Ball State University Students For Life sponsored an anti-abortion speaking event Monday night in Art and Journalism Building Room 175.
"No woman wants an abortion," said Patrick Rivest, the event's speaker.
Rivest is the director of First Choice of Women, a local anti-abortion, faith-based organization that offers alternative choices for women with unplanned pregnancies. First Choice for Women counsels 250 to 500 women with unplanned pregnancies each year and more than 12,000 women in the last 10 years.
Rivest said most women who get abortions come from "strong Christian backgrounds." The women choose to get abortions because they do not want to be judged by their families and religious communities, he said.
But Students for Life President Leah Einterz said being anti-abortion stems from her Catholic beliefs. Einterz, a sophomore religious studies and philosophy major, said she believes that God creates a person's soul at conception and abortion is the termination of that soul. She said she does not have any negative feelings about those who have abortions, but that she tries to keep them in her prayers and give them a helping hand.
When women come to First Choice for Women the goal is not to be domineering and force them to make a decision one way or the other but to show clients all the information available for them to make a choice, Rivest said. First Choice for Women offers several different services through the organization including providing adoption services, sponsoring abortion recovery groups and teaching abstinence in Delaware County Public Schools. The organization has provided more than 3,000 Delaware County students with information about abstinence, he said.
"Indiana has mandated the teaching abstinence," Rivest said. "I do think that it is a realistic option ... If [First Choice for Women] can prolong a teenager from becoming sexually active, then we consider that a success."
First Choice for Women does not offer or promote the use of contraceptives, and women who arrive at First Choice for Women receive counseling from non-professional counselors who inform clients of other options besides abortion, he said.
"It is not our practice or policy to do that; we are not a medical facility, but we feel abstinence is the best choice," Rivest said.
He said the problem with contraceptives like condoms is that teenagers use them "irregularly" and "irresponsibly."
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