Abundant Life: The Work of the Blue Ridge Women's Center
As believers, we celebrate the “sanctity of life.” But what, exactly, does it mean to do so?
At the Blue Ridge Women’s Center (BRWC), we seek to answer that question every day.
Jesus said, in John 10:10: “A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”
At the BRWC, we believe Christ’s call is to not just to help people survive, but to support the worth and value of every person by pointing them toward experiencing life to the full – babies, and their parents as well.
We minister from a life-centric approach to those facing unplanned pregnancies: we don’t provide or refer for abortions; we provide information about all of their pregnancy options and seek to provide them material, emotional, and spiritual support so that they will be more likely to choose life for their children and be in a healthy place to nurture them. We offer pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and STD testing at no cost to our clients, and we pray that clients will make life-giving decisions for their pregnancies. But our focus is not only in efforts for the well-being of the baby, but for the woman, whatever her needs, and whatever choice she makes for her pregnancy. We recognize that honoring the sanctity of life involves not only the unborn child, but her struggling mother and father.
“Honoring the sanctity of life involves not only the unborn child, but her struggling mother and father.”
One of the ways we do that is through our specific supports for women who are considering abortion. We like to say that our approach is to minister, not manipulate. Women choose abortion not, primarily, because they don’t know “it’s a baby”, but because their world has been shattered, they feel utterly overwhelmed, and they are unable to see a pathway forward to survive emotionally, financially, or even physically, if they carry the pregnancy. The key to helping a woman choose life for her pregnancy is not to shame her, shock her with the horrors of the abortion procedure, or to hammer home the personhood of her baby. The key to helping a woman choose life for her pregnancy is simple, yet profound: helping her feel supported. The more supported she feels, the more likely she will be able to adjust to the new world the pregnancy has created and be able to see a means forward to not only survive it, but even thrive because of it. This support we provide comes in many forms, including counseling, informational resources, ultrasounds, a mentor program, parenting and life skills classes, and a program that provides material support such as diapers, clothing, and nursery items.
Another way we seek to honor the sanctity of life is through our response to the woman who does choose abortion. While we grieve over this decision, we do not condemn her; we seek to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with her as fellow wayfarers on the difficult journey of life who have also, along the way, made choices we regret. We recognize that it is often through our most painful, wrong choices that the Lord works most powerfully in our lives for good. We seek to be a safe place that helps her begin a path of healing – one that includes both truth and forgiveness. Most women who have experienced a termination are in tremendous pain – pain that can negatively impact their lives for years. We offer individual counseling, resources, and support groups, facilitated by those who have found healing after abortion themselves and whose experiences God has used to transform the lives of others.
A final way we seek to illustrate a more comprehensive understanding of the sanctity of life is through our support for those who have experienced any type of reproductive loss, whether by miscarriage, termination, stillbirth, early infant death, premature birth, special needs diagnosis, or infertility. Reproductive loss touches everyone – even if we have not experienced it ourselves directly, we know someone who has. The pain from pregnancy loss can be overwhelming, complicated by the fact that our culture often treats it as insignificant, and there are few supports available to help people grieve. Blue Ridge Women’s Center provides multiple avenues of support to help those who have experienced reproductive loss begin the journey of healing, and we also offer training for churches and individuals in how to best respond to and support those who have experienced a reproductive loss.
How does this all look in real life? In a recent week at the Blue Ridge Women’s Center, we:
Did a pregnancy test and counseling with a married couple excited to be first-time parents who don’t have insurance and wanted to confirm their pregnancy
Provided information, counseling, and an ultrasound to a woman who originally had an appointment with Planned Parenthood for an abortion but changed her mind, deciding to parent
Helped a client go shopping in our Baby Boutique for items for her upcoming baby with points she had earned from attending our Parenting and Life Skills classes
Met with a senior Christian woman to work through issues from her two abortions more than 40 years prior
Offered counseling support and faith encouragement to a woman who just miscarried the baby she was not sure, due to health conditions, she would ever be able to have.
Did follow-up with an abortion-minded woman, who ended up terminating her pregnancy, to let her know we care about her and to offer after-abortion care if she needs it
Provided Abortion Pill Reversal resources to a woman who called after taking the first set of abortion pills and immediately regretted it, wanting to have her baby (the reversal was successful)
This, for the Blue Ridge Women’s Center, is what honoring the sanctity of life means. We endeavor, with God’s grace and power, to help those who are broken and struggling to not just survive…but to find abundant life.