A happy and Blessed Easter to you!
Celebrating the miracle of the Resurrection and the opening of the way to eternal life is always an incredible time to be involved in pro-life work.
Although they had seen Him raise others from the dead, and He had promised that they would do greater things than He had, none of the apostles expected Jesus to rise from the dead Himself.
We too are often doubtful of Christ's ability or willlingness to give life back where it has ended.
I mentioned recently in a blog how many women we have seen lately with incomplete abortions.
One of these, Una, came to us some time ago with her boyfriend asking for an abortion.
"I don't want to do it, if he would support me I would keep the baby" she said.
We hoped that education, encouragement and support could change her boyfriend's mind, but no. He had raised a couple of families already, thank you. And no part of the truth was going to get in the way of getting rid of this one!
Prayer didn't seem to effect the desired for change on him either (although of course we never know what prayer HAS done...).
We became Una's allies, planning the support she would need, and trying to protect her from the negative influence of John. But despite all prayer - and there was much - we suddenly lost contact with Una, just for 48 hours, she turned off her phone and gave in. She took the abortion pill. She soon called us again telling us what she had done and how remorseful she felt, how much it had affected her relationship for the worse.
Then suddenly came another call -a scan showed that she was still pregnant and 2 weeks further along than the abortuary had told her - perhaps this was why the abortion pill failed? - or perhaps it was because they are always tampering with the appointed times for giving the pills, to try and save on their costs, the abortuary had given her the two pills on the same day. An alert went out to our praying members.
We brought Una in with John again. This time we showed him a graphic DVD of what would happen in the abortion, with his permission and at Una's request. He left ranting and raving about the troubles of raising a child. He seemed unmoved. But Una was changed. She left the room to cry while the DVD was finishing and came back determined to keep her baby, boyfriend or no boyfriend.
We took her for another scan. I sat beside her, praying the St Michael prayer, as we often do at scans where the baby's life is in the balance and the doctor who kindly printed her about 14 scan pictures, assured her the baby looked healthy and said "The baby is due on 29th September" - which of course is the Feast of St Michael!
Una still has a long way to go. Her baby's state of health won't be clear for some time, though we have seen healthy babies born after the abortion pill has been taken. And John, though now supporting her, still wants her to give the baby up when it's born - not something she intends to do, so prayers are still needed. But for Una, it feels like a second chance, like a real resurrection and she is both repentant of her past mistakes and hopeful for her and her babies future.
Clare McCullough
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