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Abortion Clinic TRANSFORMED into ProLIFE Medical Clinic | The Amazing Story of True Choice! | CWP071
What if the place that once caused you pain could be transformed into a sanctuary of hope and healing? Join us as we sit down with Camille Cassin, the inspiring President and CEO of True Choice Medical Clinics, who shares her deeply personal journey from a church position to leading Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center. Driven by a divine calling and her own experience with abortion, Camille sheds light on how advancements in ultrasound technology and an abundance of information have revolutionized women's understanding of pregnancy over the past two decades and reshaped the pro-life movement.
We delve into the significant challenges faced by pro-life pregnancy centers, especially in politically charged climates like California. Camille discusses the overwhelming abortion statistics and the importance of focusing on individual stories. Hear about the community efforts and advocacy that successfully protected these centers from legislative hurdles, underlining the power of collective action. We also touch on the complex issues surrounding new laws aimed at curtailing the influence of these centers, emphasizing the necessity of comprehensive information for women facing unplanned pregnancies.
Empowerment through informed choices is at the heart of our conversation. Explore the multifaceted services offered by True Choice, including post-abortion healing, fatherhood ministry, and the transformation of former abortion clinic spaces into places of hope and renewal. Discover how committed relationships and male-to-male counseling are pivotal in supporting women and their partners. Camille shares moving stories of how the fear of single motherhood is addressed and how spaces once associated with pain have been completely revitalized. This episode is a testament to the profound impact of providing women with the knowledge and support they need to make educated decisions free from external pressures.
Please give our friend Camille Cassin and True Choice Medical Clinic some love:
https://truechoice.org/
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If reproductive rights is so liberating, if there's so much freedom in it, then why are they broken when they come out of an abortion clinic Broken women, hurting women, women who are limping, women who are crying. If there's so much freedom in there, then why are they like that? But with prayer and laying hands on the wall, we started to see slowly that their business started to decline. So they were not open six days a week anymore, they were open four. Then they were open three and they were open two and we could sense that something was changing in here. And we could sense that something was changing in here. My name is Camille Kassin.
Speaker 1:I'm the president and CEO of True Choice Medical Clinics and, if we want to rewind the tape, so to speak, all the way back to how it first began, I was actually working at a church. I was the director of development there and communication at a church and the church unfortunately had a split, so my job went to part-time. I was looking for a full-time job. I had a graphic arts background and an advertising background, so I kept searching and searching and searching. It was one of the most frustrating job searches of my entire career. I couldn't find anything and one night I kept calling out to the Lord, saying I don't know where you want me to go. I don't know what you want me to do, lord, I'll go wherever you send me. So I was just walking in my home doing normal stuff, gonna go from the kitchen to the laundry room, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said I want you to be the executive director of Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center.
Speaker 1:At the time I was a volunteer. It was a smaller ministry and I was like, wait a minute, that's way out of the blue. I don't want to be the executive director of Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center. And the Holy Spirit said I want you to be the executive director of Turning Point. And that's all I heard. At the time my friend was the director. So a month later, mianne comes to me and she said you know, camille, me and my husband, we're thinking about moving to Texas. And that Holy Spirit moment kept on coming up again and so I said, oh, okay. And I thought, oh, they have to sell their house. It's going to be six months or 12 months, you know, it's going to be a while before that position is really going to be open. Her house sold in a month, and then that Holy Spirit moment came up where he said I want you to be the executive director of Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center. At that time it was a part-time ministry, it was a little bit small. I needed a full-time job, but I wanted to obey God, and so that's a little bit of my story of how God called me into the ministry. I was a volunteer there for a couple of years, so I had been a counselor, but I never in my wildest dreams would have ever thought that God would call me in to be the executive director of what was then called Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center. So it's now been 21 years.
Speaker 1:I grew up Catholic, but I wouldn't say that it was a Christian home. I went to parochial school. We went to church every once in a while, so I didn't really know anything of the issue of pro-life. I did have an unplanned pregnancy, and so my experience with this was that, unfortunately, I am a woman who is what they call post-abortive. So many many years ago I did experience abortion. In my church I learned about what was then called Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center. They were looking for volunteers, and that's when I felt the tug that God wanted me to come and be trained as a counselor and give back.
