When experiencing a crisis pregnancy, what a woman might need most, perhaps, is hope and the truth that she is capable.
Pregnancy Decision Health Centers (PDHC) celebrated the two virtues on Thursday, Sept. 25 during the 2025 PDHC Celebration for Life Gala: A Night Anchored in Truth & Hope.
Toni McFadden, an international speaker on abortion and relationships, shared her abortion story with the audience. She holds a master’s degree in professional counseling from Clark’s Summit University.
McFadden founded Relationships Matter, an educational program centered on healthy relationships. She seeks to educate youth and expose the truth about abortion by sharing her story.
In Columbus, the first PDHC center opened in 1981. Today, four centers serve central Ohio: on the north and west sides of Columbus, one near Ohio State University campus and another in Lancaster.
At every location, its mission is the same: to equip individuals to make healthy life choices consistent with the God-given intrinsic value of every human life.
“We provide truthful information so she is educated and empowered,” PDHC president Kathy Scanlon said. “Our team provides hope because every woman deserves love and support during an unexpected pregnancy.
“She should never feel so alone, coerced or hopeless that she ends her child’s life through abortion.”
PDHC is one of 18 pregnancy resource centers out of 150+ centers in Ohio that provide Abortion Pill Reversal services for women who have taken the first abortion pill in a chemical abortion.
Chemical abortions, which are typically performed in the first trimester using the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, account for more than 80 percent of abortions in Franklin County. By 2030, Scanlon shared, all abortions could be chemically based.
An estimated 66 million lives were lost to abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade (1973) decision, which held abortion as protected under a constitutional right to privacy. The decision was later overturned by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), concluding that the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion.
PDHC offers support with pregnancy tests, ultrasounds and a 24/7 hotline for women wanting to reverse the abortion pill process. Various programs are also offered.
The center offers family empowerment support through in-person and online classes to promote healthy families and youth development, including programs for middle and high school students in Franklin and Fairfield counties.
Abortion Recovery services are also available for women and men struggling from a past abortion experience through consultations, one-on-one and group sessions, and retreats.
McFadden shared her abortion story with the audience, not out of condemnation, she said. She acknowledged that she is forgiven by Christ, but regret from the decision remains.
“It’s hard for me to say this now, but there was a time I did not value life,” she admitted.
McFadden’s abortion story traced back to high school. She recalled grasping at anything to give her a sense of worth and value. That sense of worth came via a romantic relationship.
During her senior year, she was pregnant. Her boyfriend and a friend encouraged her to have an abortion – the only voices she heard at the time.
“Do you see why this ministry is so important?” McFadden asked the audience, referring to pregnancy resource centers such as PDHC. “This ministry gets to step in where this girl feels lost.
“She can’t see hope on the other side, but you get to be a life source to her in that moment.”
In a moment of desperation, McFadden sought an abortion at Planned Parenthood.
McFadden noted, as a black woman, she later recognized the racist roots of abortion. Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood, declared she was intent on eliminating the negro population.
Black women are reported to undergo the majority of abortions. In New York City, McFadden shared, more black babies were aborted than born alive.
Yet as a senior in high school about to leave for college, she believed she could not have a baby. However, “abortion never solved what it said it would,” McFadden reflected.
She recalled laying on a table at Planned Parenthood with ultrasound imaging hidden from her view.
She was seven weeks pregnant – the baby about the size of a coffee bean. She asked to see the screen. Reluctantly, the nurse showed her the image but said it was so small that there was nothing to see.
“I guess she didn’t want to tell me that my baby already had a heartbeat. I guess she didn’t want to tell me that, at the moment of conception, this child had its own unique DNA that would never ever be created again,” McFadden lamented.
The nurse devalued the child, McFadden pointed out, because of its size and location inside the womb rather than out.
A young teenager, McFadden was given pills for a self-administered chemical abortion at home. She received two sets of pills: one to take first and another for 24-48 hours afterward.
She remembered thinking the abortion had worked after experiencing slight bleeding. Naively, she admitted, since the baby was small, she thought the amount of blood would be, too.
Almost a month later, sitting in a high school classroom, McFadden said she felt pain equivalent to lightning bolts from head to toe. She couldn’t walk and needed to be taken to the nurse’s office, where she began having blood clots the size of a fist.
When her mother arrived to take her home, she recalled lying, and said it was simply cramps. That night, she went back and forth between her bedroom and bathroom for hours.
“This is what the abortion industry says empowers women,” McFadden explained. “I will tell you there is nothing empowering about taking the life of your own.”
Not recognizing her God-given value, she continued pursuing romantic relationships, hoping to find a sense of worth. In college, McFadden found a church and a group of individuals who loved God and poured into her.
When she made God the lord of her life, rather than men, McFadden said her worldview changed. She had a purpose. She surrounded herself with people who she admired and wanted to be like.
McFadden began living her faith outwardly, but for a while, kept her abortion hidden. It was the one sin, she recalled, that she believed to be unforgivable.
In time, she discovered God’s boundless mercy. She realized her abortion testimony was not for her but to free other people from the same fear, lies and shame.
She underwent post-abortion counseling. McFadden saw God use the evil for good.
In her 20s, she began speaking to high school students on God’s design for sexuality and marriage. She taught students that decisions they make as teenagers have a long-term impact.
“A ring on my finger is not automatically going to make me faithful, honest and trustworthy,” she explained. “Either you have built those things into who you are or you haven’t.
“We have to teach teenagers how to value sexual relationships and the value of marriage, or the abortion rate is not going to go down.”
Ten years after McFadden’s abortion, she heard from the father of her baby. He asked to meet in person, and he apologized.
He admitted that he left because he couldn’t face the reality of killing their child. McFadden said she realized then that abortion affects men, too. The role of men, she explained, is to protect and lead.
Her baby’s father asked for forgiveness for failing in his role. McFadden said she is glad she forgave him.
A year later, they were married.
The couple honored their unborn child at their wedding and began sharing their baby’s story. They went on to have four more children – two daughters and two sons – now between ages 15-11.
“Outside of these walls,” McFadden told the gala audience, “we need to be courageous. We need to tell women and men the truth.
“Truth remains true no matter how we feel.”
Related to: Fall 40 Days for Life campaign set to begin – Catholic Times: Read Catholic News & Stories