YAY! So, if you’ve kept up with my blog or read any bit of my abortion resources page you should know I’ve been searching for a certain abortion support hotline for Christians. In short, this Christian woman, a pastor’s wife, to be exact, had had an abortion when she was younger. She remained in silence for many years but she says she feels no regrets from it, rather, relief! Finally, a Christian I can respect!
Long story short, because she felt sadness for the women who have to keep silent due to societies zealous lies and misguided hatred, the story inspired the opening of a hotline for women that have had an abortion. I assume it is more directed towards Christian women, but I am sure they would accept anyone. Their first statement is:
“Inspired by their minister’s story, activists at a New York church launch an abortion hotline that offers support without judgment.“
She goes on to say something that makes me love her, because I feel she is genuine. I must admit, I have a hard time trusting Christians, but I think this woman is absolutely a blessing to all women, but more specifically to Christian women out there who need other Christians to support them through their abortion. She won my heart over with the following statement:
Her reaction to the abortion itself was sheer relief, and she’s never had regrets. But she felt silenced, she says, and realized that she “spent years carrying around shame from that.”
Anderson says, “It breaks my heart that people are suffering because of something that has left them so stigmatized, feeling guilt, shame, and regret, when they could move on.”
She also goes on to speak of how pathetic the Christian “support” for women is. I love that she is as honest as she is. And though I am usually a bit cautious with most Christians – for my own reasons – I DO believe all women who need or want someone to talk to deserve to have that opportunity, but more importantly, they deserve to have it with non-judgmental women.
Before calling, I hope you will read the post or visit the site to make sure it is for you.I have pasted the entire story below as well as a link back to the site. The number is 1 866 647 1764 , it is only open on Tuesdays (6pm-9pm), Thursdays(6pm-9pm) and Saturdays (10am-2pm), sadly. (I believe that is EST time, for the record.) I also should mention this is an after abortion hotline, there are plenty of resources listed on this page for women who need non-judgmental, caring pre-abortion support. The website for the abortion support hotline can be found HERE.
With that said, here is the article, and below that the original link. Hopefully this will help any Christian’s who have been too afraid to speak but want to. I will be adding this to my abortion resource page as well as updating the new site to have all the same resources this page does in a few hours… Tis is nap time for me!
The Rev. Kaaren Anderson was scared. It was time to preach, but she felt like throwing up. Early in her sermon, when she asked the congregation a question and got no response, she even got a bit shrill. “You have to be alive with me today in the room, OK?”
Anderson pushes her parishioners at the First Unitarian Church of Rochester, New York—where she is cominister with her husband, the Rev. Scott Tayler—to the edge of discomfort, passionately calling them to action. The congregation, with its long history of social justice activism, loves her for it.
But she was the one feeling discomfort. In fifteen years of parish ministry, she had never preached on her personal experience of abortion, “which is odd, if you know me, because I rarely shut up about much of anything,” she says. She had decided to talk about her abortion as an eighteen-year-old, a secret she had kept for much of her adulthood.
The larger message Anderson was preaching that day in September 2009 was the essence of her own theology, adapted from theologian Frederick Buechner: that we are called to find what breaks our hearts, then find where that heartbreak intersects with the needs of the world, and act on it.
It was time to tell her congregation what most broke her heart. The summer before she started college, Anderson got pregnant, the only time she had “messed up” with birth control, she says. Neither she nor her boyfriend was financially or emotionally ready to have a child. She had an abortion.
It was 1984. In that year alone, two dozen abortion clinics were destroyed by bombs and arson. Anderson’s boyfriend, who later became her first husband, did not want to talk about the abortion, and he did not want her to tell anyone else. Growing up Unitarian Universalist in Madison, Wisconsin, she knew her family and faith tradition would support her right to choose. But she didn’t even tell her parents until after her marriage broke up.
Her reaction to the abortion itself was sheer relief, and she’s never had regrets. But she felt silenced, she says, and realized that she “spent years carrying around shame from that.”
Anderson says, “It breaks my heart that people are suffering because of something that has left them so stigmatized, feeling guilt, shame, and regret, when they could move on.”
Anderson defies ministerial stereotypes, dressing in her own eclectic mix of plaids, ruffles, and boots, changing her hair color and style often, and speaking in conversational bursts of incomplete sentences, colloquialisms like “get this!” and “well, duh,” and even throwing in the occasional four-letter word as she gets worked up.
That September 2009 sermon may not have been her most polished, but it was full of raw pain and passion, and it touched hearts. It also helped launch an ambitious social justice program called Connect and Breathe, which parishioners have signed on to in scores—a free talk line for women after abortion, staffed by trained volunteers who will listen, affirm women’s own moral agency, and not judge them.
In the 1980s opponents of legal abortion began promoting “post-abortion stress syndrome,” the idea that women who have abortions will experience depression, anxiety, and suicidal feelings. Numerous studies have refuted the idea: Abortion causes no more negative emotions than childbirth itself, or any of the alternatives to a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy.
In recent years “post-abortion” services to counsel women have proliferated, under the assumption that a woman has committed one of the most heinous sins imaginable: murdering her own child. Treatment often involves intensive counseling and weekend retreats, based in Christian language of repentance and forgiveness, and may require activism against abortion rights as part of the “healing process.”
Continue reading this article by clicking HERE.
UGH the “healing process” she speaks of makes me sick to my stomach. No wonder so many women feel as if they did something bad, even though they DIDN’T! That is one reason I am hesitant of Christians; they tend to use fear tactics instead of truth or logic to try and get you to buy into their scheme. Thankfully, I don’t believe this woman is like that.
As I always say; remember, abortion is not evil; you are not murdering anyone; break through societies stigma and lies… Stay strong, and be your own person! 🙂
Truth- A Right to Fight For... 
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