This week, The Catholic New World talks with Elaine Kindler, executive director of Aid for Women.

Women who walk into the Loop office of Aid for Women are greeted by a friendly volunteer in a quiet, homelike setting. Most come for the free pregnancy test, either hoping or fearing the results. Many say that if they are pregnant, they want to get an abortion.

Elaine Kindler, executive director of the Catholic pregnancy resource center since March 2000, says she won’t use deception to bring women in, but once they arrive, she will tell abortion-minded women truths they would rather not hear in hopes of persuading them to have their babies.

Kindler knows first-hand the pain abortion can cause. She had an abortion in 1972, at the age of 22, and it was more than 20 years before she began the healing process.

After worshipping in an Episcopal church for years, she is now taking RCIA classes at St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in River Forest.



The Catholic New World: What happens when a woman comes in to the Aid for Women office?

Elaine Kindler: We offer what most pregnancy resource centers offer, which first and foremost are free pregnancy tests. So women who want to be pregnant come to us to confirm that they’re pregnant, and people who don’t want to be pregnant come to us in fear that they are. For our pregnant clients, our services go on to include free ultrasounds. All of our pregnant clients are offered a layette, with a blanket, day outfit, onesie, little shoes or socks or booties, other things that individuals and churches donate. It sounds like such a simple thing, but what we’ve found is that for a woman who may be undecided what she is going to do with her pregnancy, or indeed a woman who is abortion-minded, sometimes seeing that layette makes her baby real to her for the very first time.

The most important thing that we offer to women is our counseling. People use the expression “counseling for life,” and that’s what we do. We want our clients to feel cared for. One way of doing that is to give them time, give them honest listening.



TCNW: What do you discuss with your clients?

EK: For those women who are pregnant and are not sure they want to be, or are definitely sure they don’t want to be, we carefully cover their options. Of course that includes adoption. We have two counselors who volunteer with us who are adopted themselves, and one of our board members has a brother who was adopted. For people to be able to personally talk about that—you know, “What do you mean you don’t want to release your child for adoption? If my mother hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here.”

It’s pretty powerful. If a client does not have medical insurance and she is pregnant, we refer her for a free ultrasound. If someone is abortion-minded, we try to get her to the ultrasound that day. If a woman is counseled, she has her ultrasound, and she comes back immediately to be counseled again, we can say, “OK, here’s your picture of your baby,” to try to help her deal with the reality of what she’s doing.



TCNW: What do you tell clients about abortion?

EK: We do not go in for scare tactics here; we don’t go in for grossing people out. We do talk about the procedures. We talk about the risks to them, both immediate and long-term. Through all of that, we’re listening to what’s going on in this woman’s heart. It’s very sad when we don’t get to hear what’s going on in her heart, when she has encrusted what’s going on in her heart with defenses and the pain that’s been caused for her. It’s really hard to help a client then. If she opens up just a little bit, God will usually help us find a way to soften her heart.



TCNW: Is the boyfriend usually with her?

EK: Not often enough. Most women come on their own. If they do come, oftentimes the boyfriend will end up sitting in reception initially. We always invite him in at some point in the conversation. Especially if he is abortion-minded, we want him to hear directly from us what he’s asking her to do, and what risks he’s asking her to take. We want him to hear that by asking her to do this, he’s increasing her risk of breast cancer, her risk of infertility later, her risk of not being able to have a normal pregnancy, that her cervix will be so damaged that she’ll miscarry.

If I’m doing the counseling, I’ll ask him, “Do you love her?” If he has been able to watch the videos (about abortion), I’ll ask him, “What do you think now?” Thankfully, people’s minds are changed.



TCNW: Do most of your clients turn out to be pregnant?

EK: Of all the people who come here for pregnancy tests, over half are negative. So what do we do next? Well, we talk about their lifestyle.

Are they married or unmarried? If they’re married and they don’t want to be pregnant, we talk about natural family planning. If they are unmarried, then we, without preaching, talk about their lifestyle. We say, “You don’t want to be pregnant, but you’re in this relationship. What do you want out of it?” And usually it’s intimacy. They’re looking for intimate relationships. But multiple sexual partners is not intimacy. We talk to them also about sexually transmitted diseases. People are just not informed. We have these bright college students coming in, and they don’t have a clue. They have no idea that condoms don’t prevent HIV. They think they’re having safe sex, and they’re not safe at all. There is no cure for AIDS yet, so they are really playing with their lives.



TCNW: How did you come to this position?

EK: I am a post-abortive woman. I had my abortion in 1972, and I didn’t start post-abortion healing until 1993. It was 20 years before I told anyone about the abortion. It’s amazing to me how God takes the sin of our lives and, if we allow him to, turns it for good. ... I had gotten a job working on an anti-abortion referendum campaign in Maryland. I went to go to interview for this job, and I was talking with the executive director, and out of her mouth come the words, “How closely has abortion touched your life?” And I knew I couldn’t lie. That was the first person I told in 20 years. I knew it had to do with my marriage not succeeding. I knew it had to do with the very risky behaviors I had lived after the abortion. There’s a study in Finland that just got published, and it’s true: women are more likely to die in the 12 months after an abortion than women who have their children. Whether by suicide, or risky behavior or accidents--it’s something, and it’s not just physical. For me, I realized I had killed my child, not just another human being, but my child. I had done the worst thing I could possibly do, so what else mattered? ... Why not do some more bad things? I’m not excusing my behavior, and I certainly don’t tell my story with any sense of pride at all, but God has taken all of it, and used it. ... I’m not here out of a sense of atonement. Absolutely not. I’m here because this is where the Lord told me to be.

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