Life Matters: Responding to Unplanned Pregnancy

This is part two of four articles which we highlight each week of October to help us reflect on the many life issues faced by our community. It is summarized, edited, and reprinted, here in the weekly Forum. The four articles are "Life Matters:" 1.) Doctor-Assisted Death by Suicide   2.) Responding to Unplanned Pregnancy   3.) Pornography and Our Call to Love;  4.) Call to Greatness.   For the full text of this article & other resources please see the web site of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:  www.usccb.org/about/pro-life-activities/respect-life-program/

Life Matters: Responding to Unplanned Pregnancy

(For the St. Francis Forum, October 21, 2012)

"Ana" had changed her mind. At the last moment she got up from the abortionist's table and walked out, knowing that her decision to spare her child's life also meant that she'd be deserted by her boyfriend and her parents. Ana felt scared and alone. Searching desperately for help, she found a small pregnancy help center with a volunteer who provided ongoing love and support during this lonely and difficult time. This kind of love and support is offered again and again in over 3,700 pregnancy help centers, medical clinics, and related ministries (including pro-life social services, maternity homes, and nonprofit adoption agencies) in the United States.

Some of these organizations were formed in the late 1960s, when a handful of states began to decriminalize abortion under narrow circumstances. After the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, the number of pregnancy centers multiplied dramatically. Since then, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have served unselfishly in this grassroots effort. Currently, over 70,000 people are actively assisting in pregnancy help centers in the United States: medical personnel, social workers, counselors, teachers, homemakers, young people, business people, clergy.

Heartbeat International hosts an online worldwide directory (heartbeatinternational.org) of resources in the United States and the nearly 2,000 additional ones around the world. Option Line (optionline.org, 800-712-HELP) connects people in need with lifesaving help, seven days per week, in both English and Spanish. Pro-life pregnancy centers and related ministries, like the Good Samaritan, operate on limited budgets in responding to the wounded and suffering.

The abortion industry, by using abortion to answer a short-term challenge (instead of continuing the pregnancy through birth and adoption placement, for example), can induce a lifelong crisis for those involved. By contrast, the Christ-centered response of a pregnancy center, which relies only on donations, is able to accomplish much even beyond saving the life of a child. The daily work and ministry of the pregnancy center also channels God's love to the child's parents and family, bringing about an opportunity for evangelization, healing, restoration, better parenting, more marriages and adoptions, and, in the long term, healthier families.

Pregnancy center work also transforms us who minister to them. Our faith, love, and dependence on the Lord grow daily. He turns our small efforts into miracles of lives saved and transformed.

Twenty-five years after Ana's courageous decision, her grown son is a great source of pride to her and her husband. In the intervening years, this couple started a whole network of pregnancy help centers and related ministries. Ana's decision and the response of the pregnancy center volunteer have already helped transform the lives of two generations of other women and families.

Pope Benedict XVI writes, "Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and, in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate the world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working" (God Is Love, section 39).

There are so many mothers and unborn children in need of this kind of loving response today.

Margaret H. Hartshorn, Ph.D., and her husband, Mike, became active in the pro-life movement in 1973, housed the first of many pregnant girls in 1975, and started a pregnancy center in Columbus, Ohio, in 1981. Peggy became president of Heartbeat International in 1993. Paul Schwankl condensed her article; the unabridged version is available at www.usccb.org/about/pro-life-activities/respect-life-program/2012/respect-life-program-2012-pamphlets.cfm.

To volunteer or support a pregnancy center, contact www.dioceseoflansing.org/life_justice_ministry or Heartbeat International to locate pregnancy centers near you.