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“Those who staff the programs listed in this article are people of Christian faith, dedicated to advancing the Gospel message while showing the heart of God to the vulnerable in our society. Their example should not be mocked or minimized — but emulated.”
–REAGAN ESCUDÉ SCOTT
When angry, screeching pro-abortion activists condemn those who stand up for innocent, preborn human beings, one of the most common talking points you’ll hear is that “you don’t care about babies after they’re born.”
They say this for two reasons:
And sure, things like paid parental leave, childcare, healthcare, and making adoption more affordable are all things worth having conversations about, but let’s not pretend that murdering a baby in the womb is the solution until we solve every other problem facing our nation first.
Despite what you might hear from pro-choicers, pro-life advocates actually do care about mothers and their babies — before and after they are born. In fact, it’s pro-life advocates who donate their time, money, and energy to support women while pregnant and postpartum. It’s pro-life advocates who organize, build relationships with, and invest in expecting women. It’s pro-life advocates who share the same concerns and compassion for parents struggling with childcare and working full-time, affording medical bills, and cutting through the red tape to adopt.
There are actually many pro-life organizations who solve a lot of these problems and more for expecting women. It’s not the pro-abort crowd taking the shirts off their backs to bring aid to expecting mothers and their babies. It’s Christians, conservatives, and pro-life groups rallying together to encourage and empower women to give their baby a chance at life.
Here are just three of many:
Her PLAN works closely with staff and volunteers at pregnancy centers, churches, and assistance organizations to provide resources and care to expecting women. By cultivating relationships with assistance providers, Her PLAN is able to create a directory of life-affirming organizations and providers to whom clients can be referred and given resources.
One of the organizations Her PLAN works with is Life First pregnancy center, also known as First Care Women’s Health. Prior to working with Her PLAN, Life First pregnancy center kept a binder full of resources to find help for their clients. Now, they have access to an online directory that’s filterable and user-friendly. As Anna Longbons, manager of the State Program for Her PLAN, explains,
“If a pregnant woman is struggling to find a place to start, there is help. If a pregnant woman faces financial challenges, relational challenges, legal challenges, medical challenges, or more, there is help. If she has experienced abortion, then healing is available. Life-affirming assistance providers and churches across the country are seeking to serve her and walk alongside her.”
To learn more about Her PLAN, watch this video to see the staff at Life First talking about the impact of their work.
Be Their Village is an online social media movement intended to rally pro-life activists together in support of women in need. It provides opportunities for pro-life individuals to give to and serve the expecting or postpartum women they fight for through baby registries.
As part of Be Their Village’s efforts, mothers in need of tangible items to care for themselves and their babies are provided for. Anything that would be included on a baby registry is covered by Be Their Village. Be Their Village also hosts fundraisers for women whose babies are in the NICU and need help paying bills, and they even provide meal delivery services for weeks at a time to relieve mothers and fathers of the burden of making meals postpartum. This leads to a healthier recovery and more time for moms to bond with their newborn babies.
“There are so many amazing women who I am so proud of, but recently we had an 18 year old mom of twins choose life, and I have been able to walk alongside her through pregnancy and since she’s had her babies. We gifted her a newborn photoshoot (we do this for all of our moms), and watching her grow as a confident and protective mother in just a few short weeks has been inspiring. I’ve even had the opportunity to babysit her twins. Our love and support doesn’t stop when the babies get here. It’s just a new beginning.”
– Christine Yeargin, Founder, Be Their Village
Standing With You assists students who are also parents with embracing both their children and their education by empowering the campus-based group Students for Life to support their expecting and parenting peers. Through Standing With You’s online directory, parents and expecting parents can have access to childcare while they are in school, scholarships to pay for their education, a privatized child support fund to help with expenses, low-cost health insurance, and more.
Expecting student mothers who are considering adoption have access to adoption support to aid them in their decision-making and a search tool to find a nearby adoption agency. Standing With You even provides resources to support grieving women who have suffered a miscarriage or chosen to have an abortion.
So yes, pro-lifers DO care about babies after they’re born, and the compassion, servitude, and guidance they provide is overwhelming. While one side of this issue parades around demanding that the solution is slaughtering preborn babies, it’s the other side, the pro-lifers, who step up to the plate and actually provide solutions and support to the most vulnerable in our society.
James 1:27 exhorts the Church to tend to widows and orphans, as this will show that our religion is sincere and our hearts are following Christ. The context of this verse would universally apply today to mothers who are in low socio-economic circumstances and struggle with providing for themselves. The answer to their quandary should never be abortion. The answer should never include the termination of innocent life because there is help and there is real emotional support for all who need and want it.
Roe v. Wade’s end is a huge blow to abortion and a huge boost to the pro-life movement’s lifesaving agenda. Those who staff the programs listed in this article are people of Christian faith, dedicated to advancing the Gospel message while showing the heart of God to the vulnerable in our society. Their example should not be mocked or minimized — but emulated.
Follow Reagan on Twitter! @thereaganscott
