Forgive--but Not Forget : The emotional pain of abortion can haunt some women. But many are finding solace through churches.

The day Licia Nicassio opened her doors for business, the first call came from an 80-year-old. The woman had an abortion in the 1920s and still couldn’t get over it. More than worry what family or friends might think, she was worried about what God would think. Nicassio told the caller what she has told hundreds of women and men since: “God forgives you. Now you have to forgive yourself.”

This sort of conversation is not likely to be heard in the public debate about abortion, but it is part of Nicassio’s daily life. She is the director of Project Rachel, based in the Downtown Los Angeles office of the Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church. Introduced here seven years ago, it is a national program that is one of several post-abortion counseling services in use at churches and pregnancy crisis centers across the country. Although there are no statistics available, the demand for such counseling appears to be on the rise.

Project Rachel--the name comes from an Old Testament prophecy in which Rachel, the mother of Joseph and a mother-figure for Israel, mourns her exiled nation--was created for Catholic women who have had moral conflicts after an abortion and want to be reconciled with God. For these women, who know that abortion can lead to ex-communication, it also offers a means of being reinstated in the church.

Nicassio refers her callers to private Catholic counselors, many of whom work one on one. Other denominations offer programs for groups, led by a team of counselors.

Many of the programs use a workbook titled “Women in Ramah,” named for the New Testament story in which the women wept as King Herod killed every child under 2. The book is a post-abortion Bible study that mixes Scripture readings, recommendations for journal writing and questions for group discussions. Care Net, an interdenominational Christian counseling and education center in Falls Church, Va., produces it and reports selling 5,000 copies last year, compared with 700 in its first year, 1986.

Somewhere in the process of the 12-week “Women in Ramah” program, most women manage to do what once seemed impossible. They follow Nicassio’s advice.

“I wondered, ‘Do the children forgive me?’ ” Cordelia Kelsey recalls. After three abortions, the most recent one nine years past, she entered a post-abortion support group at the Pentecostal Church on the Way in Van Nuys at the beginning of the year. As she moved through emotions, from shame and anger to forgiveness, her unborn children became so real to her that she gave them names: Gail, Valarie and Stephen. For a memorial service, she made a collage of magazine photos that shows what each one might have looked like if they had been born.

Kelsey and other women have also written their parting wishes and read them aloud at memorial services. “They pour out their hearts in the letter and sign it, ‘Love, Mom,’ ” says Yolanda Gorick.

Gorick founded the program at Church on the Way in 1991, and more than 100 women have been through it. At Project Rachel, Nicassio has referred about 1,200 callers to counselors since 1988. Both say most calls are from women between 20 and 50. More than half the women were single when they had the abortion.

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Elizabeth Cygal is one of the names on Nicassio’s referral list. She has been counseling women for 25 years. “For most women, the decision to have an abortion comes when they realize they will not have the support of family, boyfriend or husband,” she says. “They want to get rid of the pregnancy. There is no talk about a baby. Afterward, they feel relief, but then the deeper thinking comes in.”

Everyday events can set them off. “Some can’t run their vacuum cleaner at home because it reminds them of the sounds at the abortion clinic,” Cygal says. “Some can’t stand going to baby showers.”

Others dread reading the daily news. After the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Wendy Zelada was stunned by a newspaper story. It reminded her of all the women she met in post-abortion counseling. “The quote read, ‘I hear the children wailing but I can’t see them,’ ” she recalls. “It’s the same for us.”

After two abortions, the birth of her first child led Zelada to the program offered by the Church on the Way, which she completed last year. Often, a successful birth, or the death of a parent, moves a woman to look for help. Zelada says a church sermon can be just as potent. “Every time our pastor, Jack Hayford, addresses the subject of abortion, women flee to the bathroom,” she says. “It’s as if they are thinking, ‘He’s talking about me.’ ”

“The problem is, you only have the right to mourn openly if it was a wanted pregnancy,” explains Vincent Rue, director of the Institute for Pregnancy Loss in Portsmouth, N.H. He counsels women and men who have lost their babies during pregnancy or in infancy. He also works with people troubled by past abortions, and compares their situation to Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He finds that the symptoms are the same: flashbacks, denial, lost memory of the event, avoidance of the subject.

Rue, who is opposed to abortion and has trained counselors for Project Rachel, believes that most people do not regret having an abortion. “About 10% feel burdened by their choice,” he says.

He put a spiritual component into the treatment program he uses for women of every religious and political persuasion. “I see women who don’t believe in God. I see Catholics who are in favor of legal abortion even though the church is against it. I see women who are into New Age spirituality, who tell me their energy source was extinguished when they had an abortion,” he says. “To the extent that they are spiritual, we explore that aspect. When abortion is in opposition to a woman’s personal beliefs and values, she is likely to have psychological and spiritual damage.”

Even if she isn’t particularly religious.

