Toni was a scared teenager. Unexpectedly pregnant. It was a dark time, not only because it was cold and dreary in mid-January, but because of her circumstance. Her boyfriend at the time, Kris, who was equally responsible for her pregnancy, wasn’t a happy camper.

Nor was she.

“It was a time in my life when I thought my life was more valuable than my own child,” she said, recalling she was a senior in high school at the time. “My focus was only on me, my wants and my needs. My boyfriend said, ‘You don’t want to keep it, do you? You cannot have this baby!’”

Her best friend, she said, brought her to an abortion facility, where she was told to register under a new name (to protect her privacy), and an ultrasound was done, with the screen facing the wall instead of facing the client, as is the case in pregnancy centers.

“The ultrasound was done to show how far along you are to know how much to charge,” she added. “I was seven weeks along. I guess she didn’t want to tell me that my child had a heartbeat” or that her child had its own DNA since conception.

“I was given a couple of abortion pills, which, back then, wasn’t approved by the FDA,” Toni went on. “I was told, ‘It’ll be like a heavy period.’”

It was far worse. Terribly so. Not only did her boyfriend break up with her, she soon felt “excruciating” pain from head to toe and saw blood clots “the size of my fists” leaving her body. She was hemorrhaging.

“This is what the abortion industry calls ‘freedom,’” she said. “This is what is called ‘reproductive rights.’”

She eventually got better physically and emotionally, and she said her healing began with the help and compassion she received from a pregnancy resource center. And the boyfriend, Kris, who ditched her during her crisis pregnancy? That’s Kris McFadden, who returned some 10-12 years later, begging forgiveness.

“He said, ‘That abortion affected me, too. Not only didn’t I protect you, but I didn’t protect my unborn child. Real men protect.’ Less than a year later, I married him.”

Toni and Kris McFadden have been married for 16 years and have four children, from age 14 to 10. Tony has a bachelor’s degree from West Chester University in Chester County, Pa., and a master’s degree in biblical counseling from Clark’s Summit University in Clarks Summit, Pa. She has written a book: “Redeemed: My Journey after Abortion,” and she was the featured speaker at the Cenla Pregnancy Center’s recent sixth annual Gift of Life Banquet, which attracted about 800 people at the Randolph Riverfront Center.

Toni said the person she spoke with about her story at the pregnancy resource center told her, “Do you know how many girls need to hear that story?”

She has told it often as an international speaker.

“I want less stories like mine,” she said. “This is not a political issue; it is a spiritual issue.”

She admits her message is not always popular. She’s bucking a trend in America. The Pew Research Center conducted a poll last year that found that 62 percent of U.S. adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 36 percent said it should be illegal in all or most cases.

Nonetheless, Toni, having experienced the pain and guilt of having an abortion, is on a mission to share her story to as many as will hear it. She has borne ridicule and insults along the way, but she said, “The insults don’t compare to the suffering those babies (being aborted) are going through.”

“What a privilege it is,” Toni said, “to partner with God in protecting life! Everything we have comes from God. Nothing we have is our own.”

The Cenla Pregnancy Center has been in operation for seven years and in that time has helped more than 2,000 women bring their babies to life, standing with them not only for the birth but following and helping them for two years. Their phone number is 318-314-3061.