When Everyone Lays Down the Sword

An amazing event happened at the Charlotte abortion clinics. The police, the Cities4Life pro-life counselors, and the pro-choice clinic escorts and advocates all joined forces to offer help to a woman in despair. I cannot share details for obvious reasons but a woman clearly let the clinic know she was being coerced to abort against her will, a victim of domestic abuse.

The folks on each side of the divide over the choice of abortion gathered together to discuss how they could help this woman. They talked about how to avoid causing greater harm with the violent boyfriend while rescuing the woman. One of our counselors called me to ask for advice. Then she put one of the pro-choice folks who has ardently opposed us in the past on the phone with me. We discussed the pros and cons of various strategies. I was standing near a police officer who we feel is antagonistic to us and seems to arbitrarily apply the law to hamper our efforts to reach the women. I asked him what he felt we should do. He was remarkably helpful.

A pro-choice person standing nearby overheard and came to offer her advice. We all gathered together trying to discern the most effective way to save this woman and her baby.

Dumbfounded cannot begin to describe how I felt afterwards. The pro-choice people THANKED me and our other counselors working on behalf of this woman.

Later that day, a woman drove out of the abortion center and told us she chose life. She pulled over in the street in front of the same clump of police officers and pro-choice people who normally insist the cars not stop, and that they not talk with us. I have overheard them countless times telling the drivers that we are crazy and not to talk to us. Not this time. 

I stepped into the road and talked with the woman for five minutes, giving her my name and number so we could talk more later about the resources we could offer to her. Not a single officer tried to wave her on. Not a single pro-choice person tried to interrupt or end our discussion.

For a moment, the earth stood still in unified spirit.

Later, when I spoke with that woman on the phone, I learned she was also being coerced to abort. When she chose life, she let the father of the baby know she had changed her mind. He had insisted she abort and given her the money to do so. He was angry she had now changed her mind and insisted she reschedule. She was in difficult circumstances, all alone. She didn’t want to abort...but what else could she do? She told me she felt defeated. Overwhelmed. Hopeless.

I shared our vast array of resources including the mentorship program with Lovelife Charlotte. She said if we offered nothing else but the support and friendship of the mentor, that would be enough. Every concerning issue she raised, I listed resources that could help. We talked at length about God. I learned that a series of bad choices had led to her difficult life, and she was struggling so much that she had lost any faith she might have had in God. She hadn’t prayed or gone to church in years. YET, she said it was God who showed her the signs not to abort, including our team stretched all along the sidewalk offering help.

As I shared the truth of the Gospel, what it really means to ask Jesus to be Lord, and how He paid the penalty for our sin and suffered the punishment we deserved in our place, she told me she wanted that. For the first time in years, in her own poignant plea, she prayed aloud to God and submitted her life to Jesus.

We don’t yet know what will happen with the first woman who was being coerced. For now, her baby is alive. I do know the second coerced woman is on a new path entirely; the bondage of sin broken.

Coercion occurs in most abortions according to some studies. It is certainly my experience after several years counseling on the sidewalks of abortion centers that the majority of women who abort are pressured to do so. I am grateful that the pro-choice crowd was able to see and act appropriately on the issue of obvious coercion. My hope is that their eyes will also be opened to the depravity and horror of a mother EVER taking the life of her own child in the brutal act of abortion.

Nonetheless, I pray the spirit of light and of life that touched that dark place yesterday for a moment will endure.

Psalm 9:10 

And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Psalm 31:14-15 

But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!

Romans 15:13 

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.