know what happens in an abortion. Rarely is a girl only a couple of weeks pregnant.  Most women don’t find out they are pregnant until they are four or five or six weeks along.  And then they spend time trying to decide if they want an abortion, and by the time they get to the clinic, they are 12 or 13 or 14 weeks pregnant.  Their babies have fingers and toes. 

And at the clinic in Orlando I’ve seen girls 24 weeks pregnant have abortions done.  And I’ve seen girls who are up to 30 weeks pregnant referred to the clinic owner’s secret abortion facility in the DC area, where he will abort babies well past 30 weeks of pregnancy!

The “pro-choice” concept is ludicrous. It makes no sense to me. “Pro-choice” is the choice to have sex or not to have sex.  And, yes, I do realize that a small number of abortions are performed on women who have been raped or are victims of incest.  And those crimes are as despicable as abortion. 

But abortion is not the answer.  We should not punish the baby for the sins of the father.  And further, in a situation like that, the woman has already been violated enough.  An abortion will just serve to violate her further. 

Bodies


I saw the “Bodies” exhibit in Las Vegas. They had a whole display on fetal development, and it was astounding how developed a baby is early in pregnancy. That’s when it dawned on me that abortion is not right under any circumstances. I believe a baby is a gift from God, and abortion is an atrocious sin and not acceptable under any circumstances.

I further believe when abortion was legalized it was never intended to be what it has become: Men who call themselves doctors go inside a woman’s womb and tear babies apart – or deliver them dead – or sometimes alive. It’s disgusting.

I really don’t care what people think of my stance against abortion. I may lose family and friends. But I am obligated to speak the truth. If I have a platform of 500 or 5,000, my job is to speak the truth. We have God on our side, and eventually abortion will be a sad chapter in our history. 

Just because abortion is legal does not make it right.  There was a time in this country when denying a woman the right to vote was legal.  Was it right?  No.  There was a time in this country when slavery was legal.  Was it right?  No way.  To quote the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen, “Legality does not equal morality.”

Although I regret not having stronger convictions when I had a platform, I wouldn’t change anything.  I am content with who I am and where I am.

I haven’t read what the other side is saying about me right now, but I don’t care and I don’t judge them or anyone.  I only want people to know the truth, and I only want to help.  And I’m content doing so in my little bubble in Orlando, Florida.  But if God calls me to take a larger role, I will do His will.

I’m a man, I’m a father, I’m a Christian, I’m a human, and I’m pro-life.

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