Real choice that is.
Those in favor of legal abortion champion that they are the movement of choice. They call themselves pro-choice and for reproductive choice, using the positive words to hide what they actually stand for. Who isn’t for choice? And so many in the pro-life movement know, the pro-choice movement is known to be for one choice only–abortion.
That’s why when I friend emailed me an article from the New York Times stating that abortion clinics will be working to integrate adaquete adoption information in their services, I thought it was too good to be true. So I read the article a few times. This bit caught me every time I read it:
The idea is simple. It is about choice. Not choice as a euphemism for the right to have an abortion, but choice in the true sense of the word: options, informed consent and support for women trying to figure out what to do with an unwanted pregnancy.
Yes! Can we do this? Can we finally, as a society, offer women in pregnancies full knowledge of their actions and it’s effects, other options they have, and support, monetary, emotional, and spiritual? Can we offer women REAL choice?
Within the next month, 15 abortion clinics in New York area will have posters that read “Questions about adoption? We can answer those, too.” Imagine that.
Corinna Lohser, one of the founders of the Adoption Access Network, said that when she worked at an abortion clinic in Cleveland years ago, she and many of her colleagues were wary of adoption, noting that abortion providers are “the ones getting all this harassment from protesters about adoption.”
Now Ms. Lohser, 33, works for Spence-Chapin Adoption Services, a New York adoption agency that supports abortion rights, and has come to regret the lack of information she had been able to provide women in Cleveland. If a client said she didn’t think she could carry a pregnancy to term, then never see the child again, Ms. Lohser’s response was, she recalled, “Yup, check, me either.” She did not realize how much more common openadoptions had become; she knew of no adoption agency that would speak to women with an open mind about abortion.
With the financial support of Spence-Chapin, Mr. Lohser brainstormed with her co-founder, Cristina Page, a longtime abortion-rights advocate, on how to start training and educating willing abortion providers about adoption (since 2009, she has trained about 15 clinic staff members, one of whom serves 13 clinics). One clinic social worker recently counseled a woman, in frequent phone consultation with Spence-Chapin, through the placement of the baby with an adoptive family.
Support that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers have been offering for years. The resources and help is out there, and the pro-life movement has known that and done so much to get that information into the hands of expectant mothers–even to the point of many standing on the sidewalks of clinics, in rain, cold, or sun, to offer options and information to women considering abortion. But, there is hope that maybe the pro-choice (abortion) movement will finally work to put meaning behind the word ‘choice’ and offer similar options. If it saves a life, it’s worth it. Let’s hope this initiative saves many lives!