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Ryan Bomberger, chief creative officer and co-founder of The Radiance Foundation, a faith-based 501c3 educational nonprofit, appreciates the sacredness of life at every stage — and in a recent phone interview with Fox News Digital in this New Year, he shared a pro-life message and personal perspective that are not often heard across today's media landscape.
The month of January is National Sanctity of Human Life Month (also called Celebration of Life Month). It offers the chance for reflection on the value of all life and of all children — including the unborn.
Bomberger, who is adopted, praised the parents who took him into their home years ago and embraced him as their own. "My mom and my dad are the most amazing people I’ve known," he said.
He added that his "birth mom experienced the horror and violence of rape" — and that he, Bomberger, is the product of that rape. He is grateful, he said, to have been given the chance at life and to have been welcomed into a loving, compassionate family that includes twelve siblings, nine of whom were adopted from neglectful, abusive, or poverty-ridden situations.
"None of us would've been better off dead," he said. "We're better off loved."
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In January 1984, President Ronald Reagan issued the first proclamation marking the third Sunday of January as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. Calling the right to life "the first of our unalienable rights" and "endowed by our Creator," Reagan specifically chose the anniversary of Roe V. Wade — Jan. 22, 1973 — to celebrate the sacredness of life at all stages. This year's Sanctity of Human Life Day is two weeks from now — on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022.
Ryan Bomberger of The Radiance Foundation in northern Virginia. He praises his "loving, compassionate" parents who adopted him and gave him a home and a chance. He told Fox News Digital, "Faith shapes the way I think and the way I create." (The Radiance Foundation)
The foundation Bomberger co-founded shares pro-life articles and videos via its website; produces a podcast, "Life Has Purpose"; and holds an array of events that share the message of life's preciousness as well as the profound costs of abortion to society.
"Faith shapes the way that I think and the way I create," said Bomberger. "Instead of joining our culture today in looking through the broken lens of race, the broken lens of class, the broken lens of ‘fill-in-the-blank’ — as a Christian, I want to look through the breakthrough filter of Christ."
"The circumstances of our conception don’t define the condition of our worth."
"I am literally the 1 percent that is used 100 percent of the time to justify abortion," he said. "I was conceived in rape, but I was adopted in love."
The Radiance Foundation spreads hopeful messages on billboards; to date it's created over 500 of them. "With these billboard campaigns, mainstream media can choose to ignore them, but people passing by them will see them. They’re exposed to them," he said. "It’s one way to circumvent those who control the narrative."
Bomberger's wife, Bethany, co-founded The Radiance Foundation along with him — and experienced dramatic circumstances herself.
Before they met, she left an abusive relationship only to learn later that she was pregnant.
At the time, "she felt a sense of shame that, as a teacher in the inner-city Philadelphia schools, she herself was in the [very] place" that she hoped her own students would not occupy, Bomberger said.
But she held firm, saw herself through the pregnancy, and gave birth to a daughter. "That little girl radically and beautifully changed her life," said Ryan Bomberger. "Her name is Radiance — we call her Rai Rai. We named the foundation after her."
The Bomberger family today includes three other siblings as well, two of whom were adopted.
The Bomberger family. Ryan and wife Bethany are in the center; their children surround them. The mainstream media really "doesn't know what to do with me," said Ryan Bomberger. "I'm brown, adopted, passionately pro-life — and I'm an adoptive father." The family believes in James 1:17: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (The Radiance Foundation)
"We all have a God-given purpose," Bomberger told Fox News Digital, "and we have inherent worth not given to us by man, woman, or governmental institution. We’re called to love one another — and when you love someone, you don’t want to see any harm come to them, whether they’re in the womb or out of the womb."
"We emphasize love over anything else," he said. "Identity politics are not going to help us regard human dignity any better — but loving one another does."
Pro-abortion groups and mainstream media really "don't know what to do with me," added Bomberger. "I’m brown, adopted, passionately pro-life — and also an adoptive father."
Ryan Bomberger speaks to a crowd during one of his events. "It matters how our elected leaders regard life," he said. (The Radiance Foundation)
Nearly a year ago, President Donald Trump issued what is, at this point, the most recent presidential proclamation about the Sanctity of Human Life — on Jan. 22, 2021 (it was Trump's fourth such proclamation while he was in the White House).
Trump affirmed that "every human life is a gift to the world. Whether born or unborn, young or old, healthy or sick, every person is made in the holy image of God."
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Official observances of the Sanctity of Human Life have been consistent during Republican administrations since 1984, but both the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations declined to issue any such proclamations. Then, in 2021, after President Joe Biden took office, the Biden administration also declined to issue a proclamation — instead affirming support for abortion rights.
"It matters how our elected leaders regard life," said Bomberger. "Think of civil rights legislation. It happened because political leaders had the spine to change the status quo."
Bomberger comes back to the personal: "I am the tangible example before their eyes of something that is easier to reject in the abstract. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to be that testament of courage of a birth mom. The circumstances of our conception don’t define the condition of our worth."
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How can each of us, in our own lives, affirm life at all stages in our local communities and neighborhoods?
Start with churches — then support pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and the women and families there who need help, Bomberger suggested. His foundation also works with college students throughout the year to share important pro-life information — which counters, he said, "the culture of death on campus."
Bomberger says he is encouraged by all others, no matter where they are, who share the passion for the sacredness of life at all stages.
"We meet warriors in Portland, Seattle, Dallas," said Bomberger, who lectures nationwide. "We may be a remnant — but the remnant is mighty."
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He said this as well: "Many may feel alone in their stand for life, especially on college and high school campuses, in their workplaces, or even at church. But courage doesn't need a crowd. It needs a conscience. And that compassionate strength changes everything."
The National March for Life takes place in Washington, D.C., this year on Jan. 21, 2022. The day after that is National Sanctity of Human Life Day, on Jan. 22, 2022.
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