Our History
2016
Concept
Janine Marrone, Board President, attended a Luncheons for Life event and was moved by the speaker’s testimony about the emotional pain of her abortion experience. Realizing millions of people are hurting from abortion, Janine began collaborating with leaders in southwest Florida to formulate a strategic plan to better serve those hurting after abortion.
Janine’s desire to underwrite an abortion healing program was first achieved through Pregnancy Solutions of Venice, Florida. Their Executive Director had learned that 50% of the one million U.S. abortions each year were repeat abortions and realized that 500,000 abortions could be prevented every year by providing healing to women after their first abortion. She connected with Janine while exploring possibilities to improve their services.
2017
Launch
Karin Barbito, current Special Projects Manager, was hired by Pregnancy Solutions to determine how to best serve those hurting after abortion. She had experienced firsthand the beauty and transformation from healing after her own abortion. Karin identified programs in south Florida that were available for men and women impacted by abortion. She also began leading local after abortion healing programs with a team of volunteers. These experiences showed the need for options-based healing.
2018
Research & Partnership
We undertook field and consumer research to better understand why nine out of ten people impacted by abortion do not know where to go for healing. We also spent time benchmarking with other organizations providing abortion healing services. The results revealed a need to unite the hundreds of abortion healing programs available to build and strengthen abortion healing worldwide.
We were invited to partner with the movie Unplanned to create and lead a network of abortion healing providers to support individuals seeking help after watching the movie. By the time of the movie’s release, our network included over 1,400 abortion healing providers.
2019
Growth
What we learned through this process was that, as a whole, the nation was underserving those impacted by abortion by largely providing a one size fits all program. Experience and research revealed that a majority of people impacted by abortion wanted to remain anonymous and preferred non-faith, options-based support.
2020
Independent 501(c)(3)
By this time, Support After Abortion was established as a leader in abortion healing with a national presence and global impact. Pregnancy Solutions’ Board of Directors determined the best step was for us to become a distinct organization. Support After Abortion launched as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation on April 1, 2020 with Lisa Rowe, LCSW, as CEO. Lisa’s clinical experience, coupled with her organizational leadership, has assisted government, nonprofit, and private organizations to grow their impact, increase their sustainability, and leave a national imprint.
Since launching as an independent nonprofit, Support After Abortion has helped more than 2,000 people on their healing journeys through our After Abortion Line, support groups, and referrals. We equipped over 8,000 leaders through three ground-breaking virtual conferences. We grew and collaborated with our abortion healing providers, released pivotal consumer research, shifted from in-person to virtual abortion healing groups, established a Men’s Task Force, and published two breakthrough healing resources – Unraveled Roots and Keys to Hope and Healing.
2022
Onward!
As we continue to expand healing to the millions of people who are searching and wanting help to heal from abortion, we will be unveiling a membership program for abortion healing providers along with a cloud-based integrated training Portal, interactive provider database, and new healing resources. We will forge our collaborative energy to create a tidal wave of lasting change for men, women, and families across the world