It was the summer of 2012. I had just finished my freshman year at Mississippi State University and was at a very low point in my life. I was still getting over a really bad break up, questioning my major in school and future career, and felt like my life didn’t have much of a purpose. But all that was about to change.
The previous fall I had been invited by a friend to take part in a pro-life organization on my college campus. I hardly knew anything about abortion. I knew that as a Christian it was one of those religious things I was supposed to be against it because all human beings were made in the image of God and that it was wrong to take a life, and obviously abortion ended an innocent life. But other than that, I had always thought it was just a “women’s issue” that I didn’t really need to worry about. After all, I would never be in a situation where I would need to get an abortion because I was a man and had no uterus and therefore my opinion was invalid. I participated in several events and felt kind of awkward being involved but I was still interested in learning more. By the end of that school year the friend who had initially invited me to join the group graduated. I had known her most of my life and since I was still in school, she asked me if I wanted to take over for her in leading the group. I was honored to be asked, but I told her that I didn’t feel comfortable doing that.
A few weeks after school got out for summer break, two friends and I flew to the beautiful town of Manitou Springs, Colorado to attend a 2-week conference on Christian Apologetics at Summit Ministries. Before we left, my church secretary, whose daughter worked full-time at Summit, told me “make sure you talk to Mike Adams! He’s a bulldog (MSU Alum). Trust me, you’re going to love him.”
Sure enough, when he got up to speak he asked if there were any Mississippi State fans and my friends and I cheered. In his sessions he spoke about the importance of freedom of speech, particularly on college campuses. He was the first person I heard talk about Alliance Defending Freedom and all of their amazing work. Adams also spoke about the importance of freedom of speech involving pro-life work. He told us how he was originally a strong pro-abortion advocate until he saw Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s film, “The Silent Scream,” in which the former abortionist and co-founder of NARAL showed a video sonogram of an abortion being performed. Mike talked about how it gave him a clear view of what exactly abortion did and how violent it was. At this point my mind started turning. Multiple times during that two weeks I made the effort to go and talk with him one-on-one. He was super sarcastic and had a charismatic attitude. One day, we had all gone to a park and he brought his guitar and sat and started playing blues music on it — which, come to think of it now, makes perfect sense because Mississippi was the birthplace of the blues.
Also during that week I met Scott Klusendorf. He taught a session on pro-life apologetics. It was at this point that I realized that the abortion issue was actually more scientific in nature than I originally thought. I had always just assumed it was a religious or political issue but Scott helped me understand from a scientific perspective that the preborn was a unique, living, and whole human being from the moment of conception. That was a scientific fact, not a political or religious opinion. That got me thinking even more.
Due to both Adams’ and Klusendorf’s talks during those two weeks, the Lord had been working on my heart and I felt Him nudging me towards pro-life advocacy. I started to think about that offer to lead my school’s pro-life group.
One afternoon in the lobby of the Summit building I ran into Mike and we started talking. “Since you are an MSU alumni, and since you know the school and atmosphere there, I have a question. Do you think it would be wrong for a male to lead a pro-life group on a college campus?” He made some remark about MSU and then shook his head. “Absolutely not. Arguments don’t have testicles.” As he said that some of the girls around us started giggling and he kind of looked embarrassed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” He paused, looked around, and then shook his head again.
“You know what? No. I’m not sorry. I meant that. Arguments don’t have testicles. Anybody can debate anything. Just because you have certain body parts or lack certain body parts doesn’t mean you are disqualified from having a debate or arguing for a certain position. After all, if you think about it, almost half of all those who are victims in abortion are males. Millions of males have died due to abortion.”
As strange as that conversation was, it was the final thing which made the light bulb go on for me. That’s when I realized: “I am going to do this. I am going to fight for the preborn.”
A few days later I texted my friend and asked her if she had found anybody to replace her as the president of that organization since she graduated. She said she hadn’t found anyone and asked again if I wanted to. “I think I am supposed to,” I told her. She then told me the position was mine. I was excited but I needed to do more research before I dove into the deep waters of campus activism. I promptly went and told Mike about the decision I made and thanked him for his previous encouragement. I can’t exactly remember what he said, but I believe it was something along the lines of “Giddy up,” which was one of his catchphrases.
When I went to Summit I felt as though I didn’t have any purpose, but through listening to Mike and Scott speak, having conversations with both, and having that encouragement from Mike, the Lord had shown me a purpose. He used those men to point me in the direction He wanted me to go, and my life hasn’t been the same since.
I ended up leading the MSU chapter of Students For Life for my remaining three years of college. Our group doubled in size and we won national awards for our efforts in helping pregnant and parenting students on campus. We helped in opening our town’s only pregnancy care center which has now saved the lives of over 200 babies and helped hundreds of women in crisis. I spent the summer of 2014 working in Washington DC doing internship rotations with Students For Life of America, Susan B. Anthony List, and in the office of a pro-life congressman on Capitol Hill.
