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Additional support comes from the Lachman foundation, translator and publisher of the Amplified Bible, which helps reveal the depth of the original languages through amplified words and phrases. New two tone editions use gray type to highlight amplified words and preserve a Natural reading experience. Amplifiedbible.com.
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Youm're listening to a special weekend edition of the World and everything in it. I'm Mary Reichert. Today we're talking with a man whose very existence challenges some of our culture's deepest assumptions about human worth. My guest is Ryan Bomberger, co founder of the Radiance foundation, an Emmy award winning creative professional speaker and author of the new memoir titled should have Been Aborted. Ryan was conceived and rape and adopted into a loving family. And he has spent years making the case that every human life has God given purpose. In our conversation we talk about his remarkable adoption story, finding his birth mother decades later, surviving depression and serious health setbacks, and why he believes everyone is wanted by someone. Well, Ryan, I know that your adoption records were sealed for a long time and then you finally did find out the name of your birth mom. What were you hoping to find out?
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You know, my parents have been super supportive of all of the adopted children that they wanted to find out more about their birth parents. My parents would give us the information that they had that they were given and they were just always honoring of our birth parents. And so since I was a child, even before 13, I always wanted to someday meet my birth mom. But it turned into during my teenage years and later, it wasn't that I wanted a connection necessarily or a relationship. I really just wanted to thank her. That's really all I wanted to do. In fact, when I did finally search for her for the first time, I got my adoption records unsealed because of my circumstances and I just included two CDs in the letter that I sent for the judge who unsealed it. I wrote the song called Meant to Be and it was really just a tribute to her courage and just showing her just the incredible reverberations of that single decision. And so I really just wanted her to have the song and I wanted her to know how grateful I was. And so that was my heart, that was my intent. And so seeing her name for the first time blew me away. My whole life I never knew her name. I had no face, I had no name. And to see that on the birth certificate really was incredibly emotional. Her first name is Sharon. And you know there's power in a name. And just being able to have that, to be able to speak that, that was really important to me. And so for years and years, I pursued trying to find out where Sharon was and maybe if some way, somehow I could at least just see her face to face, just to thank her.
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Well, we may or may not get to the conclusion of that. Like I said, I don't want to give the whole thing away because it's a very interesting and touching story in itself. There's a line that really stood out to me in the documentary and in your book, and it's what you were referencing there with Sharon, that everyone is wanted by someone. And the fact that Sharon gave birth to you and gave you up meant that she still wanted you to exist. She just couldn't take care of you. Right. So what do you mean by everyone is wanted by someone?
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Well, we have this mentality in our culture that if you're perceived to be unwanted, then any violence against you is justified. Which is why we have, you know, a million plus abortions a year. And when I'm asked about my. My birth mom, and prior to recent revelations, I didn't know why she made the decision that she made, but I, I can express this part that she immediately refused abortion because she loved children. And I was told by a family member that she never would have wanted to abort me because she loved children. And that for me, just solidified. It's not just a slogan, it really is a worldview that everyone is wanted by someone. Maybe sometimes not by the biological parent or parents, but we're all wanted by someone. I was wanted by Henry and Andrew Palmberger. I have, you know, two of my four children are adopted. And they were. They may have been unplanned, but they were definitely wanted deeply. And so that's why a large, you know, motivation for writing this book is to get that across to people that, you know, we are all wanted by
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someone, you know, as what became the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade came up through the Mississippi legislature. I listened to hours of testimony and somebody on the pro abortion side literally said, we have all these kids in foster care. They are obviously not wanted. And then the person on the witness stand said, well, would you rather they all be dead? And then there was no answer, just silence. But by not answering, we got our answer. So if pro abortion people were to hear this interview with you, they might say, well, that's not true that we want them dead. What do you say about all these kids in foster care? Have you given some thought to that?
