ISA is about unconditional caring, communicating that someone is there for these women whether they decide to terminate the pregnancy or not. The organization’s focus is ensuring that those who want to continue their pregnancy have the resources they need to do so. Though ISA does not pay for abortions, those who do terminate are treated with care and kindness both during and after the pregnancy.
In the beginning, Erica relates, they were primarily getting calls from unmarried women, but as time went on, the calls came in from married women as well. At one point, they received a call from a woman in the Midwest with three children who was pregnant with her fourth. The family financial situation was dire and her husband was pressuring her to abort. She didn’t want to but she was completely overwhelmed. ISA arranged for cleaning and organizing help, sent her prenatal vitamins and paid for counseling.
Erica explains that ISA is available throughout the pregnancy and the first year after birth. Its goal is to assist women to find ongoing structures of support within the community to sustain them. Erica says that most women require intense support for about six months.
Becca, however, discovered the organization after her son was born. “I tell Erica she’s my guardian angel,” Becca says. “But every time I say that, she just waves me away insisting, ‘It’s all from G-d.’” Becca was referred to ISA after she was fired from her job following her baby’s birth. She had tried to connect with the Jewish Family Services in her community but even after all the bureaucracy, she says, they couldn’t provide her with the resources she needed. “My condo was being foreclosed on, I barely had money for food or rent and then ISA stepped in.”
Not only did ISA supply Becca with financial assistance but it also arranged for financial counseling as well. It supplied her with a crib, changing table, baby walker and baby gate. ISA also arranged for a lawyer to assist in resolving Becca’s foreclosure issues, paid for psychotherapy, guided her in locating job opportunities and offered to help her identify funding for education if she decided to go back to school. Becca ultimately found a new job and today is back on her feet.
She continues to be grateful for everything the organization has done for her and continues to do. “You know,” she confides, “as a single mother, there are so many times when you have to do things all by yourself. Besides for my 1½-year old, I have a ten-year-old son. The children in his class did not accept him because he came from a divorced home. Erica was right there with me the whole time. ‘We’ll figure it out together,’ she would say. She got him accepted to a popular camp at no cost to me just so he would feel as important as the rest of the kids in his class. It’s not only about the baby for ISA.”
As a matter of fact, Becca is so appreciative that she wants to give back to the Jewish community. “I would like to start a support group for single women and their families to take off where In Shifra’s Arms ends.”
Another key player in the organization is Fraida Nathan, LCSW. Her expertise is couples therapy and domestic abuse counseling. Of course, Erica explains, she doesn’t take the place of a face-to-face therapist. But all her prodigious skill is put into good use doing crisis counseling and coaching.
Erica tells of the time a woman with a severe (untreated) anxiety disorder called. She had young children and had discovered she was pregnant. She was so anxious about the pregnancy that although she was religious, had a supportive husband, and was financially well-off, she was considering abortion. “Our counselor encouraged her not to make a rush decision, to speak to the doctor and gather more information. However, she was so stressed that within three days, she had the abortion. Immediately following the abortion, she experienced incredible pain and guilt. ISA worked with her as she sought a therapist and rabbinical counseling she could trust.”