2008.10.12
Center provides alternate viewpoint
A dark mahogany, butter-soft leather sofa beckons visitors into the homey room just inside the door of Roanoke's Blue Ridge Women's Center.
A throw blanket is casually draped across the back of the sofa; it's the same color as the cranberry red pillows perched on nearby leather upholstered chairs. The warm mocha walls are bathed in soft lamp lighting, and a television perched overhead is barely audible.
The sitting room at the Christian-based, pro-life women's center on Williamson Road is comfortable, cozy and welcoming.
The room at the Blue Ridge center is a different side of a movement often typified by attention-seeking protesters outside abortion clinics or in human chains along busy roads.
Two weeks ago, I visited the Blue Ridge center after one of its volunteers called me. She had taken issue with my characterization of social conservatives as lacking compassion for teen mothers.
She noted that several faith-based women's centers, including Blue Ridge, treat unwed pregnant teens with kindness and concern.
So I met with Phil Holsinger, the center's president and chief executive, as well as staff counselor Susie Amos and director of clinical services Brooke McGlothlin.
I wasn't prepared to immediately warm to Holsinger and his staff.
But I did, and I developed a new respect for at least a portion of a movement I had thought of as one-dimensional.
Holsinger acknowledged there are some in the pro-life cause who are more aggressive in their efforts. But many are not, he added.
"Unfortunately, the rhetoric in our country is always argued from the extremes," Holsinger said. "We've chosen to be the compassionate voice in the midst."
Caring about mom, too
Established in 1984 as the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Roanoke, Blue Ridge provides free pregnancy testing and counseling to women of varying ages who are pregnant or think they might be. The center, which also has an office in Rocky Mount, also has free maternity clothes and baby items, such as strollers.
Its mission extends beyond getting the baby here but also helping the mother get on her feet.
The center serves about 400 women a year. During its 24 years, it has counseled 858 women who came through the doors considering abortion, but chose to have their babies instead, according to one of its brochures.
Clients include the unmarried and the married, McGlothlin said, and some men accompany their wives or girlfriends. Most of the women are between 18 and 24, but the clinic has seen 13-year-old girls and 50-year-old women.
McGlothlin said many women take over-the-counter pregnancy tests at home but seek a more reliable, laboratory-quality urine test at the clinic.
"More than that, they need someone to help them think through the situation, need someone outside the situation," she said.
"We convey to the client that this is a safe place," Amos said. "When the girls come in here, they have a high stress level. We just listen to them."
Offering hope
Elizabeth Wagner showed up at the center about five months ago, single, pregnant and unemployed. The 21-year-old and her baby's father were on rocky terms. She was afraid to tell her mother and fearful that her church would reject her.
She wanted her child, but in the swirl of confusion and stress, the option of abortion crossed her mind.
"I needed the confirmation," Wagner said. "Susie sat down and talked to me and gave me hope."
Today, Wagner has a job, and she and her mother get along fine. A recent sonogram shows her baby is a girl, and she's thinking of names.
"I know it's going to be tough and it's going to be hard, but God has given me this baby for a reason, and I'm going to take it one step at a time," she said.
A ministry
Like many others, Wagner learned about the center through word of mouth. Most of them know it is a Christian-based facility.
So they usually are not surprised if a counselor brings up their faith and asks them to speak about it as it relates to their situation, McGlothlin said.
She said counselors ask clients questions such as, "What do you think God thinks about this life you're carrying? ... Do you feel like God has an opinion? Does that matter to you?"
Amos noted that if someone doesn't want to inject religion into the conversation, "we are not in their face with that."
At the beginning, the staff informs women that it does not refer for abortions or perform abortions, McGlothlin said. Still, some women who have no intention of carrying their babies to term still visit, she said.
Some merely want to confirm their pregnancy. Others seek information about life skills classes the center offers to help them get their lives on track.
A summer/fall list of classes included childbirth, resume-writing and career counseling, budgeting and abortion recovery. The recovery class is for women who terminated a pregnancy months and even years ago and are struggling with the decision.
