Thorn, founder of Project Rachel and executive director of the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing, will receive the award at an April 25, 2020 banquet and Mass.

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture presents the award annually to champions of the pro-life movement. The winner receives a $10,000 prize and a specially commissioned medal. Read more

It's designed to heal emotional fallout that can surface months, years or even decades after an abortion

South Auckland programme organiser Pauline Louden says it's grief support because many women suffer from a sense of loss, numbness or sadness after their abortions.

"I have worked with the Project Rachel ministry for years and we find many people work really hard in suppressing their feelings initially and they might become obsessed with something, self-medicate or self-harm."

"They do all the things to try and not think about it or process their natural feelings of grief when there has been a loss." Continue reading

Thirty years ago this week, Vicki Thorn launched Project Rachel to meet that need.

Catholic World Report spoke with Thorn about how Project Rachel got started and the fruit of its three decades of service to women, men, and children affected by the scourge of abortion.

CWR: Tell us about Project Rachel. How did it get started? Thirty years out, does it look anything like you expected it to when you began?

Thorn: I had a friend in high school before abortion was legal who had an abortion arranged by her mother in a major metropolitan hospital.

I learned later that my friend had placed a baby for adoption prior to this.

Her situation was one of the hard cases because her brother was the father of the second baby and, I had a hunch, the first baby.

We attended a day school/boarding school and she was a boarder.

Her mom had gone there and I think she sent my friend there to try and protect her.

Anyway, I listened to my friend talk about her pain for years and felt utterly helpless to assist her.

She ended every conversation with the same two sentences. "I can live with the adoption. I can't live with the abortion!"

Those words are etched in my heart to this day.

We moved to Milwaukee where I took a job in the Respect Life Office of the diocese.

While the blueprint for the diocesan pro-life work was contained in the 1975 Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities issued by the US bishops, which called for a ministry of healing after abortion, no one knew what that looked like and how to make it happen.

It took me from 1977 to 1984 to assemble enough expertise to sponsor a training for our priests and Catholic Charities.

When I proposed putting this together to my boss, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, OSB, his response was enthusiastic and totally supportive.

He told me he would give me whatever money I needed to make this happen.

His vision made this possible! Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: Family Life International NZ

Thorn said that the abortion debate "is so emotionally charged, not because it is a moral and philosophical debate, but because it is a heart experience. I believe that everyone knows someone who has had an abortion.

"We must always speak with gentleness and not condemnation, because it is our charge, as laid out by Pope Benedict XVI, to bring the wounded to the Church for healing."

Read Rest of Vicki Thorn's opinion

Vicki Thorn a Wisconsin-based mother of six and Project Rachel founder Vicki Thorn and recently appointed member of the Pontifical Academy for Life,