By Diane Stark
Today, Kathleen Folan is a wife, mother, and the director of family and youth ministries at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in San Francisco. But in 1990, Kathleen was a 20-year-old college junior, pregnant as the result of a rape. Right away, she recognized the personhood of her preborn child. “I knew it was a child, a human being,” she said. “It’s a lie if we say it’s not.”
Although terrified of the changes the pregnancy would bring to her life, Kathleen never considered abortion. “I knew abortion would make it so much worse,” she said. “It wouldn’t heal my pain. It would just cause guilt that I’d live with forever.”
It took Kathleen 11 days to tell her parents, but when she did, they were loving and supportive. They offered to adopt her baby themselves and assured her that they would support any life-giving decision she made.
Throughout her pregnancy, Kathleen was 90% sure that she would choose adoption for her baby. “Despite the circumstances, God had created a human being, and it was up to me to give him the best life I could,” she said. “I wanted him to have a mom and a dad, and I couldn’t give him that. God sent me numerous signs that adoption was the right choice.”
To read the remainder of this article, visit the Celebrate Life Magazine website at clmagazine.org/topic/adoption/adoption-a-gift-from-god.
To read additional pro-life articles, visit Celebrate Life Magazine at clmagazine.org.