Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Gary Bauer: Welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dobson Policy and Culture Center. I’m also host of the Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom podcast.

We’re having another of our everyday heroes today. My guest on Family Talk is right in the middle of the fight to protect the sanctity of human life. In fact, she’s been in the middle of that fight basically her entire life. Her name is Vicky Dunn.

Look, there are a lot of heroes of the pro-life movement. Some of them are very well known, some of them not so much so, but and of course, Dr. Dobson was a real hero of the pro-life movement and we've all been inspired by that. But Vicky Dunn has got a special story because she’s not only over her life relied on following godly principles, but by doing that, by just showing up and standing for godly principles, she has made a mark for herself in the pro-life movement and I believe she has saved a lot of lives that she probably won’t know about until she’s with the Lord someday.

Of course, she’s been a leader in the state of Missouri in the pro-life movement, and Missouri is still a pro-life state, although there are a lot of folks trying to change that as we talk. Vicky’s faith journey started at an early age, but it took a dramatic turn one day when she first heard the voice of Dr. Dobson broadcasting on the Bott Radio Network. By the way, that relationship with the Bott Radio Network is a relationship that continues right up until now. Family Talk is proud to be broadcast on the Bott Network.

During her early years in marriage and parenting, Vicky relied on the fatherly advice she heard from Dr. James Dobson, listening on the radio at her kitchen table. I wonder how many people there are out there, mothers and fathers, that sat at those kitchen tables all over America and got advice from Dr. Dobson by doing that. His passion for families became her passion for families as well, and that fire still burns brightly in her heart to this day.

Vicky and her husband still live in the great state of Missouri and her work with Missouri Right to Life has impacted thousands of people over the years. Vicky Dunn, welcome to the Family Talk broadcast. I know how special Dr. Dobson was for you, particularly in certain significant parts of your life, but I want to let you know that if Dr. Dobson had not gone on to be with the Lord, he would be in this studio right now looking forward to talking with you today because he was a great admirer of yours. So, Vicky, welcome to Family Talk.

Vicky Dunn: Thank you, Gary. I don't know what to say. What a privilege, but I'm but a blade of grass in the grassroots movement of the pro-life community here in the state of Missouri. We did have quite a battle on our hands in the past year. November 5th, we flipped. There is an evil force within our constitution that we are all now gearing up because the Lord has given us another chance to come against and claw back some of those horrible provisions that are in our constitution under the Bill of Rights, actually.

I appreciate all your kind words, but I tell you, there are many out there, so many organizations that have been in the battle so many years, and it's just a heartbreak that that has happened to our state. But God is good. He is faithful, and He has given us another opportunity to stand and fight again. So thank you.

Gary Bauer: You're welcome, Vicky. We're facing this all over the country. Obviously, we won a tremendous victory when Roe v. Wade was overturned because we got rid of this horrible lie that somewhere in our God-inspired Constitution and Declaration of Independence that there was this sacred right to kill your unborn child and at least that's gone.

I'm not sure we were completely ready for the big fight that immediately erupted in each state, and we'll talk a lot more about that in the time we have together. But let's find out a little bit more about you. I know that Dr. Dobson and his ministry on radio was something that was important to you, but you were a faithful Christian before you heard Dr. Dobson. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to the Lord and share that with our audience?

Vicky Dunn: I’d be delighted to. I grew up in a wonderful family. Mom and Dad were faithful attenders of church, and I heard the gospel. I'm one of seven children, and I'm the oldest daughter that they have. When I was 41 years old, I was invited to a Bible study, Community Bible Study, and I went. It was eye-opening.

A few years later, my husband and I had a hobby farm outside of a little community in the rural area, and I was driving a tractor with a wagon load of children on the back of it. The tractor started going down the hill too fast. All of a sudden it stopped right before I feared that I would be turning the hay wagon over.

That evening my husband said to me, "What do you think happened?" I said, "It had to be the hand of God. I know of no other reason that that tractor would have stopped." I was sick to my stomach thinking of what could have happened to the children. Three days later, the Community Bible Study leader called me and asked me if I wanted to be a children's leader. I had told her no the year before because I didn't want to march or do crafts. In the middle of the conversation I said, "I think I'm supposed to do this because God just saved a wagon load of children for me."

In the back of my mind, I said I could stay a year. I could do it a year. Well, I stayed seven. But what she said to me transformed my life and came to be true. She said, "You will be blessed for your obedience," and I have before me milestones of blessings that continue to this day.

That is kind when I got in God's Word and learned it like a two-year-old that my eyes started opening. I sat in leaders' council with prayer cards where we prayed for each other's families. Like all the new believers, you want everybody to be saved. You tell the good news. You go around saying, "Jesus is the only way." I had that new believer's enthusiasm.

The first blessing that happened is that my mother at 81 years old joined me in Bible study. At 81. My daughter joined that year and my granddaughter, who was less than a year. So we had four generations studying God's Word.