Speaker 1:It was very different 21 or 22 years ago as well, even politically, even in the world that we're talking about right now. It was very, very different. I think ultrasound changed a lot, because pre-ultrasound it was very difficult for women to understand that it was a human life, that life begins at conception. There wasn't the science behind it. What the ultrasound did is that it opened up the womb, so to speak. It's a window to the womb. It makes what is unseen, the pre-born child's scene, and I think that did change a lot of the dynamic. The other dynamic was that women nowadays have so much information just at their fingertips that they know earlier and earlier and earlier that they're pregnant. Three weeks, four weeks, they can get home pregnancy tests. I mean just the trajectory of medicine, too, has changed so much over the last 20 years.
Speaker 1:How, in America, the topic of sexuality has changed so much? The breakdown of the family, right, it was very, very different 20 years ago when I first came in. Right, it might be the high school or the young person that was, you know, got pregnant at prom, or maybe a college student. Well, nowadays it spans the gamut from a 15-year-old to a 45-year-old. It could be a woman who is married and already has a child.
Speaker 1:In fact, 60% of the abortions are done by women who already have one child. They know it's a child, but remember, the dialogue has changed in our country as well, so sometimes it's hard to get a handle on statistics. I can tell you, in the state of California it's very difficult to even find out how many abortions they do because it's not required. The only way that we know how many abortions are done in the state of California is just through Medi-Cal, the Medi-Cal statistics. But abortion clinics are not required to disclose any information and that is by design. So sometimes, you know, the numbers are muddled. The statistics can be very muddled, right, so there's a lot of them out there.
Speaker 1:What I like to kind of pare it down to is to say every single person has a unique story. Every single person that is pregnant has a unique person inside of there, because we can get overwhelmed with statistics. You know there's a million pre-born children that are lost, that are killed in this country every single year. There's 2,500 lives that are lost every single day in the United States from abortion. There's 60 million lives that have been lost since Roe v Wade. You know, those numbers are so overwhelming that it can even tell. You know, some people might feel what can I do? It's just so overwhelming. So what I like to do is I like to bring it back down to the one person, right. We want to be able to minister to that one woman that God brings to our clinic and let her know that there is hope and there's healing and there's options available to her other than abortion.
Speaker 1:Here in Southern California it's very closed. There's a lot of hoops that you have to jump and you have to. We want to be able to follow the laws of the state, right, and so what we have done is, you know, we are a licensed medical facility within the state of California, which helps us and protects us, because we have credence within the community in providing these services. But as far as how has it changed from the past 21 years to now? I think it's unfortunately, politically. What they've done is they've put many, many hoops, many laws into place that are trying to silence us. In 2015, there was a law called AB 775, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court because what they tried to do. It was a compelled speech law. They tried to force pregnancy centers in the state of California to basically refer for abortions, but what happened was is it went all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled against it, thank goodness. So that's one of the ways that, politically, they're trying to handcuff us. Ab 775 was specifically targeted to pro-life pregnancy centers, because they didn't do it to community clinics, they didn't do it to hospitals, they only did it to pro-life pregnancy centers. They didn't do it to hospitals, they only did it to pro-life pregnancy centers. And so we are very glad that there's organizations like NIFLA and lawyers out there that will be able to fight for us, and they fought all the way to the Supreme Court and they won.
Speaker 1:There's probably many, many laws that I'm not even aware of because they're constantly coming out with something that I'm not even aware of, because they're constantly coming out with something. Currently, there's one in the city council that will try to muzzle sidewalk counselors what they're trying to do. So there's sidewalk counselors that go in front of abortion clinics, that peacefully pray or they try to offer options to women going into the abortion clinics. We can give them brochures, we can talk to them. There's the eight-foot rule already in place in San Diego. Well, now they're trying to make it where any speech that we tell them, even if we say hello, if that person perceives that as being harmful to them, then they can sue us.
Speaker 1:It was not in the city, it was the county of San Diego that was trying to again muzzle pro-life pregnancy centers, saying that we're not legitimate, that we're not licensed, that we coerce women. And I can tell you that the community of San Diego stepped up. And there was how many people? There was 900 and something people that online voiced their opposition to the bill. And then there were so many of us that went to the county board of supervisors and gave our testimony on how that is true that Tara Lawson, who was one of the co-writers of the bill, she actually withdrew it from the county board of supervisors. So one of the things I'd like to get across to the community is our voice matters. We need to band together, and when we stand up and we make our voice heard, god can do the rest. And that was taken off the agenda. The other one that is coming up with the city council.
