Meet Member Sharon Pearce

Naive. That’s how I’d describe myself in 1984. I had just completed a nine-month program offered by my church with the goal of preparing me for ministry. While some of my classmates were called as missionaries, God called me (kicking and screaming) to open a pregnancy care center at the church (a story for another time). Here’s where the naivete kicked in. I thought if women would just use birth control, they wouldn’t get pregnant, and they wouldn’t need to have an abortion.

It didn’t take me long to realize that birth control wasn’t the answer. Many of our clients were using birth control—and had gotten pregnant. They felt that because they had been “responsible,” it was okay for them to have an abortion. That’s when my views on birth control began to change.

As an Evangelical, I had never considered the morality of birth control. It was simply medication women could use to prevent pregnancy. Then, out of the blue, I received a magazine in the mail called All About Issues by the American Life League. They ran a series of articles about how the Pill was actually a form of abortion because it often interfered with the implantation of the developing baby when it reached the endometrium. I realized that if I truly believed that life began at fertilization—not implantation—I had to reject all forms of birth control that prevented that life from continuing its growth and development.

I knew I had to find an alternative to the Pill, and that’s when I first heard about Natural Family Planning. I didn’t know enough to teach women myself, so I found an older Catholic woman who taught NFP in the area and referred interested couples to her. That worked for many years, but she eventually retired, and I knew I needed to step up and become a teacher myself.

The Diocese of San Diego “just happened” to be offering a Teacher Training course around the time I was praying about becoming a teacher. They didn’t have any problem with me taking the class, and that was my introduction to the Billings Ovulation Method. I’ve been teaching the Billings Method now for over twenty years, and LOVE empowering women to embrace their fertility as a gift from God, and to trust that their bodies will tell them when they’re fertile—and when they are not.

I’ve served on the Board of Directors for the Billings Ovulation Method Association (BOMA-USA) for five years and have been the President of the Board for the past two years. My passion is to educate Evangelicals about the moral issues surrounding birth control, especially within the Pregnancy Care Center/Clinic movement. I have found a book titled Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? by Randy Alcorn (a well-known and trusted Evangelical author) to be helpful in opening doors to conversations with Evangelicals who, like me, have never before considered the morality of birth control.

Sharon, Why Do You Support CANFP?

I support CANFP because we can learn so much when we listen to other teachers talk about what they’ve learned “on the job.”  And we really do need each other. It can feel like you’re alone out there. Networking with other teachers is a good thing, and CANFP makes that happen!