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Well, it's nonsense on the face of it. First of all there are a lot of wanted children who go into foster care because the reasons why children go into foster care, poverty, neglect, abuse from a guardian, from parents. But there are lots of wanted children who go into foster care because of situations that have nothing to do with whether or not that child was originally wanted. The other part of foster care, which when people say that, and I love when they say that to me, are you going to adopt these children? I said, actually I've adopted two. Well, that's not enough because they always move the goalposts. It's never enough to, it's like that was their bumper sticker mantra. I'm like, oh wait, I don't have anything underneath that. So it's so disingenuous and it's also so callous because then if that's what you believe, that if a child should be killed prior to, because he or she may go into foster care and may experience, you know, at least brief trauma, that it's, they're better off dead. And I challenge that all the time. Nobody's better off dead. We're all better off loved. I mean the 10 children in our family, most of whom, including myself, came from the foster care system, we were definitely not better off dead. And I praise God that I had two parents who loved us all into our God given purpose. And so for people who, who try to use those stats, I mean the whole point of foster care is to serve as a respite from the dysfunct of a home for whatever reason, and then hopefully return them to the biological parent or parents if they're able and capable, but then allow them to be adopted by a loving family, preferably by a married mother and father. But no, it's, it's always the go to as if children in foster care are tainted, as if they are lesser than and they're not. Everyone is equal in inherent worth. And I, and I wish even the church didn't struggle with that mindset because there's sometimes that mentality found among Christians that just think, oh, they're damaged goods. We live in a damaged world. We are all damaged in varying degrees. But we have to stop this mindset that somehow a child is better off dead than to be loved. We are called to love.
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Well, I'm glad I asked you that. Let's go back to the book and documentary and you'd life now. So like a lot of people, millions of people, you were gripped by depression along the way and you say that that causes people to fixate on everything that is Wrong instead of all the things that are right. So in the middle of that depression, Ryan, what helped you to see that it was a lie, that everything was wrong?
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Dealing with depression was really hard. I had friends who also dealt with depression. I had a roommate who was dealing with depression and was on medication and it wasn't going well. And I thought, my word is that the only. Is that the only escape from this? Because I don't want to go through what that particular person went through. But it really was my foundation, just knowing that I was loved by God. So those are the, like, the frayed threads of faith that I held onto. I also had a sister, or have not had. She's still alive, my sister Corinne. I love her like crazy, but she would check in on me all the time and she would repeat the. The promises in scripture about who God says I am and being reminded that way. And at the time I was serving in, in church, I was, you know, youth leader. I was on the worship team and feeling all kinds of hypocritical because I wasn't necessarily believing the words that were coming out of my mouth. I wanted to, but I was deeply struggling with it. But I had those frayed threads of faith that kept me holding on even though I dealt with suicide ideation, with just thinking if I just drove off this bridge and over and over because I had to cross this drawbridge every day to and from work. And I. I realized that things were not right. And I kept praying through it. I kept praying for deliverance. And so I would say that without at least having that undergirding of faith, I wouldn't have known where to turn to. I wouldn't have known that I should have hold on because I wouldn't have seen value in my own life.
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Yeah, that was your foundation. Well, I have seen it online for myself that you are the target of so many lies and so much misinformation, all manner of hatred and accusation. I'm wondering how do you keep advocacy from making you bitter?
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Oh, yes. Well, you have to just resolve in your mind that you're going to be better and not bitter. It is easy to take on the offense. And when you. As a Christian, we have to look at the world the way that God tells us and explains it. It's not a physical battle. It is deeply spiritual. I mean, there is stuff going on in the spiritual realm that if you don't recognize it, then, yes, you're going to be offended. I mean, Rose asked at this one conference, on one part of the conference had to do deal with dei, critical race theory and all that. And audience members were asking questions. One audience member asked, well, what happens when they call you racist? And I'm like, who cares? Who cares if they call you racist? It doesn't matter. That's just, that is in hopes of you getting off track. I mean, you take that name calling and you personalize it and you internalize it and then it distracts you from what God's called you to do. You're going to be called names. You're going. I mean, we get death threats for the love. I mean, this has been since the day we started the Radiance Foundation. But we resolved in our hearts that we know our calling. We know God has called us to illuminate that every human life has God given purpose, whether they're planned, unplanned, able or disabled. And we're not going to let the world's lies, you know, derail us from the direction we're heading. And that doesn't mean that it's easy. I thought, in fact, when we started the Reins Foundation, I thought we were going to be loved like crazy. I thought, oh, they're going to love my, my personal adoption story. They're going to love my wife's story of, you know, she was a single mom. They're going to love our stories. And that isn't exactly how it played out, particularly in mainstream media. But in the end, I am not here for the affirmation of the world, but I am here to affirm to the world that Jesus loves them.
