A Path to Hope: Illinois prison ministry helps inmates find freedom from the pain of abortion

As director of the Women’s Pregnancy Center in Peoria, Illinois, Myfanwe Saunders had never thought about doing prison outreach. But a television interview with convicted murderer Carla Faye Tucker–who was executed by the state of Texas despite pleas for leniency from religious and anti-death penalty groups–planted a seed for a new ministry for Saunders’ organization.

“As I was listening to Carla Faye Tucker speak, I began wondering how many incarcerated women are post-abortive,” Saunders said. “This led to the thought that I should start investigating this. I didn’t know how to go about it, so I just prayed that if God wanted me to look into this, He would open a door to make that possible.”

The next day, Saunders said, she received a call from Sydna Massé of Ramah International. Massé told Saunders she had received a letter from an inmate at the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Illinois, asking for help in dealing with her post-abortion pain.

“Sydna asked if I could meet with this woman in Logan,” Saunders explained. “I really felt God had been preparing me for Sydna’s call. Even a week before I would have been very hesitant about meeting this woman–very fearful and doubtful. This was just not a segment of the population that I had ever really thought about before.”

But, seeing the phone call as an answer to her prayer, Saunders told Massé to give the woman her name. Shortly thereafter, she received a letter from “Sally,” the female prisoner who had asked to meet with her. Enclosed was a card from the prison chaplain, whom Saunders would have to contact before visiting Sally.

Saunders tried unsuccessfully to contact the chaplain for two weeks, only to be told that he no longer worked at the prison. Instead, she talked to Jim Simmons, who serves as a liaison between the prison and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Many women in the prisons have children who are in the foster system or who are being cared for by relatives.

“I talked to Jim and explained the situation,” Saunders said. “He was very interested and asked me to tell him about our organization and what we would have to offer these women. He invited us to give a presentation to the women at Logan. I explained that we would be talking about God and asked if that would be a problem. He said, ‘If we don’t have God and family, what do we have left?'”

In response to this invitation, Saunders and two other volunteers from her center went to Lincoln last spring, to give a presentation to the women prisoners at Logan. The first two speakers talked about parenting and abstinence. Then came Saunders’ part in the program: to talk about post-abortion issues.

“When I got up to talk about post-abortion, suddenly a lot of the women had to leave the room to go to the bathroom,” Saunders said. “There was a little gal in the front row who reached down and got her coat and crawled right under it. The pain in that room was so evident. But afterwards, there were so many women who came up to us and asked us to do a program for them to help them work through those issues.”

With the help of the new prison chaplain, Saunders and several volunteers were able to do two post-abortion Bible study programs at Logan last spring, helping about a dozen women through the programs. They repeated the post-abortion healing program Bible studies last fall, with about another 15 women.

This February, they began their largest program yet. About 28 women meet with the volunteers for the Bible-based programs on one of two days each week. Also for the first time, Saunders is holding an “Aftercare Program” for women who have gone through the Bible study program but would like more support in continuing to work through their post-abortion pain.

“Altogether we’ve had about 55 women in the program so far,” Saunders said. “We do an orientation program each time, and the chaplain and Jim [Simmons] keep their eyes and ears open for new women who might be interested.”

Changing Lives

“Doing these programs has changed my life,” Saunders said. “We have a great working relationship with the chaplain and the response to the programs has been tremendous. It is such an honor to work with these women and have them entrust so much of their lives to us. I really feel that we wouldn’t be here without God opening these doors for us.”

Most of the women she and the other group leaders encounter have never shared their post-abortive pain with anyone, Saunders said.

“One thing I’ve found is that many of the women don’t trust counseling that is provided by the facility because it can be used against them,” Saunders explained. “We promise them confidentiality, and they know we do not have anything to do with their parole, etc. That helps them to trust us.”

Saunders said trust is an important aspect of prison ministry. The women who come to their groups need to know that they can trust both the counselors and each other. To make that possible, the counselors need to show their willingness to be vulnerable with the prisoners.

“I haven’t had an abortion myself, but I’ve had some painful experiences in my life and have shared those with them,” Saunders said. “We always share our stories first, so they know that we share their pain. It helps to break the ice.

“We also have them sign a contract promising that they will keep whatever they hear in the groups confidential. We will confront them if they don’t, and we have had to do that a few times. That way they know we mean business.”

Building trust can be a gradual process, Saunders said.

“Today a woman who has been in my group since last September finally opened up to share her story with me when we happened to be the only two in the room. It was such an awesome opportunity to work with her when there was so much that happened to her in her life. She has basically handed her life to us. She told us afterwards that this was the first time she has ever done that with anyone in her life.”

Offering Hope

“I think the number one thing we offer these women is hope,” Saunders continued. “For example, we have a number of HIV-positive women in our groups, and for the first time they are feeling some hope in their lives. They have told us they feel like they can make it now.

“I’ve told all these women, ‘You may behind bars and a fence with razor wire stuck in it, but you are far more free than many people who are walking around out there.’ When I say that, you can see their chests kind of swell. That’s hope for them.”

Saunders said that although the Women’s Pregnancy Center is planning to cut back the days they go to the prison from two days a week to one, they have no intention of slowing down their ministry.

“We will just have more groups on that one day,” she said. “We already have a waiting list for our next program.”

But their plans don’t end there. One of the things Saunders would like to do is follow up with the women after they are released from prison. One idea, she explained, would be to start a half-way house to help women who have been through the post-abortion healing program make the transition back into society.

“One of the things you fear most is what will happen to these women when they get out and go back to their old neighborhoods and situations,” she said. “One woman who got out a few months ago told us she was very scared but knows she can make it because of what she learned through the group. It’s so important to give them that, but we’d like to be able to do more.”

Saunders also said the center is checking into expanding their ministry to include women at a federal prison in Pekin, Illinois, about 25 miles from Peoria.

“This is really a developing ministry for us,” Saunders said. “Laurie Velker [of the Pregnancy Resource Center in Michigan] has said she believes the doorstep for revival in this country is in the prisons. When I talk to these women, I just wish I could load them into my car and drive them to Washington and let them tell their stories before the Supreme Court.

“We are pouring all this money into our penal system. We’ve become the most incarcerated country in the world. Yet every woman we have worked with believes that in some way the abortion was related to her incarceration. For instance, many who have been imprisoned for drug crimes were using drugs to help them cope with their abortion. They can all identify the horror of abortion closely enough that they know it contributed to their incarceration.”

This, Saunders says, is something that can change through healing. “God is working through this ministry,” she said. “It’s really a privilege to be a part of it.”

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Originally published in The Post-Abortion Review 7(2) April-June 1999. Copyright 1997 Elliot Institute

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