Two Pepperdine graduates learn to lead fulfilling lives despite opposing decisions on abortion during college.
COURTNEY HONG
Staff Writer
Two Pepperdine graduates, Alisa Marcarelli and Talitha Huff, each conceived a child out of wedlock during college. Both were given the option of abortion. One chose to have an abortion, the other did not.
As a Christian institution, Pepperdine University enforces codes of conduct upon its community, but it is not immune to the realities of pregnancy, abortion or the struggle to find healing in the midst of poor choices.
Marcarelli, a 1999 graduate, was a senior when she discovered she was pregnant. Despite having grown up attending a Southern Baptist church, which Marcarelli describes as very conservative, she knew she wanted to keep her baby; though her parents gave her no support. Through the Westside Pregnancy Resource Center, which provides tangible guidance to women in unplanned pregnancies or post-abortion crises, Marcarelli was provided the support necessary to have a healthy pregnancy. Marcarelli looked up information on the Center in a phonebook after learning of it through a list of high school guidance counselor resources her mother had.
“The Center gives you every option out there,” said Marcarelli, who volunteers there as a counselor and member of the fund-raising committee. “There are truly a lot of after-effects of abortions that people don’t realize. I would like every girl out there to know that there are alternatives, people who will help.”
Marcarelli gave birth to a healthy baby girl three weeks after graduation.
“I am 2,000 percent sure I made the right choice,” she said. “In the midst of making bad choices, I chose to make a good one by keeping my child.
“It’s not just about academics and a career, but being emotionally healthy,” Marcarelli continued. “Good relationships allow you to flourish in other areas of life. I thought I’d never get married.”
Marcarelli met her husband through his sister, who volunteered at the Center. His parents serve on the Center’s board of directors.
“God not only healed me, but brought a husband into my life. Love is about serving,” she said.
Marcarelli took a year off after graduation to take care of her daughter before beginning law school at Southwestern. Six months ago, she and her husband welcomed a daughter, her second, into the world.
For Huff, who graduated in 2000, the story is somewhat different. In a written testimony, published for an event on Capitol Hill at which Huff spoke for, she recalls the summer back home in Oklahoma after her freshman year: “I will never forget that day, the day my world seemed to stop as I stared at the two lines on a pregnancy test. I asked myself how this could have happened to me.”
Huff, like Marcarelli, was raised in a Christian home, a daughter of missionaries. She believed that a baby, once conceived, was a human being. But on a full academic scholarship and preparing to go to Heidelberg for a semester, Huff was unsure where to turn. She sought help from the Pepperdine health center, and was referred to Planned Parenthood, where she went.
Once at Planned Parenthood, Huff said she was encouraged to take a referral to an abortion clinic. She was told it would be the quickest and easiest solution. Huff made the phone call.
Under the reproductive freedom policy statements of the Planned Parenthood Web site, it states, “Reasonable people everywhere agree that no woman should be forced to bear children; no family should be threatened with economic ruin as a result of unintended pregnancy; and no person should ignore the consequences of unwanted pregnancies.”
But Huff said she wishes she had been better informed.
“How badly I wished I had a place where you could talk about all your options,” Huff said.
“It (the abortion) was worse than admitting I had made a mistake. It became a horrible, secret thing I carried around. I knew that God forgave me, but I didn’t want him to.”
Huff went to Heidelberg where she intentionally did physical activities like lifting heavy objects when she was specifically instructed not do such tasks.
“I wanted to destroy myself in the process.”
“I decided that I had to make it right,” Huff wrote. “Eventually – overwhelmed with pain, depression, an over-achieving lifestyle of penance … I realized that abortion affects so many people.”
During her senior year, Huff found out through a Malibu-church bulletin about the free 10-week post-abortion support group, called “Forgiven and Set Free,” that the Westside Center offered. Through hearing other women share stories similar to hers, Huff began the healing process as they went through the biblically-based seven stages of the grief cycle.
The executive director of the Center, Huff has spoken at Pepperdine on an organizational communication panel and in a law school policy class, as well as in Sacramento, on Capitol Hill and at numerous churches.
“The heart of the Center is for the women who are hurting,” Huff said. “We offer counseling to empower women to make a choice they can live with. We give facts about abortion. Our hope is that they won’t choose it. But, we provide post-abortion counseling and support groups. Issues like anorexia, alcohol or drugs after abortion – many don’t put two and two together.
“I wouldn’t be here today had it not been for God,” Huff continued. “There’s a realization that I’m going to have to live with this pain for the rest of my life. This could be the last child I’ll ever have. Growing up, it was, ‘Don’t have sex, don’t get drunk.’ It was never, ‘God has a better plan for you.’”
08-30-2004