Speaker 1:I don't know when that's going to be, but that's another way that the city of San Diego is trying to clamp down on what is happening in pro-life pregnancy centers. It's always amazing to me that we are so effective or we are such a threat to them that they have to put all of these laws in place to try to I always want to use the word muzzle right. They want to stop, to have an option, and what's interesting to me is that if they are so for what they're doing, if abortion is so good, if abortion is women's health care, then why do they have to clamp down on pro-life pregnancy centers? Why can't you offer an option? Let the woman make the decision. Right, it's her body and her choice, so why not give her the choice?
Speaker 1:That phrase my body, my choice that has been around for decades, decades I don't know exactly when it started, but it's at least as long as I've been in this space, so it's at least been around for 21 years, and I think that's part of the reproductive rights. Their anger right Is because they feel like oh, it's my body, it's my choice and you're taking away my choice, when reality, we're not taking away your choice, they're limiting your choice, and so that use of language always fascinates me, so even the use of reproductive health. It is not health if you are taking the life of a pre-born child. That is not health care and it's not reproducing anything. What we want to do is we want to take back that word, because it's almost like a pro-life pregnancy center. Can't say that we're a reproductive health center. Yes, we are a reproductive health center because we are encouraging the women to reproduce right. We want them to continue with their pregnancy. What does the word choice mean? It means multiple right. It means that you've got a plethora of different options available to you. And I always go back to why can't the women see all of the different options?
Speaker 1:And what we do here at True Choice is we talk to them about the truth. You know there's this mantra of you want to speak the truth in love. It isn't loving when you don't tell somebody the truth about what decision they're about to make. Having an abortion is a very serious decision. Obviously it takes the life of their pre-born child and also it's a lie because they feel like, oh well, I'm just going to get rid of the problem, nobody's going to know, I can go back to my life pre-pregnancy. That's impossible because pregnancy is a life-changing decision, no matter what road you take. So the lie of abortion is like, oh, everything's going to be okay. But they don't understand that abortion changes your soul. Abortion changes you as a person. You can't go back and redo it again, right? You can't go back and have that life of your child. And so that's a lot of what we wanted to talk about. And why can't women hear that?
Speaker 1:What we really want to do is we want to offer them education. In fact, when they come in here, so we call them an at-risk patient. So when an at-risk patient comes in here, they know that we don't do abortions right, but we can offer them proper health care, and then, when they meet with one of our patient advocates, we'll go over all the options with them. By the way, we educate them on what abortion is. They don't know it. They're not going to be educated at an abortion clinic on all of the different things that happen with the abortion pill or the surgical, what the risks are, what the health risks are, what the emotional risks, spiritual, psychological none of that really gets talked about. So what we're doing is I'm giving her information. I have no ability to make a decision for her, nor do I want to make the decision for her. What we do here is we are truly offering her options on every single one. There's only three in a pregnancy parenting, adoption and abortion and we will discuss all of those options with her. We give her the information so she can make an informed and educated decision when she goes into an abortion clinic.
Speaker 1:I can't speak for an abortion clinic. I can only tell you what the clients have said to us. There's only one option offered to her. It's also monetized and it's incentivized. We don't make any money or anything off of what we do here. We want what is best for the woman.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, or maybe what people don't understand, is that women come in here and they leave, and unfortunately they do have an abortion. But you know what? They come back because they know that we have post-abortion healing services here as well. They know that when and they've called us back, by the way, we have had women that have gone on and taken the abortion pill or had a surgical abortion at an abortion facility here in San Diego they have. This has happened three times within the past two months. They have called us back because they are concerned about their health and they've called the abortion clinic and they're done with them. I took the abortion pill. I'm continuing to bleed. I don't know what to do. Unfortunately for us, we can't really help them. That's beyond the scope of our services. So we tell them you need to go back to your provider or, if you're obviously, go to the emergency room, get proper medical care. But I want people to understand if you know, in response to being the devil's advocate, they hear more information at True Choice than they hear at any other abortion clinic.
Speaker 1:With regards to all three of their options, we want her to make the decision for herself. We want her to see the value of her as a person, as a woman, and then she will value that unborn child. We also have a fatherhood ministry here and I want to segue and talk about that a little bit. We also have a fatherhood ministry here and I want to segue and talk about that a little bit, because a lot of times when women come in here, the reason one of the top reasons that they're going to have an abortion is because they don't want to be a single mom. They are scared. It is a huge responsibility. They want their partner to be involved. So we have created the fatherhood ministry so when her partner that's the language that they use, their partner nowadays, that would be the father of the baby when she brings her partner in, she can meet with a male volunteer and the male-to-male counseling. They can talk about his role and his responsibility and encourage him to be a provider and a protector of children and of women.
