It was the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency of the United States that spurred Elizabeth Schmeidler to action.
The news had just come in that the virulently pro-abortion Illinois senator had been successful in his quest to attain the highest office in the land when the Kansas mother and singer heard the call to compose a piece of music that would let the people know what kind of man was about to take residence at the White House.
“It was one of the most devastating nights of my life when (Obama) became president,” she said. “I was really disappointed the people of the United States – the Christians and Catholics – let God down, because we have the numbers enough to elect anybody we want to … We heard a lot more about the economy and out pocketbooks than about preserving life.”
Schmeidler recalled waking up with an urgency to tell the world that human beings in the womb are not simply a “choice” and that she would try to be a voice for them. “Who’s going to tell them if we don’t?” she asked. “We can do so much better than (abortion).”
And so came the words and music to My Voice, a song to which video still photographs were added and was then posted to the video websites YouTube and Love to Be Catholic. It has already garnered almost 5,000 views and can be accessed through links at her website: Elizabeth’s website .
“The words poured out of me just as fast as rain from a cloud,” she recalled about the composition of the melody. “The urgency continued in my heart to get this done and recorded … My son was able to play the piano piece right away for me.”
After the music had been finished, Schmeidler realized the project was incomplete without visuals to accompany it. “I took some (photos) of my own family … I mixed them in with babies still in the womb … When I got it all done, I sat there and … of course I cried. I knew it was God … It was something I felt very strongly I needed to get out … For me to make that kind of a thing happen in that time period was a miracle.”
The song and video have already made in impact in the short time they have been released. The Kansans for Life pro-life organization contacted her right afterwards and invited her to perform at a January breakfast meeting in the state capital of Topeka, in front of such top-ranked legislators as former presidential candidate Sam Brownback and Congressman Jerry Moran.
And Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life U.S.A. is looking into how his ministry might use the song as well.
Schmeidler said she is thrilled with these developments, as part of an effort to derail Obama’s avowed plans to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would allow unrestricted abortion throughout the United States.
“We do not want the FOCA signed,” she said. “We do not want to change the little bit of law we have in place now that protects against partial-birth abortion. I need to get (the song) to the people who can talk to (Obama),” she said.
“I’m excited every day to see where God takes it,” she added. “If it changes one heart, that was one heart … This is just one tiny thing in the scheme of things that I can do to try to help people to know God’s love and help them to realize how beautiful He believes life is and how He gave us life so we wouldn’t have to destroy each other, but to have it abundantly. That gives me great joy.”
Schmeidler said she has long been a strong pro-life supporter and earlier made a splash when she wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper on the subject. “I got so much response from it, response I never imagined … There were so many people who contacted me both by phone and e-mail and said, ‘You said exactly what we needed to say and thank you.’ I was almost embarrassed, it was so overwhelming.”
With respect to My Voice, Schmeidler says there is a boldness in her she has never felt before. “I know it’s because I want to save the babies, I want to save the women … I’m asking the Holy Spirit to keep working on people and have a conscious thought about what it really is they’re voting for, what it is that’s important to them, what it is when they talk about a ‘choice.'”
Schmeidler is somewhat of an unlikely candidate to act as a musical spokesperson for the pro-life cause. She was a shy and introverted person in her younger years, and was quite happy with motherhood and family life before God indicated He had other plans for her.
To her surprise, the church organist walked up one morning and invited her to sing as a cantor.
“I was like, ‘Uh, no. I don’t sing,'” she remembered with a laugh. “Although I used to sing as a little tyke, I got real scared and intimidated and wouldn’t sing in front of anybody.”
Nonetheless, she took a step forward and soon found herself singing at masses, weddings and funerals. There then followed three CDs of material.
“There’s no other way I can describe it than as a blatant miracle,” she said.
And she hopes the My Voice song will generate another miracle for the pro-life cause at a time when human life may come under unprecedented attack in her country.