“Abortion isn’t a religious issue for me, it’s an ethical issue,” says Wendy Clarke, an art therapist. She is Jewish and goes to temple for the High Holy Days. Other times she attends a liberal Methodist church. She never joined a support group, or took part in a religious or spiritually oriented counseling program. But she began making art works as part of a general therapy process some years after her fourth abortion. She built a clay shrine with four chambers, put a clay fetus in each one, and placed small bowls of milk outside. It reminds her of burial rites in ancient cultures in which food was placed beside the dead for their journey beyond the grave.

“Once I could face what happened, make a shrine and honor the lost souls, I didn’t feel so bad,” Clarke says. “I didn’t have to hide it, that I’d had the abortions. Now I do feel at peace.”

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Closure is one thing. But powerful voices in the health-care field strongly disagree that post-abortion stress is a valid diagnosis in need of special treatment. The American Psychiatric Assn. does not list it in its current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. “[They] sent me a fearsome letter saying this is not equivalent to post-traumatic stress,” Rue says.

Marcela Howell, executive director of California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, sees potential abuse by religious counseling services. “It’s one thing to feel regret over terminating a pregnancy and want to talk with a minister or priest about it,” she says. “Unfortunately, often these groups end up proselytizing.” She advises women to be wary of counselors who approach them and ask them to join a group. She also warns, “In any situation where a person is seeking counseling, they should make sure a counselor has credentials. Don’t just trust because a counseling program is in a church.”

Suellen Craig, executive director of Planned Parenthood, Los Angeles, says fewer than 5% of women who have had abortions at their clinics come back seeking counseling. For them, Craig’s office supplies the names of several therapists. “We wouldn’t discourage her if her decision was to seek therapy in a religious context,” Craig says. “But it must be her own decision.”

Rue argues that programs like Project Rachel came about for the same reason that other grass-roots operations now exist. “In general, self-help flourishes because therapists have not provided help,” Rue contends. “With so much attention on abortion as a political agenda, the emotional and moral pieces are falling through the cracks.”

It is easy to get the impression that the controversy over abortion is simply a matter of legislative battles and Supreme Court cases. Indeed, many of the centers that offer post-abortion counseling are aligned with the Right to Life League, which opposes abortion and promotes like-minded political candidates. Some counselors who have been through the league’s training program only treat women who agree to claim Jesus as their personal Savior.

Yet, some women who have had an abortion see the experience in different terms and say politics is the furthest thing from their minds. “What am I doing about the abortion issue?” asks Zelada. “Politically, nothing. Prayerfully, a lot.”

Federal law states that abortion is legal during the first three months of a pregnancy and can be legal after that if the woman’s health is at risk. Church laws tend to conflict. Conservative Christian denominations--including the Pentecostal, Roman Catholic and some Evangelical Christian churches--teach that life begins at conception, as do many Orthodox Jews and Muslims.

Since the Catholic Church holds that abortion can be grounds for ex-communication, Project Rachel seems all the more unusual. In fact, it reflects a gradual shift in attitude over the past 30 years. Now, says the Rev. Blair Raum, with the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing, “I’m much more interested in listening to a woman’s story than laying a lot of church doctrine on her. We can meet the Lord somewhere in that story.” He adds: “Individual priests, in good standing, have permission from the bishop to absolve mortal sin and retract ex-communication.

“It’s very difficult for a woman to come forward, particularly when she’s gone against church teaching,” Raum says. He finds that to be true of more churches than just his own. A Pentecostal minister he knows held a healing service and asked women who had had abortions to come to the front of the church. “The shocker was, one of those women was his wife.”

Currently, most mainline Protestant denominations, including Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian, accept a woman’s right to have an abortion. Some critics within these churches want to see more care given to women who choose to do so. “Most women are not even aware that churches have issued an approval of the act, because most ministers are silent on abortion. It’s too controversial,” Elizabeth Schlossberg says.

Schlossberg is executive director of Presbyterians Pro-Life and wants to see church leaders get more involved. “It is the church’s responsibility to help women get restored after an abortion,” says Schlossberg, who, with Elizabeth Achtemeier, has written a new book, “Not My Own,” (Eerdmans) offering suggestions on how churches ought to address the issue.

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Rue finds that most women troubled by abortion have a delayed reaction. They don’t look for help until at least five years after the fact.

But while women are slow to talk about it, most men never talk about it at all. About 4% of Rue’s patients are men. They tell him that they are sorry they encouraged the abortion. Or that they wish they had said they wanted to keep the child. Outside Rue’s office, however, they don’t get much sympathy. “People tell them, ‘It didn’t happen to you, Bud.’ ”

Two years ago, Kathy Jones, director of the Hollywood Pregnancy Help Clinic, and Linda Cochrane, a registered nurse, created a Bible study for men, “Turning a Father’s Heart,” produced by Care Net. Jones uses it to lead men’s groups.

“Men are taught to be managers, providers, protectors. And they have a ‘big boys don’t cry’ deception about themselves,” she says. “Most of them are in denial and don’t know what to think.”

Raum counsels men too. “Basically, the same patterns and symptoms apply to men and women,” he says. They’re all welcome at his door. “We’re not a hotel for saints, we’re a hospital for sinners. We need to meet people where they are and begin the healing.”