"There is no circumstance where we'd say, 'You are not welcome here.' We want to be a service to any woman who needs our help," McGlothlin said.
A call for more workers
The center, has eight full- and part-time workers, and has an annual budget of $365,000. Individual donations make up 71 percent of the budget. Churches give 17 percent and businesses 12 percent.
Overseeing the operation is Holsinger, an ordained minister, former pastor, husband and father. He joined the center in February. Holsinger, who grew up in my hometown of Flint, Mich., is easygoing, engaging and not dogmatic or judgmental. That's not exactly what I expected of the CEO of a pro-life center.
Holsinger, 55, used to be pro-choice. Before he met his wife, Cindy, a previous girlfriend became pregnant. The young woman decided to have an abortion, and Holsinger backed her decision.
He said he became a Christian in 1984 and became "pro-life in my mind, not pro-life in my heart."
His moment of full transformation came six years later. During recovery from testicular cancer, his doctor had told him Cindy should not get pregnant for at least 18 months because of the radiation treatment.
Holsinger had never told his wife about the doctor's caution.
But one morning in 1990 as he shaved, his wife waved a home pregnancy test in his face.
"God was telling me at that moment that I needed to trust him," Holsinger said.
He relied on his faith and eight months later, he said, God delivered Taylor, who is now a spirited and healthy teenage girl. Holsinger didn't tell his wife of the doctor's warning until after their daughter was born.
"I made a decision I was going to trust in God's goodness."
Today, Holsinger wants to get a new generation of workers, including more minorities, active in the pro-life cause.
"The problem we have in pregnancy ministry work is too much gray hair," he said before 500 supporters at the center's annual banquet Oct. 2. "The next generation has to be equipped to be ready to serve."
A heartwarming story, regardless of where one stands on the issue of choice.
Comment by Mike — October 13, 2008 @ 12:32 am
My belief is it's a woman's choice to have or not to have it;s her ultimate choice it's just were the funds come from that I have trouble with.
But when a child is born into poverty, neglect, drug addiction and abuse the future seems dismal for a child beating the odds. Just today alone I've read two stories of two 1yr old children dying from suspicious deaths of blunt force traumas and another of an 8 day old child being raped by the father you have to wonder if....
What ever the case the human chains in front of these clinics are wrong and those people need to be arrested before someone emulate the Paul Hill case or Eric Rudolph the clinic bomber that also committed the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.
As a society we have a responsibility to protect our citizens, and for those that force their ideals on people at the barrel of the gun deserves Paul Hill conclusion ......
Paul Hill convicted of murdering an abortion doctor, died on Wednesday September 03, 2003 by lethal injection. He was the first person executed in the U.S. for anti-abortion violence.
Hill, 49, was found guilty of the 1994 shotgun slayings of Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Herman Barrett in Pensacola, Fla. Barrett's wife, June, was seriously wounded in the attack.
Comment by Backlash — October 13, 2008 @ 12:48 am
While it's great that the center provides life skills classes and free childcare supplies, I have a hard time swallowing the claim that a facility that asks clients about their relationship with God isn't "injecting religion into the conversation." Of course, I understand that non-Christians probably would not go to the facility for help.
Nevertheless, I was gradually becoming more receptive to their mission until I read Holsinger's story. If you have cancer and the doctor tells you not to bear a child, why not use birth control or practice natural family planning? By not telling his wife, he wasn't "trusting in God's goodness," he was failing to prepare her for a reality that would've blindsided her nine months later if Taylor had been born with defects. If I were Cindy, I would have been angry. After all, it's her body, and she had a right to know if she was bearing a potentially unhealthy child. A wise husband and potential father would've sat down with his wife and said, "Honey, I'm glad that we've created a new life, but there might be some potential complications. Let's trust in God, but we need to make a plan and set aside some extra money in case our baby requires additional treatment." Being truly pro-life means securing the best possible conditions for your child and family, not just ensuring that a child is born. Holsinger's dishonesty is not a convincing testimony for persuading pro-choice thinkers to consider becoming pro-life.