All during that time, I kept up with Mike via Facebook. He used to stop through my town around the Christmas break when he wanted to visit his family in Texas. For three years straight we would meet up when he was in town for either dinner or coffee and talk about what we had both been doing involving pro-life work. He was always super encouraging to me. One summer I applied to get a summer internship at a particular place he had dealings with, and when I didn’t get the job he jokingly asked who he needed to beat up to change the verdict on them not hiring me.
In 2018, I reached out to Mike to inform him that the notorious “Christian abortionist” Dr. Willie Parker was coming to our alma mater to speak on the “morality of abortion.” This was the first Mike had heard of Parker and we spent several months trying to arrange a debate between Adams and Parker at Mississippi State, but ultimately that fell through the cracks. Thankfully, in February of 2019, the university Mike worked for hosted a debate between him and Dr. Parker. To this day, I have yet to see better debate on the subject of abortion. Mike went head-to-head with a man who openly boasted of the fact he had taken the lives of tens of thousands of human beings because he believed he was doing “God’s work.” Adams got him to admit the preborn were distinct, living, and whole human beings. He also got Parker to admit he killed human beings. In an extremely brave move, Adams read excerpts from an abortion manual by Warren Hearn describing in gruesome detail the process of abortion and crushing the skull of the child until the brain spilled out. Adams then asked Parker if this was a correct description of what he did and Parker confirmed it was. One of the most chilling parts of the debate came towards the end.
Adams: “Just one final question: how many innocent human beings have you intentionally killed in your life’s work?”
Parker: “I don’t know. I don’t measure my work by–“
Adams: “You’ve lost count?”
Parker: “I don’t, uh, I don’t uh”
Adams: “You’ve lost count.”
Parker: “If it’s a million, what’s the difference?”
Adams: “10,000?”
Parker: “20,000, 30,000. What’s the difference?”
Adams: “Between 20,000 and 30,000? 10,000 dead human beings. That’s the difference!”
In what was easily one of the most well thought out and well spoken debates on abortion I have ever heard, Adams successfully defended the scientific fact that the preborn were unique, living, and whole human beings from the moment of conception, that all human beings had intrinsic value, and that it was wrong to intentionally take the life of an innocent human being. While Parker tried to rely (very loosely) on the Bible, deranged interpretations of both scripture and the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a subjective sense of morality, Adams stuck to science and the simple philosophical view that it was wrong to kill innocent human beings. If you have not seen the debate I strongly urge you to go watch it.
Mike was a very unique man and if you simply knew him from his tweets, I would venture to say that you didn’t know him at all. I have read tons of his Townhall articles, I have signed copies of all his books, and I’ve known him personally for the past 8 years. He had a public persona which he put on when he wrote and when he was on social media. He acted like nothing ever bothered him, like he didn’t care what people said to and about him, like he welcomed the hate mail and death threats, and that he didn’t care who he offended. He came across as extremely sarcastic and witty. He was always quick with a pun. Having formerly been an atheist and a staunch liberal, he wasn’t afraid to call those people out on their fallacies and inconsistencies. In his public persona he wasn’t always the most graceful of people. He openly insulted and called out those on the left for their wrong-doings. Although I didn’t always agree with his brash tactics and a few of his more outspoken views, I still respected him a lot as a mentor and friend. From the times we had spent together talking one-on-one I knew his real personality was much different than his public persona. In person he was a kind, gentle, and serious person who cared deeply about helping others and saving lives. He also loved kids. I remember how the kids of the other Summit staff and speakers flocked to him yelling “uncle Mike” as though Santa had come to visit. He will be deeply missed by many. It is impossible to tell the full extent of the impact he had on thousands of college students from the classrooms of UNCW to the lecture room at Summit.
All I know is the impact he had on me was life-changing. If it weren’t for him initially encouraging me to get involved in the pro-life movement, I don’t know what my life would be like now. In 2018 I started working as a contributing writer and graphic designer for the Human Defense Initiative, a millennial-led online pro-life organization that helps to educate people on pro-life topics and also functions as a virtual pregnancy center by means of helping women who find themselves in crisis pregnancies. For those women, we provide counseling and set up baby supply registries on Amazon. I eventually became the director of communications for HDI and now oversee most of the social media graphics and strategies. I’ve been humbled to see how the Lord has used me to change people’s minds on abortion and to even help save lives of children on the verge of being aborted.
If it weren’t for Mike, those things would not have happened. By answering the call to work at Summit, Mike allowed the Lord to use him to have a tremendous impact on my life. He taught me the value of the freedom of speech and inspired me with his boldness in speaking the truth. The Lord used him to point me towards a purpose in a time in my life where I was broken and had no purpose. Mike was a prime example of someone who “fought the good fight,” “kept the faith,” and he has now “finished the race.” Thank you Mike S. Adams for helping shape me into the person I am today. Hail state and Giddy up!
