What happens now? That’s one of the biggest questions surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. With abortion requirements gone at the federal level, uncertainty abounds.
And while President Joe Biden and others haggle over the possibility of codifying Roe and states feud over laws and regulations, there are two realities everyone must confront: abortion will still be on the books in progressive states, and resources for women will likely be in high demand nationwide.
Christa March, the founder of Teen Mother Choices International (TMCI), knows these issues all too well. March’s organization has spent decades helping teen mothers who choose to keep their babies. She trains churches to come alongside these teens to provide much-needed resources.
Watch her explain what she believes churches must do post-Roe:
March, who was doing this work to help young moms well before overturning Roe became a feasible reality, said it’s time for the church and pro-life organizations to kick their efforts into high gear.
With the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling returning abortion laws to the states, March said many people are pondering what to do to meet the increased needs that are likely to emerge — financial, housing, job placement, and childcare, among other needed resource.
“No matter what your situation is, we believe that the church is the answer, and we could help you,” she recently told CBN’s Faithwire. “Now is the time for us to say we believe that baby’s life is precious. We also believe that a mom’s life is precious. So, let’s help her. Let’s help her find out who it is that God’s created her to be.”
March started Teen Mother Choices in 1989 and then launched the TMCI program in 2009 to help train churches on how to best meet these needs.
Christa’s Journey
Her quest to help others is rooted in her own story. March grew up in a Christian home and learned about Jesus early. With aspirations to one day become a missionary, she felt her faith deeply. But March, like many kids, struggled a bit with her faith as a young person.
“I ended up getting pregnant, and … I aborted my child, which really was the catalyst to seriously pushing me downhill,” she said. “But then God miraculously brought me back to Himself and brought my boyfriend to Himself, and we ended up getting married, and we have two more children.”
You might be wondering how that journey brought her to create TMCI. March recalled being in a shopping mall one day while pregnant with her second child. She noticed teens in the mall pushing baby strollers and started to wonder why they weren’t in school.
That’s when the roots of TMCI were set, with March exploring teen moms’ needs and embarking on a journey to serve them. She’s spent the past 32 years on the frontlines of this battle to help teen mothers.
What Serving Looks Like
Unlike crisis pregnancy centers, TMCI meets women after pregnancy has concluded and a baby has arrived. TMCI serves “young mothers who have made the life choice to parent their children.”
“Our focus is on afterward, everything from helping her with her finances, helping her get a job, helping her finish high school — anything that can help her become a more responsible adult and therefore a better parent,” March said.
Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling on June 24, March’s phone has been ringing off the hook as faith leaders and organizations look to her expertise and experience.
“We’re actually in a great position right now to be able to train and equip others,” she said.
March said every community is different, and every population of teen moms within its borders has unique needs. That’s why her organization spends months helping churches interested in participating in TMCI conduct a feasibility study to pinpoint the gaps.
Sometimes, these needs are simple fixes that have merely fallen through the cracks. March shared the example of a rural community she encountered with a high teen pregnancy rate.
While the schools had childcare centers, girls still weren’t graduating — which seemed perplexing considering the available childcare resources.
“We dug a little bit deeper, and what did we find out?” she said. Yeah, the high schools provided childcare centers, but they did not provide transportation to get to the high school center.”
So, TMCI helped coordinate travel, and the issue was remedied. March said the approach isn’t “cookie-cutter ” but, with a little effort, needs can be pinpointed and met.
Over the years, March said she has learned a powerful lesson throughout her journey: God can work miracles with people’s lives.
“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is: God takes what we as humans view as the worst thing that could possibly happen, and, when we turn those things over to Him, He’s like, ‘Watch me work,’” she said. “I have seen Him take lives that everybody else had counted out as, ‘Nope. No good. Nothing will ever happen. Nothing good will ever come from them,’ and they shine like nobody’s business.’”
March sees these realities play out in her work each and every day. Find out more about TMCI’s efforts here.
Reporting by FaithWire.
