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To save a life is to save the world

For 15 years, the volunteers and staff of Pregnancy Assistance have been reassuring women they can choose to keep their unborn babies and can count on being supported.

Often it was the only affirmation some women got, said long-term volunteer Helen Sawyer. “Sometimes abortion feels like the more viable option but, in their heart-of-hearts, women know it’s not the way to go,” she said. “It’s being able to say to a woman, ‘It’s okay to have your baby; you can do it; let us help you; we’ll stand by you,’ that makes all the difference.”

Sometimes women with unplanned pregnanices did not hear that from those around them; instead, people “sit on the fence”, she said. “The women hear, ‘We’ll support you whatever your decision,’ which a lot of the time sounds like, ‘Sorry, you’re on your own’.”

Ms Sawyer said her experience was that a woman’s loved ones would usually rally to support her once she had signalled her resolve to keep her baby. She has been a volunteer at Pregnancy Assistance, located in a modest house on Lord Street, East Perth, since it was founded in 1996 through the combined efforts of herself, Sharon Balsarini, Anne-Marie Langdon and Brian Peachey. 

They were inspired to take direct action to help pregnant women, after Archbishop Barry Hickey made a public pledge that no woman should ever feel she needed to have an abortion due to financial pressure or lack of support.

While abortion is a hot-button political issue, inflaming passions across the ideological spectrum, Ms Sawyer said her main interest was attending to the personal needs of women and their babies.

“My work remains the same,” she said of her role, counselling women and providing practical support after birth.

The need has never been greater. In 1998, two years after Pregancy Assistance was established, the West Australian parliament legalised abortion on demand (Victoria followed suit in 2008).

This year the centre has offered help to more than 1000 women.

Lydia Stanley, the co-ordinator of Pregnancy Assistance for six years until September, said she had seen a marked increase in the number of women seeking help who had had a previous abortion.

The ready availability of the morning-after pill, chemical abortifacients such as RU-486 and long-lasting contraceptives such as the implant Implanon, she said, had created a culture where unwanted pregnancy was seen as something to be summarily dealt with.

Consequently, the need to get information to vulnerable women – particularly young women – about fetal development and the long-term consequences of abortion, was more pressing than ever, she said.

Last year, research published in the Medical Journal of Australia indicated 87 per cent support for legal abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (61 per cent unconditionally).

The research was co-authored by academic and an abortion rights advocate, Lachlan de Crespigny, with the results based on an online survey of 1050 anonymous participants, aged 18 and over.

In the United States, pro-life advocates express more confidence that the tide of public opinion is turning on attitudes to abortion.
In a 2009 Gallup Poll, the majority of respondents described themselves as being “pro-life” as opposed to “pro-choice”, the first result of its kind since Gallup first asked the question in 1995.

According to Gallup’s 2010 research, generational differences in attitudes to abortion had narrowed, with an increase in pro-life sentiment among those aged 18-29 and 30-49, the two age brackets  historically most supportive of legalised abortion.

No matter the difficulties of the wider culture, Pregnancy Assistance’s volunteers remained committed to women when it mattered most, Ms Stanley said:

“They are people who recognise the sanctity and dignity of human life from the moment of conception but also the value of the life of the mother, and that the decision she makes will affect her life as well.”

Lacking the money for a large marketing budget, the work and clientele of Pregnancy Assistance had grown principally through word of mouth.

The agency’s continuing existence attested to the generosity of ordinary Catholics, she said, with donations making up the entirety of Pregnancy Assistance’s funding.

Prayer support had also been a major factor in the agency’s success to date.

Ms Sawyer also helped found the local chapter of the spiritual outreach group Helpers of God’s Precious Infants in May 1997, whose members pray and offer counselling outside private abortion clinics.

Pregnancy Assistance will celebrate 15 years with a Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral at 6.30pm on Tuesday November 29.

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