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A great woman died suddenly just after Easter Sunday. Vicki Thorn was the founder of Project Rachel, a post-abortion healing ministry. "She was a voice for us when we were not able to speak yet," said Theresa Bonapartis, who had an abortion and now works with women who have done the same. "She heard us when others did not want to listen and definitely opened the door of healing in the Church." Project Rachel and other ministries like Bonapartis's Lumina are internationally active now, but that's because Thorn started the essential work. Thorn's compassion for women who have had abortions...

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo speaks Nov. 15, 2011 on the importance of Project Rachel's post-abortion healing ministry Baltimore, Md., Nov 16, 2011 / 06:05 am (CNA).- Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo emphasized Nov. 15 how important the Church’s post-abortion counseling ministry Project Rachel is and said that it must play a role in the New Evangelization.“Project Rachel Ministry is at the heart of the Church’s mission at this time in her history,” Cardinal DiNardo said at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ fall general assembly, which is being held in Baltimore Nov. 14-16.Cardinal DiNardo, who is chairman of the bishops'...

Milwaukee, WI (LifeNews.com) -- Project Rachel, the organization that has helped thousands of women rebuild their lives following the problems and pain of an abortion, is marking 25 years of ministry. The anniversary is a bittersweet moment because the need for such a group only arises out of death, pain and heartache. Vicki Thorn founded the ministry, which started as a project out of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and she has seen the physical and emotional scars of an abortion in the bodies and hearts of countless women. She told the Catholic News Service the anniversary has been "an awesome...

Authors of Finnish Study Fail to Report Relationship Between Increased Suicides and Abortion January 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The December 2004 edition of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG) has published a letter to the editor from Dr. Nathan J. Hoeldtke of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, pointing out the failure by authors of a Finnish study to report the relationship between abortion and increased incidence of suicide. The 2004 study, Pregnancy-associated mortality after birth, spontaneous abortion, or induced abortion in Finland, failed to take into account the higher risk of death...

MILWAUKEE (CNS) -- When she was 20, at a time when most young people are on the cusp of life, Yvonne Florczak-Seeman wanted nothing more than to end her life. That was until she found out about Project Rachel, founded in Milwaukee in 1984 by Vicki Thorn to offer post-abortion reconciliation and healing. Florczak-Seeman was in her second trimester of pregnancy and had decided to have an abortion; it would be her fifth abortion since her 16th birthday. "To me they were just fetuses," she said. "I was in total denial. ... I knew the routine, (I) lined up on...

On Mother’s Day Weekend this year, something is going to happen that has never happened before. And it will happen in Hartford, CT, on the North Steps of the Capitol Building. Silent No More (now formally known by its original name, Operation Outcry: Silent No More) will hold the first of its Mother’s Day Press Conferences. Women who have had abortions and regret them will speak up publicly to share their personal stories and hold signs saying, “I Regret My Abortion.” But we will do more than that. Each woman will commemorate her lost child in a brief memorial by...

Local cemetery monument memorializes babies who were lost to miscarriage and abortion If the premature twins had survived, they would have been Carmen Andrew's older sisters. Carmen never had a chance to know them, and yet they were a part of her life and a source of sadness in the home. "There was this unspoken undercurrent in our family," says Carmen of the infant girls who were delivered in Oregon in the 1930s. "Mom always mourned them." As soon as she had learned she was carrying twins, Helen Andrew pondered names and decided if the babies were girls, they would...