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Now, your campaign, I believe, started in 2009, right? With the billboard campaign. Is that when the Radiance foundation officially started?
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Yes, 2009 is when we became official at the IRS. It was when we decided that we were going to take on two of the easiest topics possible, race and abortion, and launch a campaign in Atlanta and fireworks. I mean, it was a, it was a firestorm. Yes, 2009.
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And those billboards had to do with basically the genocide of black babies through abortion, right?
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Absolutely. In fact, it was called Too Many Aborted dot com. That was the website at the time. And it was really calling out the heinous history of racism in the abortion industry and the unchanged present. And of course, our contention was that one is too many. Of course. But we didn't, we had no idea that the world was actually saying, wait, wait, wait, not enough aborted. But I'm like, wait, isn't that racist to say not enough aborted? We were not media trained. We were not prepared for the onslaught. I mean, whether it was USA Today, New York Times, npr, which I learned stands for National Pro Choice Radio or Pro Abortion Radio. I should say not pro choice. That's a terrible euphemism. But we realized immediately that they weren't going to love our story and that they hated that we were pointing out something that was irrefutably, indisputably factual and that is abortion's the number one killer in the black community at that time and outnumbered the top 15 leading causes of death combined. And as someone who is black and white and even a little bit Asian, and I'm even more Native American than Elizabeth Warren, I feel like part of my calling on this earth is to confront actual racism and then take that biblical perspective on all things. How does God see us from a racial standpoint? We're one human race. And how do I not talk about the devastation of abortion in the black community when it is the demographic hardest hit? But mainstream media and other institutions definitely did not like our messaging, didn't like that we existed and were threatened, I guess, by a husband and wife team with three kids at the time who had no money but knew we had a calling.
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And you actually got sued by the naacp. So tell me about that.
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Oh, the most surreal experience of my life was being sued by the organization that I grew up revering. I grew up reading books about the naacp, about their hand in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, that landmark ruling. And I was thinking, wow, the NAACP is going to be all on our side. In fact, I had a number of friends working in the naacp. Some were chapter presidents, and then didn't realize that the NAACP, at the time that we launched this billboard campaign, was radically pro abortion, was actually partnering with Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood was one of their largest sponsors of their annual convention. NAACP convention. So being the factivist that I am, I decided I'm going to write an article about the naacp. And I called them the national association of for the Abortion of Colored People. And let's just say more fireworks. They didn't like it. They hated it. And they sued me, a brown guy, for exercising one of my most basic civil rights, free speech. And they sued the Radiance Foundation. And that was two years of just the most bizarre journey for us fighting against civil rights organization that apparently forgot that life is the most basic right and that free speech is a civil right.
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How did that turn out?
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They lost two years in federal court, which it never shouldn't even go into court. But thank heaven for alliance defending Freedom, because they actually represented us. And even though we were actually blown away that it was allowed to go to court, we lost on the first level, the first federal court level in Norfolk, Virginia, and we had to appeal and, you know, the appeals court in Richmond and sit before even conservative justices who were actually kind of smearing us as we were sitting there. And I thought, wait a minute. Everything that we have written, everything is actually. It's sourced to NAACP documents. There's nothing that we said that was inaccurate, but yet we were smear. I feel like they just wanted to look like they were not anti naacp. But in the end, they ruled in our favor. And so the NAACP lost the case. I was kind of hoping they were going to appeal it to Supreme Court, because I just thought, well, that'd be kind of nice to go to the Supreme Court with the naacp. But the NAACP realized it had no chance to win, and they were slapped down. And that was a pretty significant ruling. And I can just give praise to God for that experience because it opened up my eyes like how incredibly powerful, powerful, tragically powerful a lie can be. And the NAACP continues that lie, by the way, they are even more radically pro abortion now than they were then. They stand in solidarity with Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.
