When you think of a woman going to get an abortion, what do you think of?
A young teenager who accidentally got pregnant with the boy next door? A rich college student who doesn’t want her career to be put on hold for a baby?
Adoption advocate Dawn Baker says that’s a common myth that can trip up many in the pro-life community. What a lot of people don’t realize is that many women who are considering abortion are actually in a dire crisis.
“It really is primarily women in their mid-20s who are already parenting children and who are in a crisis situation, whether relationally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, one of those ways,” says Baker on the Charisma News podcast for the “Family Changes Everything” series.
The goal is to empower the woman with life-affirming options for her future and for her child.
Baker, who serves as director of infant adoption and pregnancy counseling for Bethany Christian Services in Michigan, says she has had the privilege of helping plenty of women in desperate need so that their babies could live.
“When a woman comes to us who is homeless, her paramount thought is: I don’t have a place to live. I don’t have anything to eat tonight. I don’t have warm clothing,” Baker says. “So we need to work on meeting those needs, and the church needs to be available to do that.”
Baker says her team’s services can be divided up into three basic categories:
1. Helping women with unplanned pregnancies by providing resources and connecting them with a local church.
2. Training these women to be parents if they decide to keep their babies, with a focus on family preservation.
3. Supporting women who are pregnant at a later age whose unborn babies may have special needs.
Each woman making a choice for life is an opportunity for the church to be the support she needs, Baker says:
“We have the great opportunity to step into that space in their lives for a very brief time, and to be a light and to potentially impact their lives and the life of that child for eternity. So we don’t take that lightly, and we can’t do it alone.”
Find out more about how Baker and her team at Bethany Christian Services is making a difference in the lives of moms and their unborn babies by listening to the podcast!
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