The theme of this moment—this generation—is clear: Make Your Voice Heard.
For better and worse, people want to be heard. So much so, the noise can be deafening. Everyone is talking, but is anybody listening?! For me, being heard is a very personal thing. I’ve spent my entire life learning how to use my voice—on television, in boardrooms, on stages, and in ministry. I have always been a truth seeker, and when I find what I believe are deep truths, I am compelled to share them. To make my voice heard.
If you are like me, then I’m telling you now: this is our moment—not just to speak louder, but to speak smarter, bolder, and with holy conviction. Some of you may know a little of my story. I became the first African-American woman to host a network late-night talk show on NBC. Not because I fit the mold or came from power, but because God gave me a voice and told me to use it. Be warned: When you use your voice for truth in today’s world, you will be attacked, labeled, and misunderstood. But here’s what I’ve learned: when you stop being afraid to speak, God starts doing miracles through you.
I was recently asked to be the Keynote Speaker at the National Right to Life Conference. The invitation surprised me because I have never been an active pro-lifer per se. I consider myself pro-life, but I have also been pro-choice, recognizing that many women don’t share my faith or my convictions and experiences when dealing with this issue.
I believe in keeping babies, not ending pregnancies. However, I also understand that many women don’t know what to do when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. And while this issue of life is now a no-brainer for me, there was a time when it wasn’t. So, how can I judge women who are not where I am today regarding their own journey from pro-abortion to pro-life?
I have struggled for years with this issue, not as it relates to a choice to keep a child when you feel you can’t, or shouldn't, or don’t want to, but as it relates to the many women and situations out there who face the choice daily. I love my sisters who may be lost in all kinds of situations and mindsets different from what I believe in my core to be right. I don’t want to judge them or shame them. I want to support them and share the truth with them in a way that involves hearing them out. It’s easy to think the battle is only political—that it’s just about laws, court cases, and elections. But I want to go deeper—deeper than policy, deeper than divisive soundbites, and deeper even than the abortion debate itself.
Because abortion is not the root. It’s the fruit. And if we don’t confront the root—which is all the lies we’ve believed about sex, identity, freedom, and power—then we’ll keep fighting symptoms instead of healing the sickness. And we will keep fighting each other when we need to be helping, hearing, and loving each other. That’s why I wrote my book, The Naked Truth: Reclaiming Sexual Freedom in a Culture of Lies. Because until we reclaim the sacredness of sex, we will never fully reclaim the sacredness of life.
The Culture War Starts with the Body
The reason why I have such empathy for the woman who makes a strong pro-choice stand is because I understand the depth of the lies culture has sold us to sell each other. We live in a culture that has devalued the human body, especially the female body. It tells women their worth lies in their desirability. That casual sex is empowerment. That being wanted sexually is the same as being loved. Then, when that same culture leaves a woman used, alone, and pregnant, it offers her a solution: “Get rid of the problem.” But we all know—the child is not the problem.
If you’ve ever loved a child who came into your family through an unplanned pregnancy, then you know—the child is a blessing. The real problem is that we’ve severed sex from love, commitment, covenant, and God. We’ve stripped it of its sacredness. And when sex becomes casual, life becomes expendable.
If Sex is Casual, Life Is Expendable
Let’s follow the logic.
-When sex is entertainment, abortion becomes birth control.
-When sex is identity, abortion becomes a backup plan.
This is why we must go upstream in our discussion. We can’t fight abortion without talking about why it’s happening. And, we can’t fix what we won’t name. And what we don’t want to name - won’t name—especially in the Church—is sin. The sin that leads to abortion is the root cause of every other sin. The unsacred, disrespectful, messy use of sex. The church is on par with secular culture on this one, folks! We’ve embraced the same messy, compromised, unsacred abuses of sex and plunged ourselves into a new world of sin rather than Holiness..
We have a problem with casual sex—sex outside of covenant, sex without regard for God’s design. It exists in the culture and within the Church, among young people, adults, non-believers, and believers, who have sacrificed truth for comfort and pleasure. Simply put, sex was created by God for the marriage bed. It’s a gift. It’s powerful. And it comes with consequences when misused. The main, nasty, murderous consequence of using sex casually is abortion. What is the root of this crisis?
We must change how we view sex in order to change how we see ourselves, love ourselves, and appreciate life when it begins inside us. A change in our understanding of truth will transform our minds and soften our hearts. When hearts are changed, abortion becomes unthinkable. I know this from experience. My heart changed, and I cried for two years once I understood the actual truth of my actions. My entire paradigm shifted toward sex, myself, and life in general. When every individual transforms on this issue, laws follow, if they are even needed at all.
