News / Education
LifeWay study offers healing from abortion
Study author shares insights on Inside LifeWay podcast
At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and, at current rates, about one-third will have had an abortion, according to statistical information released in January.
The figures were released by the Guttmacher Institute, an organization whose research supports Planned Parenthood initiatives. According to its “Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States” document, of those having abortions 43 percent identify themselves as Protestant.
According to one ministry leader and Bible study author, many of those women are hiding in silent shame within churches.
Pat Layton, founder and president of A Woman’s Place Ministry, based in Tampa, Fla., recently told Inside LifeWay that “some women tuck an abortion away for many, many years … the secret of abortion is that every woman still thinks she is the only one.” Inside LifeWay is the official news podcast of LifeWay Christian Resources.
Layton, author of Surrendering the Secret: Healing the Heartbreak of Abortion, initially wrote the Bible study a number of years ago in response to dealing with her own abortion. The study was released in January by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“I wrote it after becoming a Christian and realizing the church had very little knowledge on how to deal with abortion and its effect on women,” she said. The intent, she said, is to help women through the healing process.
“I am most encouraged by LifeWay publishing this study. Most women will do the study on their own for a while. It is written to be a self study but it is better in a small group. In a small group they minister to each other.”
The eight-week study includes a 20-30 minute video introduction that supports the lesson for that week.
Layton said the church still struggles with how to deal with abortion from a ministry perspective. As a result, even women leaders in churches who have had an abortion in their past wait long periods of time before they publicly share their pain. It is because of the prominence of abortion, according to Planned Parenthood’s research, that Layton believes the mention of it should be included in every counseling session within the church. Every pastor, she said, should be familiar with how many women have had an abortion in their past, because post-abortion trauma presents itself in many ways: broken marriages, poverty issues, relationship issues, infidelity and promiscuity.
“There are many things [pastors] deal with in the church that are caused by post-abortion trauma,” she said. “It is one of those things that should be out there and not denied. …The reason most pastors don’t address the issue is because they don’t know how.”
That is why Layton believes the study will be helpful across the board. It enables women to deal with a deeply painful and self-condemning issue in the context of the grace and forgiveness of God and affords men the opportunity to understand the grief women deal with. Layton’s next study focuses on how abortion affects men.
During the podcast Layton also offers her perspective on why the sanctity of life seems to be a decreasing priority in American culture and says that with 1.5 million abortions in America each year (50-million plus since abortion was legalized 35 years ago), reaching women with the Gospel is indeed a mission field.
The Inside LifeWay podcast with Layton can be found at www.lifeway.com/insidelifeway. A related blog post titled, "My mind doesn't compute abortion" can be found on the LifeWay News Blog. For up-to-date news and information regarding LifeWay Christian Resources, visit www.lifeway.com/news.