Gary Bauer: Incredible. That's incredible. Vicky, I don't want to leave that tractor incident. We pray, and we're called to, and we pray for help and guidance and blessings in every way that we can. Sometimes it takes a long time before we realize that that prayer, that pleading had been answered.

There you are in this situation that could have turned into an unbelievable tragedy and the first thing you thought about is God, I need you right now. These children are at risk. That must have been just an unbelievable moment for you to see a miracle like that happen almost instantaneously.

Vicky Dunn: I wish I could say I did pray, but I was terrified. When the tractor stopped, it was in retrospect that I thought back and said it was God's hand. When my husband said, "Well, what happened?" that's when I said it had to be the hand of God. It was my road to Damascus experience.

Being in Community Bible Study with the two-year-olds was my road to Emmaus experience where the scriptures were opened up as I grew in my faith and sat with those mature believing women in leaders' council. That's what I needed to do is sit there for the seven years that I was a children's teacher and just listen to that godly wisdom. They also were the ones that introduced me to the Bott Radio and to listening to Dr. Dobson. That is my connection through them.

Gary Bauer: I was getting ready to ask you about that. I actually remember the first day I talked to Dr. Dobson. I was in the Reagan White House. I was in some kind of controversy about something because I am a conservative Christian and somebody on Capitol Hill was upset with me. My secretary buzzed in and she said, "Your doctor's on the phone, Dr. Dobson," and I didn't know if I should put him right through. I said, "My doctor is not Dr. Dobson," and then I realized it was Jim Dobson.

He said he had seen the controversy I was in and asked me if I wanted to come on his radio program to tell his listeners about it. Do you remember the first time you heard a Dobson show? I bet even if you can't, tell us about how as you began to listen to him, how that helped you in your early part of your marriage and raising your children.

Vicky Dunn: I can remember sitting in the bleachers watching my daughter play softball when she was about 10 with the earbuds attached to my little transistor radio. We called them transistor radios. I was just listening to his wonderful voice and that godly wisdom.

What impacted me the most of all of the resources and things was the Truth Project when I obtained, after going through it several times, that strong biblical worldview. That was so critical. All along the way, I consumed all of that wisdom and advice, the monthly letters, the magazines, and the books.

Gary Bauer: I've often wondered how many people that are listening and how many people out there that maybe are not listening to our conversation today have a similar story. I know when Dr. Dobson and I would go to various events where we were both going to speak or maybe we'd be walking through an airport together and complete strangers would stop him, often women, and tell him that he had had a major impact on their lives, either in saving their marriage or in helping them raise their children.

It's a tremendous legacy and of course, as I mentioned earlier, Dr. Dobson often did his show about the sanctity of life. People would come up and say, "You know, Dr. Dobson, I was getting ready to have an abortion and I heard your show and let me introduce you to your godchild you've never met." Were you influenced by Dr. Dobson's really powerful pro-life message that he regularly would share?

Vicky Dunn: Absolutely. I grew up with seven children, so pro-life was always big. I was born in 1951 before the abortion was legal. Life was important and actually, I can remember my mother just being horrified that somebody she knew was taking birth control. That sounds so strange right now, but we were pro-life all the way.

My first job at 16 was to go down the street where we served meals to a nursing home, but it was next to an unwed mother's home. In those days when you were pregnant, you would go away toward the latter part of your pregnancy and then your baby was given up for adoption. That was my background. I took my daughter to Washington, DC for the March for Life when she was in eighth grade.

I worked as a nurse, so my background's nursing. I worked with a pregnancy resource center and did the client advocate work. 40 Days for Life out in front of the abortion clinics praying has been a huge part of my life. All along knowing that there was a champion up there with a national voice encouraging us all around the country was an important part of my listening and being encouraged. That encouraging voice is everything.

Gary Bauer: It really is. Having somebody like Dr. Dobson be a leader in these sorts of efforts, I was really honored over the years because it's hard to believe now, but for many years as you remember, Vicky, the Republican Party, although it's pro-life now and unfortunately, the other major party has gone all in on abortion on demand, there was a battle every four years to make sure the platform of the Republican Party remained pro-life.

There were always these attempts by various moderates to water the platform down and Dr. Dobson was one of a handful of us that made major efforts to make sure the party understood if they did that, they were going to lose millions of voters. That platform stayed pro-life over all those years. I know Missouri Right to Life and I'm sure you were involved in those efforts too.

Vicky Dunn: Well, Phyllis Schlafly, we had another wonderful woman named Donna Hearne that would do Constitutional Coalition educational policy that brought in lots of speakers. We had an abundance of wonderful resources to encourage us.

Gary Bauer: Vicky, I was told that we've always got to be careful not to be hating on the woman who's been deceived that the answer to her problem is to destroy the innocent human life in her. I know you've made it a point when you've ministered at these abortion clinics to reach out to those women. In fact, there's a little thing you've done occasionally that you've become known for involving cookies. Can you tell us about that?

Vicky Dunn: Well, that was a different story actually when the people that came in with the initiative petition in Missouri last year. They were collecting signatures to get this horrendous bill that is now in our constitution to make abortion just legal all nine months, take away parental permission, and open the door for pseudo-sex change surgery for adolescents without permission.

