Not saying abortion generally has all the affects that the CPCs claim, but I do believe that in a small minority of women it does affect them.

I tend to agree that if abortions were that traumatic, they would not be as popular. Adoption is no longer as popular as it once was because it IS traumatic for most.

Except they don’t dismiss the effects. What they do is give women a crash course on statistics. While some women have lingering effects, the overwhelming majority — even those in the “highest risk” categories — feel relieved.

Think of it this way: everyone, pro-choice and pro-life, agrees that roughly 1/3 of all women in this country have abortions by the age of 45. If abortion really were so traumatic, you’d see very few women holding down jobs, raising children(*), or just getting out of bed in the morning.

(* The overwhelming majority of women — roughly 4/5, if I remember correctly — who get abortions already have children and/or have children in the future. The fact that a) people on both sides tend to view women who had abortions as permanently childless, b) the fact that pro-lifers who get abortions repeatedly claim “my situation is different because I have kids/plan on having kids,” and c) the overwhelming majority of animal rights people who refuse to kill cockroaches are pro-choice and have an unconventional yet theoretically rock-solid argument for how this harmonizes with their AR positions, makes me suspect that the abortion debate is more about permanently relinquishment of motherhood and nontraditional gender roles than anything else.)

Most crisis pregnancy centers disguise their purposes and purport to offer women choices, when in reality they want to recognize only their favored choice. If their sole purpose is to prevent abortions, that should be made more obvious. Yet, they pretend to offer “choice.”

I cannot admire using terror tactics to coerce a woman into any decision -adoption, abortion or parenting.

I’ve been involved with several over the years (informally, by making donations of baby equipment and so on), and have always been impressed with the compassion and grace extended to clients.

Crisis pregnancy centers exist because people who believe abortion is wrong want to make sure that no woman ever feels as though she has no other options.

I admire the fact that these people make a concerted effort to lend a hand, rather than simply feel as though they’ve done their part by simply voting pro-life. Talk is cheap — and all too often a source of harm and misunderstanding rather than healing.