Rep. Marlin Stutzman’s outrage over the “horrors” revealed at a Philadelphia abortion doctor’s office led the Indiana Republican down a personal path of discovery recently.

As the anti-abortion rights lawmaker wrote in the Washington Times this week, his own mother contemplated abortion in December of 1975, after her house burned down and the 17-year-old realized she was pregnant. It’s a revelation the congressman himself elicited after giving a speech about the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell on the House floor.

“I gave her a call,” Stutzman wrote in the Washington Times. “When she answered, I talked to her about my speech on the House floor and then asked gently, “Mom, did you ever think about.” There was a tense pause, and then, through tears she said, ‘Marlin, I’m so sorry!’ As we cried together, I was no longer a congressman, but a son understanding for the first time the heartache and struggles my mom had gone through before I was born. As we talked about her fear of driving 40 miles [to a Kalamazoo, Mich., clinic] alone, I had to think, “What if a ‘Gosnell‘ clinic was only four miles away instead of 40?”