Comment by Truth is better — October 13, 2008 @ 10:21 am
I'm so glad to see that caring organizations like Blue Ridge Women's Center are finally getting some positive press. The truth of the matter is, that whether you agree with their faith or not, they are working to serve women and care deeply for them when they are at a crisis point in their lives. It's out of their faith that they are compelled to offer a compassionate response to abortion and unplanned pregnancy. Recognizing that all women have the legal right to choose for themselves, they can come alongside a woman making a choice and offer help, guidance and information so that she can have peace about the decision she makes for the rest of her life. I know first hand that the people serving at Blue Ridge genuinely love the women they serve. Just ask their clients to tell you about the outstanding, caring individuals who serve them. Blue Ridge's mission isn't to make abortion illegal...their mission doesn't have anything to do with the legal system. They exist to be a voice of truth and compassion to women faced with a choice that has the potential to impact them for a lifetime. Thanks, Shanna!
Comment by glad to hear it — October 13, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
Re: Backlash
At the heart of the matter is the issue of what is true, good, and valuable regarding the lives of both the child and the mother. We need to understand that abortion is NOT a viable solution to any distressing situation and presenting it as such is indefensible.
I find it disturbing that Backlash presents abortion as somehow a compassionate option for disadvantaged children. How in the name of goodness can you consider death by being burned to death by saline or by dismemberment to be compassionate?! How can anyone conceivably argue that murdering a person is somehow the true face of compassion? That is a sad place to be if you honestly believe that. The truth is that human life definitively begins at the point of conception. This is a scientific fact. It is not a political issue, it is not a matter of one’s faith; it is an undisputed scientific fact.
What we have in our society is a failure of legislation to give rights to that unborn child. It is NOT a question of whether or not it is a human life. So the argument that it is just a clump of tissue is disingenuous at best.
Regarding the issue of a woman’s absolute right over her body that right is valid up to the point where it affects the life of another human being. Each person has the absolute right over their own body and we are all obligated to follow this line of reasoning if we are to co-exist in a civil society. The places where we see this truth trampled upon are most clear in dictatorship, and in the history surrounding the darkest hours of humanity: Nazism, Communism, attempts at ethnic cleansing and ideological protectionism.
Now I understand that most people are simply misinformed or uninformed on the facts regarding abortion and the pro-life position. Therefore these people are not to be blamed for the decisions and actions they take. However, it is unfortunate that more than a million human children will be killed to promote the abortion industry’s greed. It is also unfortunate that almost that many women will suffer long-term grief and distress because of the decisions they will make because of the lies the abortion industry and the media have promoted. As a compassionate and reasonable people we can do so much better than abortion! The Blue Ridge Women’s Center is a glowing example of one way we can begin. Thank you Shanna, for your wonderful article.
Comment by Heart of the Matter — October 14, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
Shanna,
What a beautifuly written expression of connectedness for those who need it most, Moms and babies. This will always be a "hot" topic, as we discuss when life begins, and I don't want to support abortion when used as birth control, nor to I want to take the right away from women. We see cruelty, increasingly towards our children, and I can't help but think as do many others that those who are educated make informed decisions and this is the right of everybody on this planet. Denying the functions of the body,using sex to sell everything under the sun, I am not surprised at the unwed birthrate.
Comment by Dona Wheeler — October 15, 2008 @ 12:50 am
Heart of the Matter this is were you are wrong, i provided a thought not an answer and if you feel like linking your self into the human chain throwing literature at people and trying to force your ideals on people that enters said buildings for advice then you need to locked up for the safety of others.
Your statement "regarding the issue of a woman’s absolute right over her body that right is valid up to the point where it affects the life of another human being".
When you take it upon yourself to inject your ideals by fear and Subtrifuge you have became nothing more than the pestilence that encircle these buildings...
Again a woman have the right to make their own choice maybe you should try talking to the Senator of Omaha because there is a rash of people driving their children there and dropping them for the fear of being..
a parent.
Comment by Backlash — October 15, 2008 @ 3:26 am