From Madonna, Common, and the Goo Goo Dolls, to the Cranberries, Shakira, and Our Lady Peace, many of our favorite bands capture and convey the truth of abortion–its pain, its taking of a life, its ultimate consequence. These songs have a way of healing wounds we are still working to close. Pass them along; use them to help people understand!
“MIRACLE” BY WHITNEY HOUSTON
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
Nothing should matter
Not when love grows inside you
The choice is yours
There’s a miracle in store
Nothing should matter
Not when love grows inside you
A voice of love is crying out
Don’t throw love away
There’s a miracle in store
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY” BY FLIPSYDE
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
Choosing our life over your life meant your death
And you never got a chance to even open your eyes
Sometimes I wonder as a fetus if you faught for your life?…
My vision of a family was artificial and fake
So when it came time to create I made a mistake…
And from the heavens to the womb to the heavens again
From the endin’ to the endin’, never got to begin
Maybe one day we could meet face to face?
In a place without time and space
Happy birthday…
“BLACK BALLOON” BY THE GOO GOO DOLLS
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
I saw the world spin beneath you
And scatter like ice from the spoon
That was your womb…
What’s the things they never showed you
That swallowed the light from the sun
“SE QUIERE, SE MATA” BY SHAKIRA
Read lyrics (English translation) | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
You’ll only go far from home
oh oh oh
For having brought another inhabitant
to join this rotted city
where something isn’t wanted, it’s killed….it’s killed
“RETROSPECT FOR LIFE” BY COMMON
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
Yo we gotta start respectin life more y’all
You look at your brother man you gotta see yourself
Gotta see the God within him…
Knowin you the best part of life do I have the right to take yours…
Instead I lead you to death
I’m sorry for takin your first breath, first step, and first cry
“STEALING BABIES” BY OUR LADY PEACE
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
You’re leaving pieces of family
How are you going to help them understand
I’m screaming while you’re stealing babies
Why do you want to knock us down again
“PAPA DON’T PREACH” BY MADONNA
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
You always taught me right from wrong
I need your help, daddy please be strong
I may be young at heart
But I know what I’m saying
But I made up my mind, I’m keeping my baby
“ICICLE MELTS” BY THE CRANBERRIES
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
How, how could you hurt the child,
How could you hurt the child?
Now, does this make you satisfied,
Satisfied, satisfied?
I don’t know what’s happening to people today,
When a child, child, child, child, he was taken away.
There’s a place for the baby that died,
And there’s time for the mother who cried.
“SLIDE” BY THE GOO GOO DOLLS
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
Don’t you love the life you killed
The priest is on the phone
…May put your arms around me
What you feel is what you are
And what you are is beautiful
May do you wanna get married
Or run away
“THE FRESHMAN” BY THE VERVE PIPE
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
When I was young I knew everything
She a punk who rarely ever took advice
Now I’m guilt stricken, sobbing with my head on the floor
Stop a baby’s breath and a shoe full of rice
“THE CALL” BY MATT KENNON
[Kennon was nearly aborted but instead adopted]
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
When the nurse asked how far along are you
She said 5 weeks and just about then
Her phone lite up and his call came in
He said baby I was wrong about everything
I’ve already bought you a diamond ring
We’re gonna start a life, would you be my wife?
“UNBORN CHILD” BY SEALS AND CROFTS
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
Only knew just what your momma was plannin’ to do.
You’re still a-clingin’ to the tree of life, but soon you’ll be cut off
before you get ripe. Oh unborn child, beginning to
grow inside your momma, but you’ll never know. Oh
tiny bud, that grows in the womb, only to be
crushed before you can bloom.
Mama stop! Turn around, go back, think it over.
Now stop, turn around, go back, think it over.
Stop, turn around, go back think it over.
Oh no momma, just let it be. You’ll never regret
it, just wait and see. Think of all the great ones
who gave everything That we might have life here,
so please bear the pain
“TO ZION” BY LAUREN HILL
[Autobiographical account about her own child, Zion, whom she almost aborted]
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
I touched my belly overwhelmed
by what I had been chosen to perform
But then an angel came one day
Told me to kneel down and pray
for unto me a man child would be born
Woe this crazy circumstance
I knew his life deserved a chance
but everybody told me to be smart
“Look at your career ” they said,
“Lauryn baby use your head.”
But instead I chose to use my heart
“TOMORROW” BY MATT KEARNEY
Read lyrics | Watch on YouTube
EXCERPT:
Because two came together so strong one night
And two wrongs don’t make one right
Giving a voice to the voiceless saying it’s choiceless’
Cause they’re priceless my princess…
I feel the kicks and the churns give me a turn
And a shot at this world to fight the fight
To beat my plight and let my light shine
In this dark time with all its ways of wearing crime
And let this world drown in these ultrasounds
Hearing this heart beats speak sweet so profound…
Les Miserables this ain’t no miserable daughter
Calling you Cossette ’cause God will be your father