Culture Doesn’t Shift by Argument, it Shifts by Witness
Culture on the left in this issue has been used to make abortion look compassionate. To make casual sex look empowering. And, to make traditional values look like hate. But they didn’t do it through debate. They did it through a story. Through the media. Through relentless messaging. And we who understand a few things about the choice for life must do the same.
We must reclaim the narrative—not with fear, but with truth. Not with shame, but with love. We must show others the love in our stories. Love teaches our daughters that our bodies are not tools—they’re temples, that men were created to protect us, not consume us, and that purity is power. Love shows us the many ways that boundaries are about freedom. When our lives reflect these truths, we become a threat to every agenda that justifies abortion.
Reclaiming Holiness in a Culture of Lies
The world has skillfully shifted the conversation so that perversion is seen as identity, abortion is regarded as healthcare, and death is viewed as freedom. Meanwhile, those who are pro-life have stayed stuck in language that alienates rather than unifies.
We do not lose culture because we’re wrong. We lose because we’ve allowed others to define our message. Our message is defined as hateful, judgmental, and anything but Holy. We don’t need to change our movement—we’re on the side of Truth. We just need to re-message our movement. We need to speak with clarity, compassion, and conviction in a way that reflects our love.
We need to speak to Jesus. Because He’s the only one who offers hope with power and love with healing. He is the example of Holiness that we all need, yet until we understand that He is the only hope a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy needs, we will continue to offer what often looks like hate, judgment, and anger to the women on the other side.
Behind every abortion is a story that started long before the pregnancy. If we want to stop the ending, we must rewrite the beginning. The beginning starts with growing up understanding the lies culture tosses our way daily. We need to educate ourselves about those lies in order to change a generation's decision-making process.
Teach Yourself First, Then the Next Generation
Before we can teach our sons and daughters identity, we must teach ourselves identity. We must unlearn the lies that tell us we have to give sex to get love, that our voice doesn’t matter, and that truth is judgment. I knew it wasn’t just a book when I wrote The Naked Truth. It’s a mirror. It’s a call to look at our story through God’s eyes, to let Him redeem our past and empower our future.
When women walk in truth, children are protected. When women know who they are, abortion loses its grip. There are women across this country who have no idea who they are in Christ. It’s time we tell them. It’s time we see them, love them, and invite them back into the sacred.
This War Is Spiritual
This isn’t just a political issue. It’s spiritual warfare. For far too long, Culture has told our young people:
-“Your feelings define you.”
-“Sex is freedom.”
-“Pregnancy is punishment.”
But here’s the truth:
-You are not your desires. You are God’s design.
-Freedom isn’t the absence of rules—it’s the presence of purpose.
We don’t win this war by yelling louder. We win by teaching better. By living holy. By speaking boldly. We must be the voice that says:
-“Your body is not a battlefield. It’s a temple.”
-“You are not a mistake. You were made in the image of God.”
-“Sex is holy. And when you treat it as holy, you walk in wholeness.”
Make Your Voice Heard
This is the moment. Not to wait. Not to whisper. Not to bow. Make. Your. Voice. Heard. Speak the truth in your home. In your church. On your campus. In your city. Speak it with your words—and with your life. You don’t need a platform. You need obedience. You don’t need a mic. You need boldness. Because someone’s freedom is waiting on your bravery.
We were born for this moment. How do I know? Because here we are. We are in a moment in History where it’s necessary to reclaim the sacred. To fight for life. To tell the truth in a culture that has forgotten what truth sounds like. You are not too broken, you are not too late, and you are exactly who God wants to use.
Let us be the generation that makes abortion unthinkable—because we made the sacred visible again. And as my friend Kathie Lee Gifford reminded me just before I left to speak at the Conference:
“We have to remember to love. Hate shuts the door to transformation because hate sounds like hell, not heaven. And love is still God’s most powerful strategy. I can’t hate somebody I’ve just prayed for, honey. And love cannot live where hate does—ever.”
That’s it. That’s the message. Let’s go live it.
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Omar Lopez
Cynthia Garrett broke barriers when she became the first African American woman in the U.S. to host a network late-night show, NBC’s Later with Cynthia Garrett. She is currently seen on TBN and Salem Media networks, as well as on Fox News and other news outlets, addressing cultural issues and today’s news. The Cynthia Garrett Podcasts premiere weekly on all major podcast platforms.
A highly sought-after speaker, author, TV host, and ordained minister, Garrett is the author of The Naked Truth: Reclaiming Sexual Freedom in a Culture of Lies (2024), I Choose Victory: Moving from Victim to Victor (2020), and Prodigal Daughter: A Journey Home to Identity (2016). For more information, visit www.cynthiagarrett.org
