Rob grew up in a Lutheran church and a Christian family, but he was — in his words — merely “moralistic.” He tried not to drink, party, swear, or sleep around. In doing so, he followed his own set of rules, designed to make him appear better than others around him. “My life was lived in comparison to others,” Rob recalls. “I was oblivious to the mirror of God's laws on my life.” When he enrolled in a secular university for his first year of school, he believed that he would be a good influence on his partying peers. And he probably was, at least as far as outward behavior was concerned. Eventually Rob transferred to a Christian university closer to home, but a change of scenery did not automatically produce a change in understanding.

For a while, Rob was able to follow his self-serving moral code, which included this conveniently vague standard: Sex is not to be taken lightly, but it's for serious relationships only. As a much wiser, slightly older Rob reflects today, this idea fell short of God’s standard, and it got him into trouble. “I thought I was man enough to have sex outside of marriage, but I wasn't man enough to deal with the consequences.”

To make a long story short, Rob wound up giving in to the request of an ex-girlfriend and taking her to a Planned Parenthood clinic. She had an abortion, and he paid for half of it.

Rob believed abortion was wrong, but his desire to maintain a good appearance trumped his convictions. Years passed, and Rob carried a load of guilt and shame. He knew he had been a coward, and worse, he knew a life had ended because he had failed to protect it. When he told members of his family what had happened, he had to endure their pain and disappointment.

Up to this point, Rob’s story is all too typical. Others in the public eye today have had a similar experience, but hardened their hearts. They have made a name for themselves by fighting for other people’s “right” to make the same mistake — to commit the same sin — they themselves did. Perhaps they don’t want to face the pain of admitting that aborting was wrong; they certainly don’t want to think of themselves as accomplices to murder.

Fortunately, God had a different path for Rob.

He eventually enrolled in graduate school at Regent University and had a true spiritual awakening. “It was there,” he says, “that I truly understood the concept of grace and started living out my faith.” He went on to work at a Christian think tank in Washington, D.C., where he was able to write and speak to hundreds of students about how to apply God’s laws to real-life issues. In his leadership role in South Dakota, he has continued to share his testimony, including the college abortion.

Happily ever after? Well, not without adversity. Apparently, the senator from Rob’s home state of South Dakota does not understand the transforming power of grace. Sen. Tom Daschle’s campaign manager Steve Hildebrand told the Washington Post this summer that Daschle "has assembled embarrassing information on several conservative activists," including "a videotape of a conservative activist discussing how he paid for his girlfriend's abortion." Never mind that Rob’s college deed and his current “activism” are separated by many years and a significant philosophical and spiritual transformation; the senator seems hellbent on shooting the messenger of the gospel of grace.

Unfortunately, the senator has no apparent appreciation for, or understanding of, grace; he either doesn’t get it or he’s not interested in applying it in this case. And he’s not alone. Many reporters have seized this opportunity to mock Christianity, happily casting Rob’s past as some sort of evidence that he is lying about his beliefs today.

Rob, for his part, knows there’s good precedent for his situation. He remembers the Apostle Paul, who started out persecuting and even killing Christians because he believed they were heretics — but he had a major awakening, and ended up being one of the most prolific proponents of Jesus Christ in his day. “I wonder,” he says bemusedly, “if Daschle would also call [Paul] a hypocrite.”

It’s never fun to be attacked publicly, but Rob’s aware that God can bring good out of the most horrendous evils. “If I had but one prayer, today, it would be that my ‘hypocrisy’ ends up saving lives,” he wrote in a recent letter to pro-life readers. “If I have to be ‘hypocritical’ to save just one unborn baby’s life, then so be it.” Humbled but also liberated by having confessed his sin, he now sees an opportunity both to stop others from committing the same sin, and to help redeem those who’ve already done so — by (in his words) “sharing the truth about abortion and about God’s grace.”

Even with people who might seem unlikely to listen. Tom Daschle and his staff have a copy of Rob’s testimony in their office. Rob, and many others now, are praying that they actually listen to it — and hear it.