Nick is a former pro-life campus leader with a passion for truth. Influenced by his faith, science, and human rights advocates of the past, he speaks out as a voice for the voiceless.
A Personal Tribute to Mike Adams
Nick Bell
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It was the summer of 2012. I had just finished my freshman year at Mississippi State University and was at a very low point in my life. I was still getting over a really bad break up, questioning my major in school and future career, and felt like my life didn’t have much of a purpose. But all that was about to change.
The previous fall I had been invited by a friend to take part in a pro-life organization on my college campus. I hardly knew anything about abortion. I knew that as a Christian it was one of those religious things I was supposed to be against it because all human beings were made in the image of God and that it was wrong to take a life, and obviously abortion ended an innocent life. But other than that, I had always thought it was just a “women’s issue” that I didn’t really need to worry about. After all, I would never be in a situation where I would need to get an abortion because I was a man and had no uterus and therefore my opinion was invalid. I participated in several events and felt kind of awkward being involved but I was still interested in learning more. By the end of that school year the friend who had initially invited me to join the group graduated. I had known her most of my life and since I was still in school, she asked me if I wanted to take over for her in leading the group. I was honored to be asked, but I told her that I didn’t feel comfortable doing that.
A few weeks after school got out for summer break, two friends and I flew to the beautiful town of Manitou Springs, Colorado to attend a 2-week conference on Christian Apologetics at Summit Ministries. Before we left, my church secretary, whose daughter worked full-time at Summit, told me “make sure you talk to Mike Adams! He’s a bulldog (MSU Alum). Trust me, you’re going to love him.”
Sure enough, when he got up to speak he asked if there were any Mississippi State fans and my friends and I cheered. In his sessions he spoke about the importance of freedom of speech, particularly on college campuses. He was the first person I heard talk about Alliance Defending Freedom and all of their amazing work. Adams also spoke about the importance of freedom of speech involving pro-life work. He told us how he was originally a strong pro-abortion advocate until he saw Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s film, “The Silent Scream,” in which the former abortionist and co-founder of NARAL showed a video sonogram of an abortion being performed. Mike talked about how it gave him a clear view of what exactly abortion did and how violent it was. At this point my mind started turning. Multiple times during that two weeks I made the effort to go and talk with him one-on-one. He was super sarcastic and had a charismatic attitude. One day, we had all gone to a park and he brought his guitar and sat and started playing blues music on it — which, come to think of it now, makes perfect sense because Mississippi was the birthplace of the blues.
Also during that week I met Scott Klusendorf. He taught a session on pro-life apologetics. It was at this point that I realized that the abortion issue was actually more scientific in nature than I originally thought. I had always just assumed it was a religious or political issue but Scott helped me understand from a scientific perspective that the preborn was a unique, living, and whole human being from the moment of conception. That was a scientific fact, not a political or religious opinion. That got me thinking even more.
Due to both Adams’ and Klusendorf’s talks during those two weeks, the Lord had been working on my heart and I felt Him nudging me towards pro-life advocacy. I started to think about that offer to lead my school’s pro-life group.
One afternoon in the lobby of the Summit building I ran into Mike and we started talking. “Since you are an MSU alumni, and since you know the school and atmosphere there, I have a question. Do you think it would be wrong for a male to lead a pro-life group on a college campus?” He made some remark about MSU and then shook his head. “Absolutely not. Arguments don’t have testicles.” As he said that some of the girls around us started giggling and he kind of looked embarrassed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” He paused, looked around, and then shook his head again.
As strange as that conversation was, it was the final thing which made the light bulb go on for me. That’s when I realized: “I am going to do this. I am going to fight for the preborn.”
A few days later I texted my friend and asked her if she had found anybody to replace her as the president of that organization since she graduated. She said she hadn’t found anyone and asked again if I wanted to. “I think I am supposed to,” I told her. She then told me the position was mine. I was excited but I needed to do more research before I dove into the deep waters of campus activism. I promptly went and told Mike about the decision I made and thanked him for his previous encouragement. I can’t exactly remember what he said, but I believe it was something along the lines of “Giddy up,” which was one of his catchphrases.
When I went to Summit I felt as though I didn’t have any purpose, but through listening to Mike and Scott speak, having conversations with both, and having that encouragement from Mike, the Lord had shown me a purpose. He used those men to point me in the direction He wanted me to go, and my life hasn’t been the same since.
I ended up leading the MSU chapter of Students For Life for my remaining three years of college. Our group doubled in size and we won national awards for our efforts in helping pregnant and parenting students on campus. We helped in opening our town’s only pregnancy care center which has now saved the lives of over 200 babies and helped hundreds of women in crisis. I spent the summer of 2014 working in Washington DC doing internship rotations with Students For Life of America, Susan B. Anthony List, and in the office of a pro-life congressman on Capitol Hill.
