www.theleaven.com | Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas | Vol. 31, No. 12 october 23, 2009
Mary Newcomer, a member of Holy Spirit Parish in Overland Park, uses a pregnancy wheel to determine a caller’s due date. Newcomer has been a crisis pregnancy center volunteer for over four years.
Compassion on call
Crisis pregnancy volunteers find experience difficult but rewarding Story by Kara Hansen | Photo by Elaina Cochran
“T
he most challenging thing I’ve had to do,” said crisis pregnancy volunteer Lisa Blackstock, “is deal with the emotional grief of learning that a woman I had worked with and grown to care for had chosen to terminate her pregnancy.
“These cases never get easier. “And some of them just break my heart.” Blackstock started volunteering at Advice and Aid Pregnancy Center in Shawnee in 2002. She comes by her passion for helping unwed mothers honestly. When she herself faced an unplanned pregnancy 25 years ago, she had no idea she would eventually counsel men and women going through similar experiences. But she immediately recognized that the few options available to her as a pregnant 18-year-old were dismal, and that women deserved better. “Abortion was never an option for me, but I got a lot of pressure to abort from the clinic where I had
my pregnancy test done,” said the 43-year-old Blackstock, a parishioner of Holy Trinity Parish in Lenexa. “I was surprised, even at that time, that no other option was offered to me,” she said. “As I got older, I developed a very strong interest in making sure other young women in a similar situation got factual information about all their options. “I also came to believe that women who choose to continue the pregnancy, in the face of difficult circumstances or pressure, need ongoing support during and after their pregnancy.” Still, the experience of being a crisis pregnancy
Turn to “Volunteers” on page 4