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Well, speaking of a powerful and tragic lie, this phrase, residue of rape, where did I hear that? I wrote it down, but I don't remember what the source is. If I were called the residue of anything, it would be so wounding to my soul. Now, am I making that up? Where did the phrase residue of rape come from?
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It was from a lawmaker in the state of Alabama who was criticizing the pro life legislation at the time. And, yeah, she called me the people like me, the residue of the rapist. And I remember hearing that, and I just thought, wow, none of us control the actions of our parents, particularly not when it comes to procreation. And yet, I mean, you don't define somebody by, oh, that's the alcoholic's child. Oh, that's the mass murderer's child. I mean, that is not their identity. But yet when I heard those words from that. That lawmaker, I just thought, oh, my word. So I was speaking on the steps in Montgomery, the capital of Alabama. I was there with Students for Life, Kristen Hawkins, good friend of mine. And I was speaking, and I was sharing that, you know, I'm not the residue of the rapist. I am. I am the resilience of my birth mom. And, yeah, there are just some lines that I just say, God, thank you. I Just feel like they're divine downloads because it really just. As someone who crafts messaging, as someone who is a creative director and designs a lot of things, I really rely on God inspiring me to how do we address something so difficult and so heinous and yet gives a heavenly perspective? And I'm just glad I had the opportunity on those steps. For me, it was a historic moment on those steps. To be just the parallel with looking at past civil rights champions who marched from, you know, Selma to Montgomery and what they had to proclaim to the nation, I am human. I'm fully human. Well, so am I here and 2026, I'm still trying to declare that. And yet there are too many people who don't believe because of the circumstances of your conception, you have equal worth and that you have equal humanity.
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Let's talk about your health for a moment. You've survived a lot of serious health setbacks, blood clots and cancer to start with. Did going through all of that change your thinking at all about your purpose or going on with your work? I'm wondering how having such serious setbacks while you're young may have set you back in any way.
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Well, I've always been a little overly driven. So I went from perfectionism and workaholism, which is what was. I was trying to cover up the way that I viewed myself, to understanding that, that I didn't need to be a workaholic, I didn't need to be the perfectionist. The only one who's perfect is God. But I, I'm definitely a hard worker. I grew up Mennonite background, so I'm, I'm definitely a hard worker. But my health was waning because, you know, taking on ministry and never actually running a ministry by myself. Those who start a new ministry, particularly a non profit, you understand that you wear a lot of hats and a lot of boots, a lot of different things. You just, you plot ahead. And Bethany and I were working ourselves, overworking ourselves, and we have a much better perspective now. But it was when I was in the hospital with those bilateral blood clots in my lungs that I, I realized I, I can't keep living like this. I mean, how pro life am I if I'm not taking care of my own life? I mean, my family was always my priority. I, I do a lot of speaking events, I travel a lot, fly a lot, and I was doing 70, 75 or more events a year, but they were always very short. And I travel a lot with my family, but I wasn't taking care of myself. So when I was in that hospital for nine days, nearly, I mean, they don't know how I didn't have a heart attack, that somehow the blood clot got to my lungs. They were, they marveled at that. But it just made me realize that God has me here for a purpose. And if I don't take care of myself, first of all, I can't even imagine life without my, my wife and my kiddos. I can imagine them having to deal with life without me. And then how effective am I going to be if I'm not taking care of myself? And understanding that ministry sometimes requires a lot of no's. Just say no, you don't have to do this. God isn't. God doesn't have a quota. You have to do X number of this and X number of that. And so that really just brought me back and also brought me back to the story of Joseph. And I felt like I solved that whole story so differently. I mean, yes, it was a story about forgiveness that was great. It was a story about God given purpose. Yes. But I also saw it as his brothers plotted to kill someone who was the miracle meant for them and how I felt like I was because I wasn't taking care of myself. I'm not calling myself a miracle, so I don't want people to misunderstand. I think every life, yes, is a miracle of God and just an incredible masterpiece. But I was not valuing my own life enough to make sure that. I mean, we can't guarantee tomorrow. I understand that. But doing what I needed to do to make sure that I was fulfilling that purpose that God had for me. And that was a major wake up call. Yes. I went through other things and I battled cancer two years ago, which kind of took me out of this ministry for a little while. I'm in remission, praise God. But you know, Satan's always trying. He's always just try to get in there, steal, kill and destroy. And I just thank God that I am still around, that I am able to partner with my wife and our small but mighty team at the Radiance Foundation. I'm able to bring my kids alongside us who can co minister with us. Like, okay, I'm not gonna give Satan that upper hand. At least I'm not gonna make it easy for him. So I'm in better shape than I've been in a long time. And I'm just thankful. I'm thankful for every day. Sounds like a cliche, but I really am. I'm grateful to be alive.
