Betty (not her real name) refers to the moment she found out she was pregnant as “the worst.” She felt “hopeless and helpless” and completely alone. Without a home or a stable income, she felt her only choice was abortion, and made an appointment at a Marie Stopes abortion facility in the UK.
Unable to work because of extreme morning sickness, she was living in a room in an apartment. Her boyfriend didn’t have a stable job. Betty decided the best thing to do was to have an abortion so things could “go back to normal” and eventually she’d return to work. Abortion wasn’t what she wanted, but she felt as though it was what she had to do because of her situation.
“I went to my GP and I told him ‘I’m pregnant and I want to have an abortion,” she said in an essay for the group Be Here for Me. “He referred me to a clinic which they call Marie Stopes clinic in Ealing. I was 11 weeks pregnant.”
When she arrived at the facility, a pro-life woman named Lorraine was there, standing outside. From the moment Betty met Lorraine, everything changed.
“For me, it was definitely down to God that I missed a bus and was late because I may not have met Lorraine otherwise,” she explained. “I was looking really quite haggard at this point because I was throwing up so much. Lorraine smiled and gave me a big hug when I went over and I thought, ‘Ah, this person knows what I’m going through.'”
READ: Hey, UK media: Offering women the truth about abortion isn’t ‘harassment’
Betty told Lorraine about her concerns — her housing being number one. Lorraine immediately called The Good Counsel Network to inquire about a safe place for Betty to live. The pro-life organization helps women with pregnancy testing, moral support, medical information, legal advice, and practical assistance so that they can more readily choose life. This made Betty rethink her abortion, but she still went into the abortion business, which she said was “full of women.”
When her name was called to go back for the abortion, Betty couldn’t go through with it. Although the abortion worker was angry with her, she refused to be bullied into an abortion.
“So I went outside and spoke to Lorraine again,” she said. “She gave me another hug and told me ‘Congratulations!’ She called my boyfriend and told him the news and said that on Monday I would have a home! I couldn’t believe it!”
Betty and her boyfriend welcomed their son Isaiah, who has a safe place to live thanks to Lorraine and The Good Counsel Network, which also helped Betty apply for a visa to stay in the UK.
“If somebody was not there to see me I could have gone through with the abortion,” explained Betty. “Because I’d have gone into the clinic and there wouldn’t have been anyone there with another option. Look at the child. Sometimes I don’t want to talk about it in front of him if I think about it. If I [didn’t] find somebody that time I could have done it.”
Pro-life counseling is a necessity outside of abortion businesses because abortion workers are not trained to give pro-life options to women. They are trained to sell abortions. With over 70% of post-abortive women stating they felt coerced to abort, ensuring that women have all of the facts and information before they choose to abort is vital to saving their babies’ lives and their own health as well.
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