Priest helps Russian women avoid abortion, cope with aftermath

Published: 2004-05-12

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNS) -- In Magadan, a city in eastern coastal Russia, pregnant women have come to Father Michael Shields with a dilemma: to have an abortion or to spend their lives struggling even harder to make ends meet and raise a child, often as a single parent. Father Shields, a priest of the Archdiocese of Anchorage who has been in Magadan for 10 years, encourages those women to do the latter. But the advice is not "just empty words," he said. Four years ago, he convinced a woman in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic man to keep their child. Now, with about $100 a month, Father Shields helps the single mother pay for phone service, day care for her son and the bus fare to her 78-hour-per-week job at a grocery store. For many Russian women, that kind of support never comes. For every two live births in the country, there are three pregnancies that end in abortion, according to a report by the Council of Europe. The grieving women behind many of those abortions are the reason Father Shields invited a Rachel's Vineyard retreat facilitator to the Russian Far East to offer four weekend retreats for women who have had an abortion. Diane Szurleys left April 23 from Ketchikan, in southeast Alaska, for a one-month visit to Magadan and Vladivostok.

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