Breaking the Cycle at Kennesaw State Saves Child

March 2010

I saw a woman slowly walking around the small exhibit so I took the opportunity to strike up a conversation. She seemed curious as to why we were there and what we were doing. I told her that we also had the large exhibit up on the grassy area at Kennesaw [State University]. She wanted specific directions on how to get there so she could go look at it.

She said, "wow, these pictures are really sad....and graphic..." I asked her more about that. All of a sudden she interrupted me and asked, "Oh is that your poll?" looking at the "Should abortion remain legal" question. I said, "Yeah, that's us too."

She then said, "I had an abortion a few years ago, so I think I'm gonna go sign yes." I was in shock. She quickly walked away from me to go sign her name under yes. As I was waiting for her to finish signing her name so that I could ask her about her abortion and possibly refer a crisis pregnancy resource, another volunteer took the opportunity to talk to her. I waited to talk to her until someone else started talking to me. A few minutes later she was gone.

Later in the day at the large exhibit I saw her talking to another volunteer. Again, I tried to catch her but she left before I could catch her attention. I asked the volunteer who had spoken to her how their conversation went. She said, "That woman is pregnant now and said that she didn't know what she was going to do."

She said that she saw the small exhibit earlier and after thinking about it for a while decided she couldn't do the same thing with this pregnancy.*

--Allison Martinez, Texas A&M University, March 2010

*The Alan Guttmacher Institute reports that about half of all abortions each year are performed on women who have already had at least one previous abortion.