An automobile is vital to the work of Aid to Women, because it enables it to carry out the promises made to women considering abortion.
Robert, an Aid to Women counsellor, told The Interim that many women choose not have an abortion when they realize there are people willing and able to help them. Aid to Women offers cribs and strollers and other material goods as part of its support for women facing crisis pregnancies.
Unfortunately, the old station wagon Aid to Women is currently using will not pass the Ontario emissions test due in November (it already received one), and other mechanical difficulties and breakdowns are occurring regularly.
While Robert admits that not having an automobile will not prevent Aid to Women from doing its work, it will make it much more difficult.
“An automobile is integral to our support to women in need,” he said.
Besides dropping off cribs, strollers, baby basins and cloths to new mothers, Robert also picks up donations of gently used goods.
Aid to Women clients have many material needs because most live in poverty. Studies have consistently shown – and the conversations Aid to Women counsellors have with women facing a crisis pregnancy confirm – the majority of abortions are committed for economic or social convenience, so the offer of material support is a vital component of Aid to Women’s ability to reach out and help women while saving their unborn babies.
Sometimes Robert isn’t delivering goods to a house or apartment, but is driving a pregnant woman to the hospital or a doctor’s appointment, including, occasionally, to have a sonogram to see the unborn child in the womb.
Robert reports that there are “at least four cases where having a car saved unborn babies from abortions.”
In one instance, a woman new to the country who livedi on the outskirts of Toronto was picked up for an appointment at Aid to Women. While she left uncertain whether or not she would still have an abortion, three weeks later she called back to let them know she and her husband had decided to keep their child. They now have a three-year-old girl.