I am going to share an experience that may inform some people as to why I am not voting red this election season.

Two and a half years ago, when Tim and I were on the application list for adoption through DHS, they asked us to be on the backup emergency foster home list. We had been waiting for ten months because the number workers doing home studies had been reduced to 1.5 positions for the entire state of Oregon. Since we had passed our criminal background checks, we were given six-month emergency certification.

Suddenly, we started getting these emails about desperate situations—two little boys, twin babies, a three-set of siblings, and a well-behaved teenager. None of them seemed to fit our situation. Then one Friday afternoon before Presidents Day, we got a call. Two little girls aged five and almost two had been dropped off at the county office an hour before the three-day weekend. Please, they asked, can they just stay the weekend? Eliana was five at the time, so we said, yes.

Thirty minutes later, a social worker pulled up and unloaded them and two shopping bags of clothes on our porch. She briefly toured the house while telling us what she knew. The mom who struggled with drug problems was missing and grandma was overwhelmed. Apparently they also had a baby brother.

Then the worker was gone. We didn’t even know the girls’ last names. Not that we needed to, but it was all so abrupt. First, the oldest could hardly speak, she kind of grunted and pointed to what she needed or wanted. At five, she still wore a diaper to bed, and sometimes wet herself in the day as well. I had to move her from the bedroom to the living room so her crying at night didn’t wake the other children. One day, she got so frustrated she tore a shelf right off the wall bringing some of the drywall with it. Was it emotional stunting, fetal alcohol syndrome or just repeated trauma? Who knows? Both girls clung to Tim and I most of the time and hardly even took notice of Eliana. We celebrated the two-year-old’s birthday.

Dropping them off at Sunday school proved a challenge because they didn’t want to be separated and the workers insisted that they go to their age-appropriate classrooms. In the parking lot, a nosy woman loudly and repeatedly asked Tim and I why two of the children didn’t look like us. Why? Because people can be ignorant, even at church.

The girls stayed with us until Tuesday and then the DHS worker called and they were gone within the hour. We didn’t hear anything about them again until this year when I received a notice from the court. All, now four, children were being officially surrendered by their guardians to the state.

This is just a glimpse of the foster care system in our state. It’s constantly underfunded and overwhelmed. When Christians declare their position against abortion, but fail to appropriately fund social services, drug rehabilitation, child care or health care, they’re just creating a sustained source of suffering. Having a moral stance that is unwilling to deal with real life is not enough. Being pro-life requires us to make long-term changes in our society to not only save lives, but make the world a safe and healthy place for those lives to grow up in.