PROGRAMS  |  CLERGY FOR CHOICE  |  ALL OPTIONS CLERGY COUNSELING

Clergy Counseling: An Abiding Faith in Women to Make Moral Decisions

RCRC’s Clergy for Choice Network training programs help clergy to assist women at a difficult time in their life. Not only do clergy help each woman they speak to consider the emotional, relational, medical, financial, and legal aspects of a pregnancy-related decision, they also help her consider spiritual questions within the context of her own faith tradition.

Counseling women requires bravery, strength, and limitless compassion. Most of all, it requires an abiding faith in the ability of women to make moral decisions in the best interest of themselves and their families. These recent real-life cases give a glimpse of how this unique and essential service works. Both cases began with a call to the RCRC national office.
           

A woman left a message on the RCRC voicemail system – she said wanted to speak to someone about religious issues involved in a decision she was trying to make about being pregnant. A clergyperson on RCRC’s national staff spoke with her almost immediately. She had decided to have an abortion and felt comfortable with her decision, but when she went to the clinic, she found herself at a so-called crisis pregnancy center instead. Many of these centers use misleading advertising to lure women in, in hopes they can be dissuaded from having an abortion. In this case, the woman had been shown her sonogram images and told that Jesus loved her baby and that terrible things would happen  should she “break God’s law.”

The spiritual abuse that she received at that center left her shaken. She and the RCRC clergy counselor talked about different ways of understanding what she was going through. The counselor assured her that God loved her and understood why she was making this decision. They talked and prayed together about her understanding of God and what she wanted to do from here. She decided she wanted to go ahead with the termination. The counselor made sure she was put in touch with clergy who are trained in post-reproductive loss counseling so that they could support her and help her through this time.

A father of a 20-year old daughter called our office, searching for a pro-choice clergyperson who could help his daughter deal with spiritual issues she was facing. Her situation was very difficult. Her boyfriend had kicked her out of their home. She had lost her job, yet another victim of these challenging economic times. She was fortunate to have a loving family to turn to, and her parents agreed to help her go back to school so she could work towards a brighter future. Then she found out she was pregnant. Her pro-life peers began to berate her. They told her “her womb would be cursed” if she had an abortion. She believed in God but in her panic, lost her sense that God was with her.

In a desperate attempt to find his daughter trustworthy counsel, her father searched the internet – and found the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. The pain in his voice was evident as he told a clergyperson on our staff his concerns about his daughter’s emotional and spiritual distress. After talking with him for about 30 minutes, our staff member located a pro-choice clergy counselor in the daughter’s community and also provided factual information about the termination procedure as she headed into her 12th week. When we called the father back, he was overwhelmed with relief and gratitude.

These are the real stories about what makes our work so valuable. We should never forget what one phone call can mean to someone struggling with reproductive health issues.