March 29, 2011 - 8:09pm
Women share personal experiences with abortion and Students for Life event
BY KAITLIN WILLIAMS
At last night’s Students for Life meeting, two women spoke to an audience of about 60 people about their experiences with abortion.
Katie Falvey, the president of Students for Life, said the organization is a pro-life activist, non-religious student group. The organization asked the two women — Tammy Holly and Karen Holdren — to share their experiences with students on campus.
Falvey said the aim of the event was to allow for a non-political discussion of abortion.
“The goal was more to just have people hear other women’s stories about how abortion affected them,” Falvey said.
Falvey said she was surprised and pleased with the turnout of students at the meeting. The women stood in front of a banner that read, “Abortion Hurt Me,” and spoke to a room filled to capacity.
Holly and Holdren are members of Operation Outcry, a pro-life organization that supports women and men affected by abortion by offering support groups, information and collecting legal material for upcoming court cases involving abortion.
Holly spoke first and talked about the abortion that she had when she was 17 years old. She said that she believes the pro-choice movement should be called the “pro-abortion” movement.
“We want America to know that abortion hurts women, it hurts men and it hurts families,” Holly said.
She said she would not have made the decision to have an abortion if she had been better informed about the health risks or fetal development. Holly held up a pair of infant’s sandals during her speech. She said the sandals were in honor of the unborn child she had aborted.
Holdren spoke next about the two abortions she had. The first was performed illegally a few months before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. She said she felt pressure to have the abortion from her boyfriend and feared the disapproval of her family. Holdren said God influenced her to tell her story to the world.
“My goal is to see women healed, released from bondage, from the pain and suffering they may have had for years or even a short amount of time,” Holdren said.
Falvey, a School of Nursing junior, said she felt the meeting was a success. After gauging the political make-up of the audience after the question and answer session, Falvey said she was glad to see both pro-life and pro-choice students in the attendance.
Holly said she was excited to see the large number of men attending the meeting and said abortion affects men too.