Speaker 1:I remember specifically seeing the guys in the lobby and while the patient advocate was maybe counseling her, I was like nobody's talking to him. He's just sitting there, he's on his phone, he's not engaged. So what I decided to do is just go out and talk to him. And what I discovered was is just go out and talk to him. And what I discovered was is that they have a lot to say. Nobody has given them a platform to be able to share what he's thinking and what he is feeling. And remember that mantra my body, my choice.
Speaker 1:They tell that to her Because we've emasculated men in this country and we've taken away their God-given role to be a provider and a protector of children. So they don't know what to do. They don't know well, even if they want to keep the child. Well, I don't really want to tell her that, because I don't want to put pressure on her. You know, it's her body, it's her choice. So I'll say to her well, I'll support you in whatever decision you make. Now, what does that do? That puts all of the pressure on the woman. He doesn't really mean to do that. He just doesn't know what to do or what to say.
Speaker 1:So by giving him that platform, we started to hear some of the stories. Well, I really do want to continue. I want her to continue the pregnancy, but I don't know. I don't really have a good job. I don't know how to be a dad, I don't really have a role model. So I decided that what they really need is they really need a male mentor. They need somebody that can help them be able to become a provider and a protector and a father. And that's when we created the fatherhood ministry. You know what it is. It's just listening, just saying you know you matter as a person. I see you sitting in the lobby. Right, you're part of this equation. It's not like it's just the woman. It isn't her body, her choice, it's both of them together. They have to make the decision together, but we live in such a disjointed, disconnected society that they don't see the value of people together.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously, I am a Christian and I believe in God's plan for sexuality and we believe in the nuclear family. And you know, what is fascinating to me is that we see women from all cultures, all socioeconomic backgrounds, all religions, all races. They all say the same thing Well, I need to be married first before I have my child. Where does that come from? Right? That comes from their creator. That comes from God, knowing he's the designer of sex, that he, for the best case scenario, is two people in a committed relationship. That's when you have sexual relations that produce a child, which is a miracle.
Speaker 1:Why have we gotten rid of that as a society? Why have we told women that you don't want to have a child, it's going to ruin your life, you need to have a career. Listen, I have a career and I have a child, and you can do both. But the miracle of a woman having this gift of reproducing has been lost in our society. It's been lost because, way back in the 60s, the founder of Planned Parenthood, margaret Sanger. One of her goals was to create birth control. And when birth control came into this country in the 1960s, it changed the whole trajectory of sexuality in this country. It gave men a way out and it gave women this freedom. But it's not freedom, it's bondage.
Speaker 1:I like to bring it down to the one life because, you know, that's how God sees this. Everybody is unique. Your DNA is unique, mine is unique. That pre-born child. There's never going to be any other child like them. They're made in God's image. There's only one of them, right, and we discard life like it's not important, but that one child has a whole generational line. That one child right. That one child will have children, hopefully. One child right. That one child will have children, hopefully, and their children and their children and their like, it's just a whole generational line from that one person. I still have hope for this country. I still have hope because I think that people are waking up to the idea that it is not okay to just kill a pre-born child, an innocent child that has no say-so, they have no voice, whether they live or die. And I think the stories of women who've had abortions, that have been hurt by abortions, are coming out and we're waking up to it and we need you, the community, to come out of our comfort zone and to talk about this right and to talk about it with courage. It's the truth.
Speaker 1:So in 2015, we moved to our current location in Miramar Road and we shared a wall with the second largest abortion clinic in San Diego County called Family Planning Associates, and for two years, we really saw what abortion clinics do. We saw the result of it, we saw the chaos of it, we saw the craziness of what happens in an abortion clinic, and we could probably do a whole segment just on that. But in the role of prayer, what happened was is to be truly honest with the audience it was very difficult. The first six months. We didn't have a lot of women that were coming next door Even. Remember, we literally shared a wall with an abortion clinic. We didn't see a lot of success. It was very difficult. There's patient advocates or an escorts from FPA. They were coming over to our clinic. They were harassing us.
