Rhianna O’Reilly grew up in a military family where life was structured and stable—until her parents divorced when she was eleven. The separation changed everything for her and her three younger siblings. What once felt steady and safe suddenly became fragile, and instability became the new normal.
Over the years, her family moved between states, and by the time she entered college in Alabama, Rhianna carried a deep sense of brokenness. At the age of 20, she was baptized and confessed Jesus as her Savior. On the outside, she appeared to be a young woman pursuing her faith. But hidden beneath the surface were wounds left by childhood abuse, unhealed trauma, and unspoken shame. Those shadows drew a wedge between her and the God she longed to follow.
Several years later, Rhianna’s life collapsed. Homeless and unemployed, she was raising her four-year-old daughter alone when she learned she was pregnant again. The baby’s father betrayed her, and she had nowhere to turn. Fear consumed her:
If I can barely care for my daughter, how can I bring another child into this world?
Without a partner, without family, how can I possibly survive?
How could I keep a job while pregnant, let alone raise two children without a home?
Desperate, she confided in a friend. That friend suggested she call an abortion hotline. The call connected her to the Yellowhammer Fund, an Alabama-based abortion fund that covered the cost of her abortion. That same friend drove her home from the clinic after the procedure.
In the weeks that followed, Rhianna’s social worker placed her in emergency housing. By 2019, she found a job at an IT help desk. On the outside, life was beginning to stabilize, but on the inside, she had buried grief so deep it would take years before she dared to look at it.
Rhianna kept moving forward in survival mode, suppressing her anger and brokenness while caring for her daughter. Then the pandemic struck in 2020. Like so many parents, she suddenly faced childcare closures. She was forced into an impossible choice: lose her job and face homelessness again, or find work that would allow her to provide for her daughter.
That same friend—the one who had driven her to the abortion clinic—told her about an opening at Yellowhammer Fund. They were hiring an Operations Manager. Remembering that this was the organization that had “helped” her and, lured by the stability of the salary, Rhianna accepted the position.
The role was advertised as IT administration, but her primary responsibility was handling pledges: processing payments for abortions across the country—in Alabama, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Mississippi, and beyond. Day after day, she saw the names and gestational ages of women whose abortions were being funded.
It disturbed her deeply. Yet, she didn’t walk away. Instead, she shifted her focus to community activism and mutual aid projects, adopting an intersectional feminist lens that convinced her she was serving people with compassion and respect. She embraced what she thought was an enlightened worldview—“reproductive justice.”
After a year, Yellowhammer Fund began to crumble. Several states passed pro-life legislation, leaving the organization financially unstable. Rhianna knew she had to leave, but she feared she was branded by her abortion work—who would hire her outside the reproductive rights movement?
At the end of 2021, she was offered a remote IT position with the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF). The work seemed more technical, less personal, and she welcomed the chance to blend her skills with her convictions. But God had other plans.
The year 2022 was tumultuous. Everywhere Rhianna turned, she saw cultural breakdown—protests in the streets, stories of domestic violence and sexual assault, and growing political and racial tensions. At the same time, her personal life was unraveling. She was in a toxic relationship and watching her daughter bear the cost of her own despair.
In the middle of this chaos, she clung to the narrative that abortion was compassionate, humane, even a “human right.” But deep down, cracks were forming. She began to question what she had been told.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, she repeated what others in the movement insisted: “Abortion will always be accessible—people will find a way.” But slowly, she began to see through the rhetoric.
The more she learned about NNAF’s funding sources and strategies, the clearer it became that their work was not about compassion. Instead, abortion funds pivoted toward logistics—covering travel costs, lodging, and medications for women in states where abortion remained legal. The focus was not on women’s flourishing but on preserving abortion at any cost.
Rhianna began to recognize abortion for what it truly was: not liberation, not justice, but a continuation of cycles of oppression. She saw how abortion disproportionately harmed black and brown communities, reinforced ableist thinking, exploited women in poverty, and dehumanized mothers and their children alike.
In October 2022, everything shifted. Rhianna experienced what she now believes was her first true encounter with the Holy Spirit. For the first time, she felt the overwhelming love of God—even in her brokenness. She knew something had to change.
She began attending church with her daughter, unsure of how to live this new life. Two months later, her daughter was baptized and gave her life to Christ. A month after that, Rhianna left her toxic relationship and moved closer to her daughter’s father for stability.
Then, in March 2023, she did the unthinkable: at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, she resigned from her position at NNAF with no backup plan.
Hungry for healing, Rhianna joined a local Bible study called Abortion Recovery Alabama. Through them, she was connected to And Then There Were None (ATTWN). That year, she attended Healing Foundations retreats—101, 201, and 301—where, layer by layer, God exposed the lies she had believed and replaced them with truth.
Through these retreats, Rhianna found freedom from the shame of her abortion and the chains of her past. She began to discover who she truly was in Christ and what it meant to be the mother her daughter always needed.
Looking back, Rhianna now sees how Jesus patiently pursued her—even in the darkest places. He met her in her despair, delivered her from the lies of “reproductive justice,” and gave her a new life.
She realizes now that abortion is not compassion. It is not justice. It is an assault against both mothers and children, a deception that preys on fear and hopelessness. She knows firsthand how shame and despair can push a woman into believing abortion is the only option—and she knows the freedom and healing Jesus offers when those lies are exposed.
Rhianna’s testimony is proof that no one is too far gone, no one is beyond the reach of Christ’s redeeming love.
As she often reflects: “I believe that there is no true reproductive justice without ending abortion in all its forms. And there is no lasting justice without Jesus. He alone is the way, the truth, and the life.”
Today, Rhianna shares her story as a living testimony that Jesus is the Good Shepherd—the One who leaves the ninety-nine to rescue the one lost sheep. She was that sheep. And now she walks in freedom, determined to point others toward the same Shepherd who saved her.