All during that time, I kept up with Mike via Facebook. He used to stop through my town around the Christmas break when he wanted to visit his family in Texas. For three years straight we would meet up when he was in town for either dinner or coffee and talk about what we had both been doing involving pro-life work. He was always super encouraging to me. One summer I applied to get a summer internship at a particular place he had dealings with, and when I didn’t get the job he jokingly asked who he needed to beat up to change the verdict on them not hiring me.
In 2018, I reached out to Mike to inform him that the notorious “Christian abortionist” Dr. Willie Parker was coming to our alma mater to speak on the “morality of abortion.” This was the first Mike had heard of Parker and we spent several months trying to arrange a debate between Adams and Parker at Mississippi State, but ultimately that fell through the cracks. Thankfully, in February of 2019, the university Mike worked for hosted a debate between him and Dr. Parker. To this day, I have yet to see better debate on the subject of abortion. Mike went head-to-head with a man who openly boasted of the fact he had taken the lives of tens of thousands of human beings because he believed he was doing “God’s work.” Adams got him to admit the preborn were distinct, living, and whole human beings. He also got Parker to admit he killed human beings. In an extremely brave move, Adams read excerpts from an abortion manual by Warren Hearn describing in gruesome detail the process of abortion and crushing the skull of the child until the brain spilled out. Adams then asked Parker if this was a correct description of what he did and Parker confirmed it was. One of the most chilling parts of the debate came towards the end.
In what was easily one of the most well thought out and well spoken debates on abortion I have ever heard, Adams successfully defended the scientific fact that the preborn were unique, living, and whole human beings from the moment of conception, that all human beings had intrinsic value, and that it was wrong to intentionally take the life of an innocent human being. While Parker tried to rely (very loosely) on the Bible, deranged interpretations of both scripture and the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a subjective sense of morality, Adams stuck to science and the simple philosophical view that it was wrong to kill innocent human beings. If you have not seen the debate I strongly urge you to go watch it.
Mike was a very unique man and if you simply knew him from his tweets, I would venture to say that you didn’t know him at all. I have read tons of his Townhall articles, I have signed copies of all his books, and I’ve known him personally for the past 8 years. He had a public persona which he put on when he wrote and when he was on social media. He acted like nothing ever bothered him, like he didn’t care what people said to and about him, like he welcomed the hate mail and death threats, and that he didn’t care who he offended. He came across as extremely sarcastic and witty. He was always quick with a pun. Having formerly been an atheist and a staunch liberal, he wasn’t afraid to call those people out on their fallacies and inconsistencies. In his public persona he wasn’t always the most graceful of people. He openly insulted and called out those on the left for their wrong-doings. Although I didn’t always agree with his brash tactics and a few of his more outspoken views, I still respected him a lot as a mentor and friend. From the times we had spent together talking one-on-one I knew his real personality was much different than his public persona. In person he was a kind, gentle, and serious person who cared deeply about helping others and saving lives. He also loved kids. I remember how the kids of the other Summit staff and speakers flocked to him yelling “uncle Mike” as though Santa had come to visit. He will be deeply missed by many. It is impossible to tell the full extent of the impact he had on thousands of college students from the classrooms of UNCW to the lecture room at Summit.
All I know is the impact he had on me was life-changing. If it weren’t for him initially encouraging me to get involved in the pro-life movement, I don’t know what my life would be like now. In 2018 I started working as a contributing writer and graphic designer for the Human Defense Initiative, a millennial-led online pro-life organization that helps to educate people on pro-life topics and also functions as a virtual pregnancy center by means of helping women who find themselves in crisis pregnancies. For those women, we provide counseling and set up baby supply registries on Amazon. I eventually became the director of communications for HDI and now oversee most of the social media graphics and strategies. I’ve been humbled to see how the Lord has used me to change people’s minds on abortion and to even help save lives of children on the verge of being aborted.
If it weren’t for Mike, those things would not have happened. By answering the call to work at Summit, Mike allowed the Lord to use him to have a tremendous impact on my life. He taught me the value of the freedom of speech and inspired me with his boldness in speaking the truth. The Lord used him to point me towards a purpose in a time in my life where I was broken and had no purpose. Mike was a prime example of someone who “fought the good fight,” “kept the faith,” and he has now “finished the race.” Thank you Mike S. Adams for helping shape me into the person I am today. Hail state and Giddy up!
Nick Bell
Nick is a former pro-life campus leader with a passion for truth. Influenced by his faith, science, and human rights advocates of the past, he speaks out as a voice for the voiceless.
The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Human Defense Initiative.
Nick Bell
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