The crucial importance of secular post-abortion healing
Every month Support After Abortion hosts a training webinar for people and organizations who provide abortion healing.
A Brand New SPL Presentation: Secular Post-Abortion Healing
In July 2025, they asked me to speak during their monthly webinar regarding healing for secular people who have experienced abortion. You can read an overview of the presentation here or watch the full video here.*
Support After Abortion received extremely positive feedback from my presentation. Examples:
I learned to be more mindful of where the person seeking help and hope may be coming from. The helper’s personal faith principles may be difficult for someone without a belief in faith to understand. I appreciated Monica’s raw, emotional vulnerability.
Excellent webinar. It helped me see that our center, and myself specifically, need to work harder at working with women who are not affiliated with faith/religion. I was engaged the entire time.
It was excellent, one of your best webinars. I really appreciated Monica’s candor and confidence.
Still, after that webinar and Support After Abortion’s August webinar (“Being a person of faith in a secular healing space”), they did receive some pushback from some Christian attendees uncomfortable with being asked to provide secular resources.
In response, Support After Abortion published the blog article “Faith, Secular, or Both? Why Options Matter in After-Abortion Healing.” The post provides interesting insights into the kinds of conversations some Christian pro-lifers may have among themselves that SPL wouldn’t necessarily be a part of. With permission, I adapted their original article for SPL’s audience here:
After abortion, people need safe, compassionate care—not pressure to adopt a particular belief. Discover why offering secular abortion healing options builds trust, improves outcomes, and opens the door to emotional healing.
We’ve heard it more than once:
“I’m angry you offer secular resources.”
“It’s wrong not to mention God.”
“I don’t want to support / receive training from / use resources from an organization like that.”
We understand where this comes from: a place of deep faith and desire to bring others to spiritual redemption, healing, and truth. But after supporting thousands of people in abortion healing, we’ve learned most aren’t looking for a religious program.
- 3 out of 5 women who experience abortion are 18–29 years old — the least religious age group in America.
- Only 18% of people know where to turn for after-abortion healing.
- After abortion, only 16% of women and 40% of men say they’re open to a religious approach to healing.
For countless people, if the only abortion healing options are faith-based, many simply won’t seek healing at all.
What Clients Tell Us
Secular clients share that they are looking for compassionate, healing care that resonates with them:
I don’t believe in God. When I saw there were secular options to work through my anger, depression, and grief, it felt safe. For the first time, I felt like someone cared about me, not just converting me.
Others tell us they carry wounds related to religion or need a space without politics to begin healing:
I was hurt by my church experience. If God or religion is part of this program, it’ll be triggering and won’t help me.
The first place I called pushed religion and politics and wanted me to change my views. Thank you for giving me help that’s about what we lost. Grief is grief.
It’s important to realize that even people of faith sometimes need time and space before they are ready for religious-based healing:
I do believe in God, but what I need most is someone to help me face the anger and shame without judgment. I’d prefer a secular program, at least to start.
Again and again, what clients long for is safety, compassion, and freedom from judgment. That’s what opens the door to healing.
What Healing Providers Tell Us
While working at a PRC, I personally saw over 100 hurting women walk away because they wanted a non-religious abortion healing program. We told them to come back when they did want a religious approach—but they never did. I couldn’t keep working there. Denying them help felt inconsistent with my Christian values. That experience is why I believe in making space for people wherever they are—because that’s how real healing begins.
Clients appreciate being able to choose what fits where they are. It builds trust, and we see healing happen.
I’m a person of faith and I run a clinical practice. The secular approach helps me reach people who otherwise wouldn’t engage.
Having secular- and faith-based tools means I don’t lose people at the door. I can walk with them to help work through their grief and emotional struggles. Sometimes they’re open to God later—but we don’t have an agenda. We just serve with love.
Providers agree: when we honor client choice, people remain open to support, instead of walking away unheard and unhelped.
Research backs this up: a Journal of Clinical Psychology analysis of 16,000 people found that accommodating client preferences improves mental health outcomes.
The Bottom Line
For some people, God and faith will be an integral part of healing. For others, having only faith-based healing can be an obstacle, sometimes an insurmountable one. If we want to rescue people from grief and despair, our role is to meet them and connect with them where they are.
*If you’d like me to present to your organization about secular post-abortion healing, contact me through our Speakers page.
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