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There’s a lot of pain out there. Women and men. Regret and sorrow. But if you’ve participated in an abortion in one way or another, you can heal. There is mercy.

That’s the message of Christianity, and it’s for everyone, even the mom who went through with an abortion. Even a baby’s father who pressured a woman to get one because he didn’t know how to or want to acknowledge that he was, in fact, a father.

Theresa Bonopartis is director of Lumina/Hope & Healing After Abortion, a post-abortion ministry in New York, a project of Good Counsel Homes. At the end of Respect Life Month, she talks about her work, exposing the pain to daylight, so that others may seek God’s healing love.

How did you find yourself at Lumina?

David Reardon from the Elliot Institute got a grant to begin a post-abortion outreach in New York because of the rate of abortions here. He asked Chris Bell from Good Counsel Homes to take on the ministry. I had known them both for years, I am post-abortive myself and had been doing post-abortion work, so they approached me to run it.

Is it possible to not regret an abortion?

I think it goes against our very nature as women and all that God intended. Sure, there are women who say they do not regret it, but I think that is a denial, a rationalization. I have had women as old as 93 call [(877) 586-4621) about abortions they had in their 20s. Sooner or later, it catches up to you. It may be when you have other children, or it may come up as a result of some other issue, like a failing relationship or, perhaps when you know your life is going to end. Sooner or later, it is before you.

The other aspect is: Would you really want to be able to kill your child and not have it bother you? I always say I am glad it bothered me. Once, I was interviewed, and the journalist asked me if my faith made me feel guilty. I told her, “No — seeing my dead son made me feel guilty.” I was forced to abort by my dad. I was a teenager and, like many teens, had hidden my pregnancy for months, so I had a saline abortion. In a saline [abortion], you go into labor and give birth; in my case, to a dead baby boy. In some ways, as horrific as it was, seeing him was also a blessing, because I always knew the truth of what had happened: an innocent life was taken. I remember when it was over thinking: How in the world can this be allowed? I just could not understand it.