July brings the enormous celebration of our independence! It is the midpoint of the year and it is the chosen month for vacations.

This July brings with it a long-awaited answer to the prayers that many of us have been saying since July 22, 1973. There has been such upheaval about the right for a woman to choose abortion as a solution to an “unexpected” or “unwanted” pregnancy. There has never been a harsher debate; this one continues even after 49 years. The two Supreme Court decisions; the most recent one being on June 24, 2022, have only exacerbated the differences of opinions. If we truly give some thought about abortion, it has been practiced since the beginning of time. Given some more thought, is it not the lack of control and the lack of education that leads to most unexpected pregnancies?

It might surprise you to know that over the many years of my teaching the Creighton Model, I have had the privilege of teaching many post-abortion women how to chart. Even more surprising is the fact that most of them are charting with the hopes of achieving a pregnancy. I have learned so much from these women. One case stands out and always will. This young married woman was distraught and anxious because she and her husband had been trying, unsuccessfully for 3 years to achieve a pregnancy. Every time she started a new cycle, she would spiral downward and express that she would never be able to have a baby. At one point she was so depressed that it was alarming. I was compelled to comfort her in some way, so I stopped the follow-up and asked her to talk with me. In that conversation, I discovered that in her teens, she felt the only way to be popular with the boys was to “give them what they want.” During those years, she had 3 abortions. She felt that as punishment, God would never allow her to have another pregnancy. I told her that God always forgives and if we ask for that forgiveness with true sorrow, God forgets what we asked Him to forgive. She cried so hard that her whole body was shaking.

We talked for a long time. She said that she had started going to the cemetery and finding the graves of the babies and just sitting and crying. I asked her if she had named her babies and she said that she would. We had 2 more followups and on the third scheduled followup, she did not show up. My habit is to wait 15 minutes and then call. Just before I made that call, she called me. She was screaming and I could hardly understand her but finally I was able to understand that she was pregnant! I congratulated her and said that we could cancel this appointment, but she said, “No, I am coming! I want to see you!” I asked where she was and to my astonishment, she said that she was at an abortion clinic! This took my breath away and I told her that she needed to get out of there. She informed me that this was the third clinic that she had gone to and gotten a positive pregnancy test. Then she would tell all the women there her story and urge them to keep their babies. My goodness! Who knows how many babies she saved that day?

As a followup, this young lady went on to have 3 full-term pregnancies!

God had mercy and He is good all of the time.

Thank you again and again for supporting the St. Gianna Center and for allowing me to continue this wondrous work! We need you and our clients need you!

May you enjoy this month of July and have a happy and safe 4th of July!!