Voices November 22, 2018
Pro-life stories waiting to be told
By Paul Schratz - Life In The Schratz Lane
Something about crisis pregnancy centres gets abortion
supporters up in knots. Activists are constantly working to “expose” the
“anti-choice nature” of pregnancy centres. They’re currently working to get the
Alberta government to remove crisis pregnancy centres from a government-run
website of health resources.
I think it’s because of the countless positive stories that crisis pregnancy centres produce. Take Cari, who is an abortion activist’s worst nightmare. Her story is salutary, putting the lie to the narrative that crisis pregnancy centres are just the work of anti-choice religious groups who offer women nothing but interference with their abortion rights.
Last year, Cari, a single woman, ended a short-term relationship, only to discover she was pregnant. In shock and feeling alone, she went through “a lot of dark emotions” as she struggled to sort out her options, abortion being high on the list. She “just wanted it all to go away” and was leaning toward taking “the easy way out.”
For some reason she remembered Abbotsford’s Hope for Women pregnancy centre offering free pregnancy tests. After going in and getting the pregnancy confirmed, she wound up speaking with a supportive counsellor who was non-judgmental as they discussed her options.
The experience gave Cari a sense of peace and she ended up returning to the clinic to talk some more. At the end of the conversation, her counsellor told her, “I really think that if you’re not going to keep this baby, you’re going to regret it.”
Cari chose life, and she tells her story in a video recently shown at a fundraising dinner for Advokate, which operates the pregnancy centres in Abbotsford and Langley. Cari describes how being a new mother has been full of challenges but having a baby “changed my life for the better.” Motherhood “kind of rocked my world a bit,” she says, and is “a really beautiful thing.” Cari and her new baby daughter Ryza attended the dinner, where they received a warm round of applause.
Abortion advocates won’t tell you stories like Cari’s, but Jared White will. Advokate’s executive director shared many of them at the dinner, such as the hundreds of women who walked through the agency’s doors in Abbotsford and Langley over the past year. Many were abortion-minded women who changed their minds after encountering someone they could speak freely with about their predicament.
White told about the dozens of presentations Advokate gives to high schools, and about the free ultrasounds offered to pregnant women, half of whom chose life after seeing images of their unborn babies. So effective is the ultrasound program that Advokate is introducing in-house ultrasound services at its Abbotsford and Langley locations.
Advokate is also expanding northward, to the largest B.C. city currently without a crisis pregnancy centre, Prince George. The existing pregnancy centre had to close its doors this summer due to lack of manpower. In response, Advokate will partner with the centre to open an Advokate branch there, with a fundraising event Nov. 29 to help kick it off.
Advokate is just one pro-life organization among hundreds across Canada that are saving lives in diverse ways. Some, like Advokate, offer outreach and support to women facing unexpected pregnancies. Others, like LifeCanada, take a different approach.
LifeCanada serves as a national association of about 80 local and provincial educational pro-life groups working to promote the value of human life. At a recent dinner, executive director Natalie Sonnen announced new initiatives to help bring about a culture of life in Canada.
LifeCanada is preparing for next year’s 50th anniversary of
legalized abortion in Canada and plans to commemorate that grim milestone in
several ways. One is the Missing Project, an ambitious initiative to explore
the effects of abortion on Canadians from coast to coast. Five-minute film
testimonials will capture stories of people affected by abortion from all walks
of life. The videos will be made available to churches, non-profit
organizations, and pregnancy care centres across the country.
LifeCanada also wants to challenge the narrative in Canada that abortion is a fundamental human right, so it’s going to conduct polling to examine Canadian women’s attitudes towards abortion.
LifeCanada will also continue its important Dying Healed program, which teaches volunteers to reach out and support those vulnerable to assisted suicide and euthanasia in hospitals, nursing homes and seniors’ residences, and private homes.
Sometimes it can get discouraging watching pro-life politics unfold in Canada, probably because we rarely hear the good stories out there. We need to tell them more often.
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