Monetarily speaking, Jeff Bezos is a very rich man.
The Amazon founder is said to be worth upwards of $240 billion, a level that puts him as the world’s second wealthiest person between Elon Musk at the top ($362 billion) and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg ($215 billion) in third place.
Personally and spiritually speaking, the jury is still out.
Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos’ high profile divorce captured headlines in 2019. Married for 25 years and the parents of four children, they said the decision to dissolve their marriage came “after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation.”
Bezos is now engaged to Lauren Sanchez, a former television news personality. MacKenzie Bezos’ second marriage in 2021 ended in divorce last year.
As best can be discerned, Jeff Bezos has never publicly shared anything about a personal faith. When he and MacKenzie were married, the Reverend Richard Riccardi, who was affiliated with a breakaway, liberal Catholic denomination, officiated the ceremony.
When Jeff Bezos joined the crew of his “Blue Origin” rocket company to briefly travel 60 miles up into space, his ponderings afterwards were scientific, not theological.
“The most profound piece of it for me was looking out at the Earth and looking at the Earth’s atmosphere,” he said at the time. “Every astronaut, everybody who’s been up into space, they say this. That it changes them and they look at it, and they’re kind of amazed and awestruck by the Earth and its beauty, but also by its fragility. I can vouch for that.”
With that as a backdrop, it might not surprise you to learn that Jeff Bezos’ Amazon responded to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe by pledging to pay for any employee living in a pro-life state to go get an abortion somewhere else.
But one has to still wonder just how conflicted Jeff Bezos may or may not be.
Writing in his book, Invent and Wander, the serial entrepreneur devotes a chapter titled “My Gift in Life.”
“You get different gifts in life, and one of my great gifts is my mom and dad,” Bezos begins.
Jeff goes on to tell the story of how his mother, Jackie Gise, conceived him when she was 16 and gave birth when she was 17.
“I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t cool in 1964 to be a pregnant mom in high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico,” he writes. “In fact, my grandfather, another incredibly important figure in my life, went to bat for her because the high school wanted to kick her out. You weren’t allowed to be pregnant in high school there, and my grandfather said, ‘You can’t kick her out. It’s a public school. She gets to go to school.’”
Jeff’s grandfather and school officials worked things out. She stayed in school and gave birth to Jeff.
Jackie Gise married Jeff’s birthfather, Ted Jorgensen, but divorced him when Jeff was seventeen months old.
In the chapter, we learn about Jackie’s new husband, Miguel Bezos, who came to America from Cuba via a Catholic mission program. Jeff considers him his “real” father.
“So I have a kind of fairy take story,” Bezos states. “I was always loved.”
It was Jeff’s parents, Jacklyn and Miguel, who made the initial $250,000 investment in 1995 in his internet bookstore that eventually became Amazon.
“They’re so loving and supportive,” Jeff has said of his parents. “When you have loving and supportive people in your life … you end up being able to take risks.”
Tweeting on X of his mother, Jeff has stated, “So grateful. So proud. #Grit.” He later added, “Mom, I have no idea how you did what you did. Thank you for sharing your strength and for all the sacrifices you made. I love you.”
Jacklyn Bezos chose life, Jeff’s life was transformed – and countless lives have been changed because of that one teenage mother’s decision.
Given Jeff Bezos’ fortune and influence, just imagine how many lives he could help save were he to connect his story with an outwardly facing pro-life conviction.
It’s the way to pray.
Image from Getty.
The post Jeff Bezos Should Be Fiercely Pro-Life appeared first on Daily Citizen.
Daily Citizen