They Were Available: Karen Corbett

When Karen Corbett was hired as the director of a brand new crisis pregnancy center in 1984, she wasn't qualified. But she was available.

“We don’t pay anything and you probably aren’t qualified,” the young man in her church told Karen Deaner. She was happily studying graduate-level home economics when Chris Corbett asked her to interview for the job directing a new crisis pregnancy center. He told her she’d get valuable experience through the job interview.

Though Karen says she doesn’t remember what she said in that 1984 interview, it must have been good, because she was hired as director of San Diego County Crisis Pregnancy Center — the only one in Southern California.

The next year, Chris asked her to marry him. (Read his story here.)

Unqualified — But Available

What qualified Karen to become the director of the brand-new crisis pregnancy center? “I was available and they needed someone desperately,” she says.

An early version of Lifeguard, the newsletter by which San Diego County Crisis Pregnancy center shared success stories and needs with its supporters.

That helped her to fit right in with the group of young adults who dedicated themselves to protecting life and helping women. “None of us were qualified to do it,” Chris said, “and that shows the inaction of the Church back then.”

The group behind the center consisted of one doctor, one pediatrician, and a bunch of mid-to-late twenty-somethings. Conspicuously absent from the group despite multiple church presentations? Clergy.

Chris remembers a pep talk given to center workers by the head of the San Diego CAC chapter — a young computer guru “with red hair going everywhere.”

“We’re out here going it alone with the Holy Spirit,” he said, lacking the people that should have been there, like church leaders. Without them, “you get people with crazy hair like me who do computer programming and don’t even know what we were doing.”

Karen abandoned her Master’s program mid-semester to join those people who didn’t know what they were doing, because if she knew anything, it was that their mission to protect unborn life was important. As the director, she did everything, from counseling women to filling in at the reception desk when the center was short-staffed.

“Deliver Those Who Are Drawn Toward Death”

At the time she became director, Karen had only been a Christian for three years. But she’d been listening to Chris talk about the issue of abortion, and reading scriptures like Matthew 25, in which Christ calls his followers to defend “the least of these,” and Proverbs 24:11-12:

Deliver those who are drawn toward death,
And hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, “Surely we did not know this,”
Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it?
He who keeps your soul, does He not know it?
And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?

Such scriptures convicted Karen of the gravity of what was taking place and the need for the church to actively step in. “Roe v. Wade had been there for 10 years and amazingly the church had done nothing up to that point,” she said. Some of the most important work to be done was helping women understand that there were alternatives to abortion.

For Karen, it was all about making a personal connection with the women who came to the center. In the counseling room, Karen would show women pictures of what their baby looked like during the different stages of pregnancy. She would tell them about various abortion procedures and the risks associated with them. “We felt that it was very, very important for them to make an informed decision.”

Several of the women still wanted to talk to Planned Parenthood after visiting the center. Some still ended up having abortions. One young woman, a Christian, told Karen that she knew God would forgive her if she had an abortion. “God will forgive you,” Karen affirmed, “but he won’t keep you from the consequences of your decision.”

The young woman had the abortion, but her uterus was perforated in the process and eventually removed due to the resulting infection. She would never be able to have children.

Offering Hope

For that young woman and others like her, the San Diego County Crisis Pregnancy Center offered hope. Counselors — women who’d had abortion themselves — led a support group at the center for those looking to heal.

Other clients had happier endings.

Karen was called into a counseling room one day when another counselor was failing to make headway with a client in her 40s. When Karen entered the room, the woman was facing the wall, arms folded angrily across her chest. Despite the fact that she’d come to the pro-life center, she was set on having an abortion.

Karen soon found out why. The woman was pregnant — but her husband had long been out at sea. He would soon come home and be livid, she claimed. Karen knew it would be hard for the woman to face her husband. She also knew that two wrongs wouldn’t make a right.

So Karen, equipped with prayer, went through the same process she always did: showing the woman pictures of what her developing baby looked like at that point in the pregnancy. The surprise came when “she physically softened before my eyes,” Karen said. “She turned to me and took my hands.” Then she left.

A month later, the woman came back, this time “radiant” and “happy.” She’d discovered she was pregnant with twins. Both she and her husband — fully forgiving — were excited to raise the children as their own.

“I’m not sure why she came to our center,” Karen said, quickly acknowledging that it was God who brought her there.

Lifeguard 

A later edition of Lifeguard, celebrating the births of children whose mothers chose life after interaction with the center.

Ninety percent of the women who visited the San Diego County crisis pregnancy center left choosing life. And that was the kind of progress Karen soon realized needed to be shared with the center’s supporters.

Donors funded the center, housed in a small, donated office in the San Diego suburb El Cajon. While many churches were slow to vocalize their support for the movement, it was nevertheless gaining ground among believers.

In newsletters dubbed Lifeguard, Karen shared success stories and needs with the center’s supporters. In the beginning, they would ask for things as simple as basic office supplies — and people would send them.

Before long, Karen was able to print the names of babies born to mothers who had visited the center and chosen life, giving supporters a tangible glimpse into the work they were facilitating through their generosity.

As Chris and Karen looked back on their collection of old newsletters, they mused that the baby names printed there were now men and women in their mid-thirties.

“Every life you save is worth it,” they said.