Speaker 1:By the way, remember I talked about AB 775? That was exactly the time that we were sharing a wall with an abortion clinic, so there was just a lot going on politically. It was crazy, so we got discouraged. However, I started to understand that I could hear them. We could literally hear the people next door at the abortion clinic.
Speaker 1:And so what I decided to do was really myself and a very close friend of mine who is a prayer intercessor what we decided to do was start to pray every Wednesday on surgical abortion days. They had them on Wednesdays and Saturdays. So we just started to pray and we started to worship and we didn't see anything for a while, but we knew that that's what God wanted us to do. We truly believe that God's spirit knows no bounds. He loves the abortion doctors, he loves the nurses. He hates the evil, but he loves them. So we were praying for them because we felt like we've got to engage in spiritual warfare. And then what we did is we literally would lay our hand on the wall that separated Turning Point we were called Turning Point then from Family Planning Associates, and we started to lay hands on the wall and pray and slowly things started to change, because they were what I would call a full-service clinic.
Speaker 1:They were open six days a week. They were open from 8 am to 6 pm. They were doing, at their heyday, 100 abortions a week. They did late-term abortions. Remember, we saw the women when they would come out of the clinic. If reproductive rights is so liberating. If there's so much freedom in it, then why are they broken when they come out of an abortion clinic? I wish people could really see and we had a lot of reproductive right protesters out there but I wanted them to turn later on in the day when they would come back out of the surgical abortion right. They would have to do the surgical abortion and when they were done with recovery then they would walk out. I wish they could see those women at that point, because that's what we saw Broken women, hurting women, women who were limping, women who were crying. If there's so much freedom in there, then why are they like that?
Speaker 1:But with prayer and laying hands on the wall, we started to see slowly that their business started to decline. So they were not open six days a week anymore, they were open four. Then they were open three and they were open two and we could sense that something was changing in here. What changed, god was dispatching his mighty angels and the spiritual warfare was coming to a end, because when you're dealing with evil, maybe people are going to be like Camille. You're going way overboard with this. Killing human beings for profit is evil and we, as Christians who believe in God know that there is a whole spiritual realm that we can't see and you can feel it when you are here. You can feel it when you're next door to an abortion clinic. Prayer is the answer, because prayer is God's spiritual weapon of warfare.
Speaker 1:And after the two days, there was one day where a moving van was here and my nurse manager ran into my office and she said Camille, there's a moving van was here and my nurse manager ran into my office and she said, camille, there's a moving van in here. And I was like, okay, there's a moving van. She said no, there's a moving van in here. The FPA is moving out and we knew at that point that God had shut down the abortion clinic.
Speaker 1:So, to answer the question of prayer, I know that it was prayer and worship and laying hands on the wall and God answered that prayer supernaturally, because there's no other explanation for what happened. If we had not moved in here next door, they would still be here. That's the power of the prayer and I do want to also let people know, I believe that we were prayed into the place because there are wonderful prayer warriors who used to come right in front of FPA. They did it for years and years and years and they prayed for somebody to take that spot and they prayed us right in. So it's the community, it's the great cloud of witnesses truly believe that that's the power of prayer. So, you know, in the Christian mantra it's like oh well, well, I guess we'll just have to pray. No, prayer should be first. Prayer is the front line of defense, and so that that's my answer of how we came into where we are right now. Amen, and it's an absolutely beautiful, beautiful story. You're showing some friends around this beautiful clinic. Okay, and remember, this was the former abortion clinic.
Speaker 1:So here's an exam room right here, an exam room right here. We have an exam room right here, an exam room right here. This is our main ultrasound room. We also do cervical cancer screenings there. We've transformed this room into our counseling room. Right here, this is our fatherhood ministry room. We believe this is where originally they did surgical abortion procedures, but the heart of the father is here now. This is our newest service that we're providing, which is pregnancy blood testing Very important service for women that are early in pregnancy.
Speaker 1:We believe that this room formerly was pre-op. Before they would go in for the surgical abortions, this room. These used to have push doors right here. This used to have recovery beds all along here, and what it is right now, it is a place of hope and health and healing and light and love. On the other side of this wall is where we used to pray. This is where only thing that remains of the former abortion clinic where I'm now sitting Is that. Good, he's awesome. That's a wrap. That's a wrap, we did it. Thank you. Yay, you're a trooper, thanks, thanks.