Sexual abuse and abortion frequently co-occur, prompting some abortion healing ministries to introduce efforts to address sexual trauma.
While sexual trauma usually makes one think of sexual assault or abuse, it could also include being traumatized by another sexual experiences such as multiple partners or STDs. Furthermore, abortion by itself is a type of sexual trauma. It can come out of and also lead to more sexual traumas.
When the same ministry offers healing resources for sexual trauma and for abortion, women who’ve experienced both, in either order, can be better served.
For those women who may have experienced both, but consider abortion as their greater trauma, they may begin the ministry seeking sexual trauma healing. Later, familiarity with the ministry can give them courage to address their abortion. This works the opposite way as well. Whatever path a woman takes, healing is more holistic by addressing both.
There are multiple examples of abortion trauma and sexual trauma both being addressed in abortion healing ministries, whether they are independent or part of a pregnancy center.
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One model is SRT Services (Sexually Related Trauma Services), which has a program for miscarriage (MisAnon), a program for abortion (AbAnon), and a program for sexual assault (SavAnon).
Rachel Bren, executive director of SRT Services, explains.
“Abortion healing ministries are most effective when they recognize the whole story which cannot be separated from trauma care,” she said.
“Many people carrying abortion wounds are also carrying histories of sexual abuse, assault, coercion, grief, miscarriage, stillbirth and shame,” Bren said. “If we truly want to help people make healthy, life-giving decisions, we have to create spaces where they can process the trauma beneath the choice. Healing one person from these traumas can help them become better equipped to make healthy decisions for themselves, their families, and future generations.”
My Ashes to Beauty is a Florida ministry with a national reach led by Toni Weisz. It serves women who have both abortion and abuse as part of their story. Weisz runs a group conference call called Abortion/Abuse Recovery Women’s Support Group (ARWSG) and offers recovery discipleship one-on-one as well.
“We have found even once a woman goes through an abortion recovery class via a Bible study, there is still something preventing complete healing,” Weisz said. “And we have discovered that it’s usually because of some kind of abuse that is in her past that also needs to be dealt with in order for her to be truly set, free and healed in every area of her life.”
Weisz says many women want to give back.
“Many women stay with our ministry for many years because we not only offer these two virtual classes [abuse and abortion],” she said. “But we also come alongside and help equip and train women to also be future mentors or facilitators for these studies.”
Sue Ketchum was an abortion healing leader who spent years working at the pregnancy center Clarity Cares, with which she still partners for training. She now offers her own healing and consulting services.
Ketchum started ministering to women seeking abortion healing ministry out of her own abortion story. But it soon expanded. She added care for women overcoming sexual abuse. Then the center added miscarriage and other reproductive loss, and then codependency healing.
All the issues, Ketchum explains, are related to each other. Women who’ve had abortions may have already been traumatized by one of the other circumstances, which may have led them to seek abortion.
“What led up to their abortion? There’s more going on in their life,” Ketchum said. “The abortion choice didn’t happen in a vacuum.”
“Seeking understanding of the trauma in their life, understanding the mind, the brain - how it copes, how it works - making this decision was a way of coping and responding to a fear or unmet need,” said Ketchum.
With the frequent connection between sexual abuse and abortion, the studies often feed each other.
Shelter from the Storm is the sexual healing curriculum Ketchum recommends. It provides a guide for 12 sessions.
When it comes to addressing trauma and destructive behaviors, Ketchum recommends the Unraveled Roots curriculum by Support After Abortion gets into some of these complex issues and also introduces the concept of co-dependency. Often after women go through that and wish to dive deeper, a 12-step program adapted to relational dysfunction can be used called Conquering Codependency.
An Even Place is a non-profit healing ministry that is running virtual groups as a major program.
In addition to abortion recovery, An Even Place offers a healing group which works through the curriculum called Unbound: Healing Sexual Brokenness. It addresses recovery from sexual shame and finding spiritual and emotional health.
Tweet This: The more people we can get healed from sexual trauma the far less abortions we will have in the world.
Save One is a leader in abortion recovery, and they now have a program specifically for sexual abuse recovery.
Sheila Harper, founder and president of Save One, has written the book Finding You about sexual abuse trauma. Save One serves women and men for after abortion and/or sexual abuse, regardless of which occurred first or if they have experienced one or both.
“We leave it up to them which subject they want to deal with first,” Harper explained. “These are two distinct and different traumas they suffered so they must be dealt with individually and separately.”
“What made me write the Finding You study is because the more people who came to us for abortion recovery help, both men and women, the majority of them had some type of sexual trauma in their past,” she said. “Most had been sexually abused or molested as a child. My curiosity became peaked because these two subjects were seemingly going hand in hand.”
This idea was also covered in pregnancy center director and speaker Heather Lawless’ recently released book about sex, shame, and redemption titled, We Do Talk About It. Lawless covers the need to bring sexual shame into the light. She ties in how not only one’s sexual past is often hidden, but so is hookup culture, abortion, sexual assault, and church hurt. Silence, the book asserts, is doing more harm than good by creating stigma, as if these were unpardonable sins.
Harper summarized the importance of sexual healing in relation to the ultimate mission to end abortion.
“It is our philosophy at SaveOne that the more people we can get healed from sexual trauma the far less abortions we will have in our world,” she said.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct Toni Weiszs's last name.