They were gathering up information. I would go stand next to these people that were collecting the signatures that were paid by outside money and try to encourage people not to sign. Along the way, it was really a privilege to stand next to these people and just witness that there was another side to the story. I wanted them to think of me as their grandmother. Many of them were young men and I would chat with them and have a cordial conversation if possible.

I would bring cookies because I knew they were coming in from out of state and staying. This dark money would put them up in hotels. That was my intention to be the fragrance of Jesus Christ to them. I often would ask them if I could pray for them and I had a two-sentence prayer that they would be able to have a job that would glorify God and that they would become mighty men of God. It was a privilege to do that to be honest, but that's where the Girl Scout cookies came in. It was Girl Scout cookie delivery time and I had ordered too many, so I wanted to get them out of the house.

Gary Bauer: That's a great story. I remember back, it seems like it was a thousand years ago now, going back to Bill Clinton's administration. He used to say, "Look, nobody likes abortion, but we want it to be safe, legal, and rare." That seems so quaint now because we're at a time when our opponents on this issue want all stigma removed from the taking of an innocent human life.

I saw the other day a group called Shout Your Abortion. Be proud of it is their point. They literally have come out with a little book aimed at five to eight-year-olds to try to teach these innocent little children that the right to abortion is like a superpower that they all have. It enables them when they grow up to make the life that they want to make. I was reading about this and thinking, my goodness, these children aren't that far out of the womb themselves because their parents didn't abort them. Here's this group. It's hard for me to imagine something more evil than trying to deceive these little children.

Vicky Dunn: I agree. When we talk about the abortion issue, I think we need to back the train up and go back to the sanctity of sex. When we were fighting to keep this out of our constitution, there's a little local newspaper where letters were flying back and forth on both sides because it was a big issue in Missouri. The one letter that struck me as profound was a letter writer said that sex has become recreational.

When you have sexualized the children such as you're talking about that happens in our libraries and in our schools and making it a recreational activity, we need to reclaim the sanctity, the beauty, and the holiness of what God had intended for the sexual union within a marriage.

Part of my grieving on where we are was that we haven't stood. We had in our constitution, and this is Dr. Dobson as well when we were fighting for the sanctity of marriage. It started way back then in Missouri, I think it was 2003 maybe. I remember standing on the street holding my sign, "Marriage is a man and a woman." He spoke of that as well on the radio. I think there were 31 other states that had it within their constitution that it was a man and a woman. So I really feel like we need to reclaim the sanctity of marriage and sex within marriage.

When I was in the counseling room when I worked with the pregnancy resource centers, we would introduce secondary virginity and try and introduce the gift that that is within marriage. It really is the protection that God has so that the hearts aren't hurt and it doesn't hurt the family.

Part of this process with me is so far down the road now where we're speaking of these issues, but it was when the Olympic Committee took the Last Supper and made a parody of that. Then I read an article in I believe it's called The Epoch Times that talked about the loss of the sacred. Now my heart is opened up to reclaiming all the sacred, which starts with the innocence of children to keep them away from the pornography and then to reintroduce the beauty of marriage and sex within marriage. It's been a whole journey.

Gary Bauer: Vicky, I'm really enjoying this conversation. I enjoy all of these, but you just have such a great story of relying on faith and prayer. I have a lot more things I want to talk to you about. Is there any chance that you could come back and be with us for another show?

Vicky Dunn: That would be wonderful. I would love that. Thank you, Gary.

Roger Marsh: Vicky Dunn reminds us that you don't have to be famous to make a difference, you just have to show up and keep on showing up day after day, month after month, year after year. You’re listening to a special edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, featuring Gary Bauer’s conversation with pro-life advocate Vicky Dunn. If you missed any portion of today’s broadcast or if you’d like to share this encouraging story with a friend, visit JDFI.net.

For nearly 50 years, Dr. James Dobson championed the cause of life and family through every available platform. His voice encouraged countless believers to take a stand for what matters most, and today that mission continues through the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. We exist to preserve and promote the institution of the family and the biblical principles on which it is based, to introduce people to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to defend the sanctity of human life at every stage.

Programs like the one you heard today are only possible because friends like you believe in this work and choose to partner with us. Your generous donation, whether large or small, helps us broadcast biblical truth to millions of families all across America, and it also equips everyday heroes like Vicky Dunn to keep standing strong. If you believe in this mission, we invite you to stand with us.

You can make a donation securely when you go to JDFI.net. You can also make a contribution over the phone. A member of our constituent care team will be happy to take your call at 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825. If you prefer, you can send your contribution through the U.S. Postal Service. Our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado, the zip code 80949. Once again, our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, or just use those initials JDFI for short, P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado, the zip code 80949.

I'm Roger Marsh and from all of us here at Family Talk, thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to join us again next time when Gary Bauer continues his conversation with Vicky Dunn, as she shares a powerful story of answered prayer and how her husband and grandsons were recently baptized together. That's coming up on the next edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you can still trust for the family you love.