Here’s a four-minute clip of Pastor Tim Hawks of Hill Country Bible Church in Austin, TX trying to help some in his congregation understand why women have abortions.
What I love about it is he uses Planned Parenthood’s own research and helps us all start with empathy. Again, I encourage you to watch the clip, but I have also written out his words below and added a nicer chart that I use in my own Care Net presentations to pastors or churches.
So when someone is faced with an unplanned pregnancy, many people focus on the first nine months but when people who have had an abortion talk about why… here’s what they tell us.
“I could not personally see how I could bring a child into the world at this time and in these circumstances.”
So the majority of the resources in the pro-life movement are aimed at the first nine months either through political legislation to prevent abortions or through crises pregnancy centers helping men and women not to make a decision to have an abortion.
But the people that are in the midst of this decision are looking at the rest of their lives and saying, “I can’t see a way forward. How would I ever be able to do this?”
And that’s where they feel like they can’t move forward. And the way we drew the chart here…
The challenges just get bigger… it’s not just here [the blue teal area]… those you who are raising teenagers or have raised teenagers, you realize over the course of 18 years that it gets more expensive… it includes more time… bigger challenges. In other words, this is a life-altering decision that many find themselves unable to make.
When a woman and a man find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy decision, it’s hard to think about the child because of the other issues of what’s going to happen to me and how I am going to do this are the most shocking, fearful parts of this.
In fact, in a massive survey[1] taken of people who’ve terminated their pregnancy given a list of things that they could choose from of the reasons why, it is interesting what they say:[2]
- The baby would interfere with school, employment, or the ability to care for dependents. (74%). In other words, “I’ve got plans… How am I going to do school? How am I going to get my GED or get through college? What am I going to do? I’ve got people to take care of in my life. I’ve got dependents. How am I can I make a living?”
- I can’t afford a baby now. (73%) “How will I pay for this child coming into the world?”
- I don’t want to become a single parent or have relationship problems. (48%) “What about the husband or the father that is involved in this? How is that going to go down? Is he going is going to be accepting? Is he going to be part of this? Is this the person I want to spend my life with?”
- I’ve completed my childbearing or I’m not ready to have a child. (33-40%). “Am I ready to be a mom? Am I ready to become a mom again? Can I do this? Am I ready to be a be a father again? Can I be a father again?”
I point this out even with the manger family, Mary’s got this in her mind… how is this going to work?
[1] In 2004, a structured survey was completed by 1,209 abortion patients at 11 large providers, and in-depth interviews were conducted with 38 women at four sites.
[2] Guttmacher Institute: Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2005, 37 (3):110–118, September 2005.