Dr. Coleman Boyd, a longtime physician and Christian anti-abortion activist, is the father of thirteen children, nine of whom were born to him and his wife and four of whom were adopted.
When a bill to establish equal protection for preborn babies was debated in Georgia last week, he brought his almost two-year-old daughter, Hadassah, from their home in Mississippi to the hearing in Atlanta, contending that the legislation should be passed to save children like her.
That is because Hadassah was conceived in rape by a thirteen-year-old mother who chose life for her daughter. Boyd told state lawmakers in Georgia that the life of his little girl was worth protecting in the same manner as every other human being who bears the image of God.
Christians resonated with the beautiful story of redemption. Jeff Durbin, a pastor at Apologia Church and the leader of End Abortion Now, shared the story on social media after the hearing.
“See her? Take a really good and long look,” Durbin commented. “Her mother is a thirteen-year old girl who was raped. See him? He’s the Christian man who convinced the girl to let her live. Then, he adopted her. Take a good look, pro-aborts. This is how you redeem an evil situation.”
But the post soon had millions of views not primarily because of Christians, but because of abortion activists insisting that Hadassah should have been murdered instead of allowed to live.
“So you condemn child rape victims to suffer, so that you can use them for content. That is disgusting,” one commenter spat at Durbin. “There is no redemption, you forced a child to go through a reminder for nine months of what was done to her every day,” another accused.
“How many kids have you adopted plank eye,” a third user asked, seeking to convict Durbin of hypocrisy. The minister and father of seven answered that he has indeed adopted three babies.
Boyd has been involved in the fight against abortion for decades, meaning he was in no way surprised at the vile reactions from abortion zealots toward his precious adopted toddler. When asked by The Sentinel for his reaction to the viral post, Boyd first referenced the words of the apostle Paul: “To the pure all things are pure. To the defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure.”
“We have been in the fight for the lives of the preborn for many years. Sadly, that causes me to fully expect the wicked to act wickedly,” Boyd said to The Sentinel. “They ask questions like ‘How many children have you adopted’ as if they really care. This is simply posturing and virtue signaling. They love death. They are going to attack anything that is good, kind, and loving in the name of Jesus. We have come to expect that and accept it as part of living for Jesus.”
Boyd was nevertheless thankful that the post from Durbin went viral over the weekend, since Boyd and his family have always known that “God wanted to use her story far behind just us.”
“Because my wife and I are very active in defending the preborn and have adopted multiple children, people frequently reach out to us when they know of someone wanting their child to be adopted,” he described. “Hadassah’s mother found out she was pregnant when she was twenty-eight weeks pregnant. She told her nurse practitioner that she wanted someone to adopt the baby. The nurse practitioner knew us so she reached out to see if we would adopt the baby.”
Beyond merely adopting Hadassah, which is the Hebrew name for Esther, the Boyd family took care of the young mother, who lived with them for several weeks and shortly after the birth.
“We spent much time talking with her birth mother as well as the birth grandmother, making sure they wanted to give her up for adoption. Our concern was that she would regret this later and we wanted to make sure she considered the weight of this. She was adamant that she wanted us to adopt her baby,” he continued. “We are still involved in her birth mother’s life. She is doing wonderful. She is such a sweet young lady. Our heart is to love her and her family in any way.”
Boyd and his wife adopted Hadassah at a challenging time since Boyd, along with five other individuals, were under federal indictment after a peaceful protest at an abortion mill in Tennessee. Justice Department attorneys under President Joe Biden prosecuted them, and Boyd was sentenced to five years of probation, while one of them received six months in prison.
President Donald Trump pardoned Boyd and nearly two dozen other anti-abortion Americans convicted of the charges under his predecessor, with twelve of the Christian activists exclusively providing The Sentinel with a letter of gratitude to the new commander-in-chief earlier this year.
Boyd added to The Sentinel that he has always wanted to meet Trump and introduce him to Hadassah, as he has often heard Trump “use rape as an excuse for abortion” in his rhetoric.
“I want him to see the reality of what his words mean,” Boyd said. “Many ladies do kill their babies, thinking that it will somehow help them heal from their rape, but it has just the opposite effect. Not only do they have to live with the hurt of being raped, they have to live with the guilt of having murdered their own child. Many other women have boldly chosen to love their babies and have seen God take an evil thing and bring good from it by the blessing of their baby.”
