Today was a slower day at the center on Fordham Road. The last woman that I spoke to, “Laura”, came into the office with her mind set on having an abortion. She opened up to me about her life: she has three young children and has had three abortions in between these children. Her last two babies were almost abortions, but, of course, she would not take back her decision to keep the children for anything. I showed her a video on the abortion procedure and she said “I wish I had not seen that. That makes me think.” She told me that no one had ever told her about the risks of abortion or how she would feel after. She suffers with dreams about her aborted babies and constant feelings of guilt, but did not know that this is a “normal” reaction for post-abortive women. In her heart, she did not want to abort this child, just as she never wanted her first three abortions. She enthusiastically took information from me on post-abortion healing and contact information for the Sisters of Life, and agreed to go in for a sonogram and to keep in touch with EMC to continue with her decision to keep her child.
Of course we are all aware that when doing God’s work, we are only God’s instruments and ultimately His will is done. But moments like this reinforce for me another, almost as important lesson about pro-life work: when we are counseling women, we are not there to persuade, convince, or manipulate women into keeping their babies. Rather, our role is simply to help women realize that deep down, no one actually wants to have their baby killed, and there is always another choice that respects the life of the baby and the soul of the mother.
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