The Scarlet Letter

I was in church one day when a friend in her late 20s slipped me a note that said she wanted to speak with me about something that had been weighing on her heart for months. “It’s about the A-word,” she wrote. I hadn’t a clue what she meant by the “A-word,” but I gave her a call later that night. Her story was heartbreaking.

“I had an abortion in February, and I feel guilty and ashamed,” she said. “I tried telling my mom and the care-group leader at church, but I was afraid.” I listened for an hour as she grieved the death of her unborn baby. When it was over, I prayed with my friend and gave her the number to a ministry that offers post-abortion counseling.

The entire conversation took place barely above a whisper, but I knew why she had refused to raise her voice. Christian women, especially, don’t want to talk about abortion. We skirt the issue in church and pretend it doesn’t happen to women who love God, but it does. The secrecy is part of the reason so many babies are aborted every year. Abortion on demand comes with a hefty price.

I wrote a cover story about a woman God is using to address the issue of abortion not only in political circles, but also in the church. Alveda King is the niece of slain Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and she is committed to defending the unborn. She overcame the shame of two abortions, and her message can help you or someone you know in a crisis pregnancy.

Let’s not walk around church using the “A-word.” Let’s call abortion what it is and offer help to our hurting sisters.

To read the article, scroll down.

A Voice for the Voiceless

The niece of Martin Luther King Jr. was an unlikely woman to become a pro-life activist. She had an abortion herself, but the painful experience helped her uncover the lies used by the abortion industry.

Alveda King is an unlikely poster child for pro-life causes. In 1970, when abortion was still illegal in the United States, her doctor gave her an abortion under false pretenses. Then in 1973, the 22-year-old walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic and underwent a second abortion, performed by a doctor who assured her, “It’s just a blob of tissue.”

The procedures damaged her cervix and forced her to miscarry another baby months later. In addition, the physical toll on her body and the emotional strain of the abortions led to the demise of her first marriage.

She divorced two more times in her life, but she says when she met Jesus in 1983, He opened her eyes to the reality of what she had done and forgave her for destroying her babies.

“God rescued me from a cycle of death, and the only thing that kept me from losing it was knowing I will one day see my babies in heaven,” she told Charisma.

The mother of six adult children, King, 59, says her love for the unborn trumps her painful past, and today she is driven by spiritual conviction to defend the most vulnerable of human beings.

In 2004, she joined forces with Priests for Life, which is said to be the nation’s largest Catholic, pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. As pastoral associate for the organization, King travels the country preaching, rallying support, and among other things, going after lawmakers who are “pro-murder.”

But advocating for the rights of others is in her genes-literally. King is the niece of the late Martin Luther King Jr. and wife Coretta. Her late father, A.D. King, was a high-profile leader in the civil rights movement who marched alongside his famous brother until Martin’s assassination in 1968. In 1978, she was elected to the Georgia state legislature and later appointed regional deputy of the U.S. Department of Education for region four by President George H.W. Bush.

Having a famous last name may open doors for her, but King knows the pro-choice industry is giving up no ground in the battle for abortion. She says she is one voice among millions crying out for the unborn.

And today the fulfillment of her uncle’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech is coming to fruition in her own life.

“My uncle Martin said he had a dream that Protestants and Catholics, gentiles and Jews would join together to sing that age-old spiritual, ‘Free at last / Free at last.’ But he also said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ and killing unborn babies is unjust.”