One local service agency has been honored by the Tennessee General Assembly for their work standing up for the sanctity of human life.

The Tennessee House of Representatives earlier this month unanimously passed a joint resolution honoring the TLC Community Center and declaring January 22 as a “Day of Hope and Healing” in Tennessee.

“The values and freedoms we cherish as Americans rest on our fundamental commitment to the sanctity of human life,” the resolution said. “The TLC Community Center of Elizabethton is an exemplary organization that is deeply committed to the sanctity of human life. The TLC Community Center demonstrates this commitment by administering a program to provide assistance to women who are facing a crisis pregnancy.”

“Each life has inherent dignity and value, and the weakest and most vulnerable members of society must be protected,” the resolution continues. “Our culture of life requires that we work toward the goal of every child being welcomed and protected in life. Hope and healing are essential to unifying our society.”

State Rep. Debra Moody, of Covington, was the primary sponsor for the resolution and Reps. John Holsclaw, Timothy Hill, Matthew Hill, and Micah VanHuss signed on as co-sponsors.

TLC Community Center Founder and Director Angie Odom was pleased the Center was chosen to be honored by the Legislature, but she hopes the sentiment behind the honor can spread across the state.

“It’s a Day of Hope and Healing,” Odom said. “The ‘hope’ is in the hope to end abortion. The ‘healing’ part is not just for the babies who have died, but for healing for the parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and other family members of a child who died as a result of abortion.”

Odom founded the TLC Community Center in 2000 as Abortion Alternatives and Women’s Center to help provide assistance to women facing a crisis pregnancy. Over the years since she created the ministry, Odom said she has seen first hand the long-term effects impacting women who have chosen abortion and their need for healing.”

“With what I do at the Center, in the past 18 years, I have met so many people who have had that heartbreak of what they have experienced due to abortion,” Odom said. “Women have shared their stories saying things like ‘They never told me it would be like this’ and ‘They never said I would feel this way.’”

Often times, the clinics provide women with the abortion but do not provide them with any counseling or followup, Odom said.

“This is something that as a society we don’t talk about,” Odom said. “We can refer them to professional counselors. We also have peer counselors, who have been through an abortion, that talk with people one-on-one to share their experience as a way of helping others.”

The date of January 22 was selected because it marks the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Roe v. Wade case in 1973 which made abortions legal across the country.