CHARLOTTE — God’s “amazing grace” was the theme of a “Silent No More” anti-abortion campaign outside one of Charlotte’s three abortion facilities July 30.
In the shadow of Family Reproductive Health on East Hebron Street, where approximately 2,000 babies are aborted each year, about a dozen pro-life activists gathered to tell their stories of past involvement in abortion, and how they found healing and forgiveness from God and their families.
The national Silent No More campaign aims to reach out to those hurting from abortion, help them seek healing, and to educate others that abortion is harmful – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Speakers praised God for His mercy and the peace they have found through healing and forgiveness.
“The prayers and cries of so many people trying to reach out to help, the intercession for these people in this place, day after day and year after year, has been a testament to the love of Jesus Christ, to many that have come here, to many that have driven by this area. Yet (abortion) continues,” said Katherine Hearn, one of the event organizers and Silent No More campaign activists. “Today we have decided to bring our voices and testimonies to the battlefront.”
Hearn said she had an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in 1976. “I went alone because I was so embarrassed and ashamed. It was a day that changed everything in my life.”
“I put my abortion in the closet and I closed and locked those doors,” she said. “Yet God never left me, even when I left Him.”
Calllie Jett testified that she nearly had an abortion at 16. Pro-life literature and sidewalk counselors outside the Planned Parenthood clinic where she was waiting for her abortion are what saved her.
Jett said she had thought abortion would be an “easy way out,” but sitting in the lobby of the abortion clinic, she recalled, “After an emotional battle, I found the strength to walk out of that abortion clinic that day.”
Instead, Jett turned to the sidewalk counselors, who helped her get medical care, a home and a job, and an adoption plan that she was confortable with. She praised pro-lifers for their public witness, and she encouraged abortion-minded women to pursue adoption instead.
“No person grows up to expect to choose abortion,” she noted. “Whatever situartion you may be in, give yourself and your baby choices. There are people outside the abortion center who truly want to help you.”
Robert, who didn’t give his last name, talked for the first time about his participation in an abortion. At 19, he learned that his girlfriend was pregnant. When his girlfriend told him she wanted an abortion, he recalled, “I gave it 30 seconds of thought and just said, ‘OK.’ It was that easy. How sad it that?”
Now married 25 years with a family of his own, he has turned his pain and regret into activism for the pro-life cause. But the self-examination and healing continues, he said, even after receiving the sacrament of reconciliation and sharing his past with his wife.
“Jesus paid the debt that I owe. I love Jesus for that,” he said, adding tearfully, “I regret the abortion of my child, whose soul awaits me in heaven and wants me to know that I am forgiven. I pray God may bless you and continue to reveal His love and fill you with His amazing grace.”
Paul Deer noted that it can be frustrating for pro-life witnesses to continually come out to abortion mills, seeing the parade of women and men going inside to kill their children. Too many people either don’t want to know the truth or they defend “this abomination,” he said.
But, Deer emphasized, “We are not called to win this battle, but to fight it. The battle has already been won. It’s been won on the cross.”
More than 40 years after the legalization of abortion, Hearn concluded, “the silence is deafening.”
People must continue to offer their testimony of the pain that abortion causes, she insisted, to help others who are still wounded. And they must continue to give thanks to God for His “amazing grace.”
“It must begin here,” she said. “We must never leave this place until this place of death is one day a haven of life.”
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, Editor‘I’m sorry’ anti-abortion campaign launches
Charlotte pro-life activists have started a web-based public awareness campaign for those who regret their past involvement in abortion. The “I’m sorry for my involvement in abortion” campaign aims to give voice to the many people who feel sorrow for their participation in abortion and enable them to seek healing, especially during the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy.
More information is at www.imsorrycampaign.org. For inquiries, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
