TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Dr. Ben Carson, 74, didn’t bring scalpels, medical or political charts to the 37th Annual Grand Traverse Area Right to Life’s Focus on Life Benefit Dinner on Monday, October 6 – but he did bring conviction, faith, and a bit of his trademark humor.
A near-record crowd at the Grand Traverse Resort leaned in as the former neurosurgeon-turned- presidential candidate-turned-Trump HUD Secretary, and more recently the National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, spoke about God, life, his mother, and the moral backbone America risks losing.
What did you do when the innocent were being slaughtered?
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When asked by Michigan News Source what made him pro-life in an interview before the event, Carson didn’t cite politics – he cited an obligation from Proverbs 24:11-12. Carson answered, “What did you do when the innocent were being led to slaughter? Did you do anything? It says, your heavenly Father knows whether you did or not, which means he didn’t expect us to just stand and watch. I think that’s when I became pro-life.” That realization, he said, shifted him from thinking that he didn’t have a right to tell others what they should be doing to becoming an advocate for life at the age of 30 years old.
As a doctor, Carson’s pro-life perspective was also shaped by experiences that few people will ever have – including performing groundbreaking in-utero surgery. “That was very novel at the time and very daring, to the point that the ethics committee said we couldn’t do it,” he recalled. And with a chuckle he added, “and so we went to one of the local hospitals that didn’t have an ethics committee.”
Years later, at a banquet, a young women told Lacena “Candy” Carson, “Your husband operated on me and my twin sister while we were still in our mother’s womb.” Ben Carson added, “That’s why I know what’s in a woman’s uterus is not a bunch of useless cells.”
From inner-city to the operating room.
Carson’s message to the large Traverse City crowd blended humor, humility, and hard truths about personal responsibility – lessons he said began with his mother, Sonya. Calling her the wisest person he’s ever met, he acknowledged, “She had less than a third grade education, grew up in a large rural family in Tennessee.” Despite this, she raised two successful sons.
In the interview, Carson said about his mom, “She never made excuses for herself, but she also never accepted excuses from us. So we had to figure out what to do without thinking somebody’s going to hand you a sympathetic hand…and I think that made us such problem solvers. We didn’t sit there, blame it on somebody else. It makes a big difference. If you can bring up a child to take responsibility and not be looking for someone to save them, you are probably going to raise a very successful person.”
That no-excuses philosophy carried Carson from Detroit’s housing projects to becoming the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins at the age of 33 – and the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins joined at the back of the head. “By the time a baby is born,…the brain is developing at a terrific rate,” he said. “That’s why newborns sleep 20 to 22 hours a day.” He talked about how brains continue to develop in people into their mid to late twenties and quipped that some people never quite finish that process.
Mom’s influence.
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When reflecting on his mother, Carson recalled the day she declared that he and his older brother, Curtis, would be spending a lot less time watching television so they could focus on improving their grades. Ten-year-old Ben and twelve-year-old Curtis were required to read two library books a week and write reports on them. Needless to say, the boys weren’t thrilled. What they didn’t realize at the time was that their mother, who was “grading” their papers by underlining and highlighting them, couldn’t even read herself.
Reading books soon became more than just an assignment for Carson; it became his escape and his window into new ideas and places. Books transformed him from being called the “stupid” kid in class to the “bookworm,” and he devoured everything he could find about animals, science, and the world around him.
Carson told Michigan News Source that he still reads regularly – not just the Bible, but also books on health and nutrition, which will serve him well in his new role with President Trump’s second administration. “I have hundreds of books people have given me,” Carson added. “So I’ve always got something to read.”
Faith, freedom, and common sense.
Carson’s tone turned serious as he spoke about what he sees as a nation drifting from its spiritual roots. “Things going on in our society are not an accident,” he warned, pointing out how people in control of the media and Hollywood are trying to change the culture and get rid of God in public schools.
He said young people, however, are waking up. Through his work with Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, a conservative non-profit organization, Carson said he’s been encouraged. “When I first started doing it a few years ago (going to college campuses), there would only be a few dozen very brave students. Now we have hundreds of students. We have to turn hundreds of students away. The younger generation is starting to realize that the pathway that we were on as a society was not leading to a good place.”
A surgeon, a servant, and a man of faith.
Even after decades of accomplishments and accolades, Carson remains self-effacing. When asked about the announcement that President Trump will be giving him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he said that this will be the second one he will be getting, the first one having been awarded by President George W. Bush in 2008. Carson said, “I didn’t think I deserved even one Medal of Freedom. When I got the call, I said, ‘you sure have the right person?’”
He credits his mom and his faith for keeping him grounded during tough times on his road to better times. “As a young person, I remember thinking that I would never get past 20, 25 if I was lucky,” he said, “because that’s what I saw around me.” But obviously God had other plans.
A message that resonated.
For the full ballroom at the Grand Traverse Resort, Carson’s mix of intellect, faith, and sincerity struck a chord. His life – from inner-city Detroit to world-renowned neurosurgeon and national leader – echoed the dinner’s central theme: that every life has value, purpose, and divine design. As one attendee in the room put it, “Dr. Carson reminded us that the fight for life isn’t political – it’s spiritual.”
What about Trump?
The interview concluded with a question about President Trump – specifically, what might surprise people about the man behind the headlines.
Carson’s answer: “He is an extremely nice person. That’s exactly what the left doesn’t want you to think. I’ve been with him lots of times when there were no cameras around, no media people. And, you know, he just stops and talks to normal, ordinary people. We were Mar-a-Lago this spring, walking around, and ran across a group of workmen, and he stops and regales them with stories and compliments their work and then he pulls out a big wad of $50 bills and hands them to each one and says ‘go buy your wife something nice.’”
A call for courage.
As the evening went on, Carson gave the crowd a challenge – to live with courage, compassion, and conviction. And with a belief in God. In talking about his mom, he said she had great faith and “She believed that God was the answer to every problem, and she was right in my mind.”
