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At age 18, Nelly Roach sat in a Planned Parenthood clinic with $246 to pay for an abortion.  

“I found myself there, as many many people find themselves, in a place where they don’t feel that they have any options,” Roach says.  

Roach was born into a Catholic family on the small island nation of Palau in the Pacific Ocean. When she was 13, her family moved to Missouri so she could receive a better education. She says she was raised with a sense of cultural responsibility to help and serve her family and her people, known as Palauans.  

Waiting in the Planned Parenthood, Roach recalls, her mind raced. She felt she had to have the abortion for “the great good” of being able to help fellow Palauans one day, but also that what she was about to do was “wrong, but maybe I don’t care.”  

When her name was called, Roach stood up. “Had I turned left … I would have had an abortion in a matter of minutes. But, you know, God pulled me out, and so I turned right [and walked out], and my baby is now 32 years old.”  

Nelly Roach holds her baby boy in an undated photo. (Choose Life Marketing)

After giving birth to her son, Roach entered the field of marketing and eventually had her own marketing company. For 25 years, Roach kept her story of nearly aborting her son private. In fact, her mother was the only one who knew she had ever visited Planned Parenthood.

But when her son was 23, she spoke at a marketing conference and was approached by a pro-life organization about how to reach more women who are considering having an abortion.  

“I still believe that it was a divine conversation because it’s such a polarizing topic. I wasn’t talking about being pro-life, yet they felt comfortable coming to me,” Roach says.  

From that initial conversation, Roach ultimately was led to open a pro-life arm of her marketing company called Choose Life Marketing. Today, she and a team of marketing experts help pregnancy resource centers reach women who face the same choice she faced decades ago.  

“Everyone in our agency has been vetted to be 100% pro-life,” Roach says. “So that we understand the nuances, we understand the culture, what we’re up against, and we also understand the ramifications of not performing with excellence.” 

Nelly Roach with her adult son, to whom she gave birth in 1991. (Choose Life Marketing)

Roach joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to share her story and explain how pro-life organizations can take advantage of Choose Life Marketing’s resources in the U.S. and around the world.