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Yeah. I have a couple more questions. Ryan. So you learned eventually about some of your high school contemporaries when you went searching for your birth mom. What did that experience teach you? Our lives are connected.
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Oh, my word. I. I cannot explain what transpired in my life last October any other way than to say God, only God could orchestrate something so incredible. And the book details this, the documentary details this. But honestly, it's just a reminder. It's a reminder of how good God is. Even in the midst of dealing with lots of suffering and loss and disappointment. It's almost like there were just these incredible moments of God just reminding me of how good he is, how good he has always been. And honestly, just the. The connections, if I expect. Honestly, there are times when people. When I talk about, you know, birth, family and that whole pursuit, and people look at this like, this sounds like a movie. Well, actually, it's hopefully one day going to be one. And the documentary at least gives you just a glimpse into that whole God kissed moment after moment after moment. I know I'm sounding really ambiguous with this because it's better. You're better off actually hearing and seeing the details in the documentary or reading about it in the book. But honestly, I say all this to say, God is an amazing God. Even when we feel like, where are you? Where? And there are many moments in my life and I look back and I am like, oh, you were there. You were weaving together these threads. This whole time I found myself saying,
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you are kidding me. This can't have happened. But it did. Okay, suppose a person who supports abortion watches your documentary. Even if they don't change their minds about abortion, what do you hope they go away? Thinking about your documentary and book, I
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want those who may be pro abortion or leaning that way just to see a tangible story of what we often don't discuss because it's so abstract. I want them to see the truth that everyone is truly wanted by someone. And I don't know, I just want my. My life to be a testament to what our organization calls beautiful possibility. That's every human life from the moment of conception, even prior to. I want people to see, wait a minute, there's another side of the story. And that in the end, triumph can rise from tragedy. Because so many times people look at a situation, say, I can never go through that. I can never do that. I can never endure that. But yet that's how God makes us. We are overcomers. We're not undercomers. We are overcomers. And for those who aren't connected with God, I can imagine how much harder it is to actually believe that because you're not believing. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But I know that people still feel that because I speak in a lot of college campuses and I'll get kids who come up and without that faith based perspective, they come up and they say, wait, I've never heard a story like that. In fact, I'll have some students who have said I hated you when you came in. But wow, you just, you totally just shredded what I thought about this whole issue. I know. Never heard a story like yours. So God, please just keep using the story. It's his anyway. But I just know that it can change hearts and minds. When a 12 year old at our events reacts the same way as like a 72 year old military veteran, I know that God is in it.
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You've been listening to an extended interview with author and Radiance foundation co founder Ryan Bomberger. We'd love to hear what you thought about the conversation, so please drop us a line@editorng.org again. Editorng.org and if you enjoyed this special weekend edition of the World and Everything in it, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It really helps other people discover our work and expand our reach. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you about you on Monday. Have a great weekend. I'm Mary Reichard.
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Additional support comes from the Lockman foundation translator of the Amplified Bible, which helps readers see the depth of the original languages. Amplifiedbible.
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Com.