His Love Made All the Difference

June 17, 2015

One of the many things I have learned from watching couples walk in, as well as talking to the other sidewalk counselors, is that women will often make this decision based on the opinion of the man that they are with. Without proper encouragement from a man, a woman may not keep her baby. Without his consent to keep the baby, she may not keep her baby. That is usually how it goes.

I was blessed to see a couple take these roles to different ends. This past week, a man and a woman who looked like they were in their mid-20s walked up to the abortion facility. We could tell she was very closed off and angry. She snapped at us from afar when we tried to talk to her.

My attention was diverted elsewhere until I saw her boyfriend standing next to another sidewalk counselor. I saw her speaking fiercely to the counselor as her boyfriend stood beside them, his head down. She stalked away from them and went into the facility.

Her boyfriend stayed, talking to the counselor for a long time. He did not want his girlfriend to have the abortion. Truth be told, he wanted to have a relationship with her. He wanted to marry her. But she was struggling with her current pregnancy because she was already helping him take care of his other kids. The counselor encouraged him to go into the facility, and tell her that he wanted a relationship with her, that he would marry her and that an abortion would only hurt to their relationship.

The boyfriend headed inside. A little while later we saw both of them walk out. They walked through the parking lot and straight through the alley. She didn’t glance back.

I have been told many times that women need assurance from men. Today I saw it to be true. She needed to know he would care for her – that she wasn't alone. With that support, she chose not to end the life of her child that day. Women need strong men in their lives. And this man was one of the strongest men I have seen outside the abortion facility.

By Erica Rohde

#interningforlife #prolifesummer

Image Credit: April Killingsworth https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Erica Rohde joins the Catholic Pro-Life Committee this summer as a sidewalk counseling intern. She graduated from Coppell High School in 2013, started at The University of North Texas in Journalism and is now transferring in the fall to Benedictine College in Kansas as potential Journalism and Theology major. Erica shares that she was drawn to this ministry because “I don’t want to be a passerby with serious atrocities such as abortion that is hurting families."