{"id":9067,"date":"2011-12-24T03:16:03","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T08:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveaction.org\/blog\/?p=9067"},"modified":"2013-04-02T06:26:51","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T10:26:51","slug":"abortion-helping-women-really-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-helping-women-really-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion – “helping” women? really?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

I will be sidewalk counseling tomorrow morning, which is Christmas Eve (yes, a nearby abortion facility will be performing them that morning).\u00a0 Before each time I counsel, I tend to ponder past experiences I\u2019ve had on the sidewalk\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

One Saturday morning, a homeless lady came walking by the abortion facility where I was sidewalk counseling with a few others. I could tell she had some kind of impairment, possibly due to drug use, by her shakiness and sporadic hand gestures, and she was drinking a beer. She asked me what I was doing and why I was doing it, then asked if she and I could sit and talk. We talked for almost 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

She noticed the models of the\u00a0preborn at different gestational ages I had next to me on the sidewalk, and asked if we could move away from them. She kept starting to tear up when one of us would talk about the abortion facility or unborn babies. She kept saying that she thinks the abortion facility was just there to help, because \u201csome women might have crack babies\u201d they couldn\u2019t care for if they didn\u2019t abort. I was about to respond when her tone changed.\u00a0 She said \"A<\/a>\u201cbut you know what, I love babies. I love them very much.\u201d Trying to be sensitive to the fact that she may have experienced an abortion in the past, I kept my words as gentle as possible.\u00a0 I smiled and simply agreed with her, feeling like she had more to say.\u00a0 She went on\u00a0about how she thinks God has a purpose for us all, and that she knows God loves her and everyone no matter what. I told her I believe the exact same thing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

She would randomly grab my hand and pat it, start to smile and then begin to cry again. She refused to look at the little baby models a friend of mine handed to me to show her, and she started to cry again, starting to pull on her hair, saying she just couldn\u2019t bear to look at them. She had kept asking me, \u201ccan I ask you something?\u201d and have a random (sometimes even funny) question for me\u2014about my belief in God, whether I thought we all had a purpose here on earth, whether I liked her t-shirt, etc.<\/p>\n

We talked back and forth, and she\u2019d repeat herself over and over. She\u2019d smile at me, then start to say something, and begin to cry all over again. It was obvious she wanted to say something important, but simply couldn\u2019t get it out. Then, I asked her, as kindly as I could, \u201cCan I ask you something now?\u201d and she nodded. \u00a0\u201cHave you had an abortion?\u201d She nodded again and began to cry more, wiping her eyes and running her hands through her hair repeatedly. She didn\u2019t make eye contact with me for several seconds.\u00a0 She looked back up at me without a word. I asked her, \u201cDo you want to talk about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, she opened up completely. She told me she was raped at fourteen and was sent to an unwed mothers\u2019 home where she had to give the baby away. She told me that she wonders where her other daughter is sometimes. I told her that wherever she is, I bet she\u2019s happy, and \u201cI bet she\u2019s got your very pretty blue eyes.\u201d She seemed flattered by that. She told me she got pregnant again later on, but the father wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. I told her that she must have felt very alone and that she didn\u2019t have any other choices. She said yes, and wiped her eyes again. We talked about her past for quite some time as she continued pulling on her hair. Sometimes she\u2019d show the demeanor of a 6-year-old\u2014 get giggly, clap, then grab my hand and become serious, and we\u2019d have parts of the discussion all over again.<\/p>\n

She summoned her friend over\u2014 I had seen this man walking by the last several times I sidewalk counseled, and he was always very nice. They had a little personal hand gesture, like a little secret handshake. The three of us talked together for a while. She told me she\u2019s a Longhorn fan (she saw my Texas A&M shirt) and I showed her how \u201cgig \u2018em<\/a>\u201d and \u201chook \u2018em<\/a>\u201d put together is \u201cI love you<\/a>\u201d in sign language, and that we could still be friends anyway (even though our favorite universities are rivals). She smiled.<\/p>\n

She said she doesn\u2019t have a lot of friends and doesn\u2019t like many people, and she hasn\u2019t told many people about what she\u2019s been through, but for some reason she wanted to come and talk to me. I told her I was very\u00a0glad she did, and that there are other people who want to hear her story also, if she ever wants to share it. I told her if she ever feels like she needs to talk with someone again, she can call a pregnancy center<\/a> in the area, and I gave her a packet with Rachel\u2019s Vineyard<\/a> information in it so she could look into a post-abortion healing program.<\/p>\n

Before they left, her friend told me he says a Hail Mary every time he passes this facility, because he is the father of three aborted babies. The woman gasped and asked him if he knew what he just said\u2014she didn\u2019t even know that about him!<\/em> I said I will definitely say prayers for them both and that if they ever need to talk with someone again, the information in the pamphlets can help them, and they went on their ways together.<\/p>\n

Not all miracles that occur on the sidewalk are\u00a0obvious.\u00a0 Some are small, but so important.\u00a0 We are not out there just to help pregnant women in need and save babies\u2014 we\u2019re out there to be a witness of love to everyone that passes us by; to reach out to anyone and everyone who has been impacted by abortion<\/strong>, from all walks of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will be sidewalk counseling tomorrow morning, which is Christmas Eve (yes, a nearby abortion facility will be performing them that morning).\u00a0 Before each time I counsel, I tend to ponder past experiences I\u2019ve had on the sidewalk\u2026 One Saturday morning, a homeless lady came walking by the abortion facility where I was sidewalk counseling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":12394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nAbortion - "helping" women? really? - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-helping-women-really-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Abortion - "helping" women? really? - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I will be sidewalk counseling tomorrow morning, which is Christmas Eve (yes, a nearby abortion facility will be performing them that morning).\u00a0 Before each time I counsel, I tend to ponder past experiences I\u2019ve had on the sidewalk\u2026 One Saturday morning, a homeless lady came walking by the abortion facility where I was sidewalk counseling […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-helping-women-really-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-24T08:16:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-04-02T10:26:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/sad.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"565\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"504\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-helping-women-really-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-helping-women-really-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Guest Contributor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/ee46ba3624c9d950f1e366c60c7fddc8\"},\"headline\":\"Abortion – “helping” women? 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