Seen at Last: How Abortion Survivors Are Bringing the Human Face of a Global Debate to the World's Biggest Stage

When a Dream Becomes a Mission

In the middle of the night, Lyric Gillett reached for a pen. What came to her in those quiet hours she would later describe as "a dream filled with faces" — a vision not of statistics or arguments, but of people. Specific people. Men and women whose stories had not yet been told and whose faces had not yet been seen. By morning, the concept and script that would eventually become a series of advertisements scheduled to air during the 2026 FIFA World Cup were already on paper.

Gillett is the founder of Faces of Choice, a nonprofit built around a single, deceptively simple premise: that behind every public debate about abortion stands a human being with a name, a history, and a face. The organization's upcoming campaign will introduce abortion survivors to a projected global audience of billions.

The road to that platform was not straightforward. In 2020, Faces of Choice had an advertisement prepared for the Super Bowl. Days before the game, the spot was blocked from airing. What registered at the time as a closed door has since opened, in Gillett's own words, into "an enormous gateway" — one leading directly to the world's most-watched sporting event.

The Psychology of Encounter

There is a long tradition in both clinical psychology and Catholic anthropology of insisting that transformation rarely begins with argument. It begins with encounter. Gillett's instinct aligns with this understanding, though she frames it in explicitly theological terms. "Again and again, Christ revealed truth through encounter," she said. "He met people face-to-face."

"My hope is that when the world sees these men and women, something deeper than opinion will be awakened," Gillett said. "Not because people hear a new argument, but because they find a human being looking back at them."

Opinion operates at the level of proposition. Encounter operates at the level of person. The latter reaches places the former cannot.

Imago Dei as Foundation

Gillett articulates a clear anthropological grounding. "The doctrine of the Imago Dei is not merely a theological concept," she said. "It is a reality that demands recognition. Every human life possesses an inherent dignity that is not earned, granted by society, or dependent upon circumstance. It is bestowed by God himself."

For abortion survivors specifically, this grounding carries particular weight. Many survivors navigate profound questions about identity, worth, and belonging — questions that emerge directly from the circumstances of their early existence. Faces of Choice provides a structure through which survivors can speak, be received, and find their experience acknowledged by the wider world.

Visibility as Healing

There is a concept in contemporary trauma therapy sometimes called "witness" — the experience of having one's suffering seen and validated by another person. Research consistently demonstrates that witness is not merely emotionally comforting. It is neurologically and psychologically reparative.

"This work is not only about defending life," Gillett said. "It is about restoring visibility to people whose humanity has too often been denied."

For individuals who survived abortion, invisibility carries a uniquely existential charge. Their very existence was, at one point, a contested question. To stand before a global audience of billions and say, simply, "I am here" — that is not only an act of advocacy. It is an act of profound psychological and spiritual assertion.

The individuals appearing in these advertisements are compelling examples of human resilience. To have survived profound vulnerability, built a life, and then chosen to offer that life as public testimony requires a degree of psychological and spiritual integration that does not happen by accident. In this sense, their witness is itself the fullest expression of what it means to be seen — and to invite the world to see.

Source: EWTN News, "At FIFA 2026 World Cup, abortion survivors to share their stories," June 11, 2026.