What is a Pregnancy Center? What do Pregnancy Centers do? - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 33

Hello, welcome to the Got Questions podcast. My name is Jeff. I am the editor of the

Bible Ref commentary site and one of the associate editors with gotquestions .org. And today we're going to talk about a topic that is interesting and controversial in the world today.

There is a lot of things about abortion that the Bible does speak to.

Now, Got Questions Ministries has a lot of different resources on that specifically, but you see there's a lot of heated rhetoric around abortion.

One of the frequent attacks that we hear at a ministry like ours is that persons who identify as pro -life are not really pro -life.

They're just anti -abortion. Now, first of all, that's irrelevant to the moral question of abortion, of purposefully terminating a life by terminating a pregnancy.

But that's also not true. The pro -life culture invests a lot of time in helping expectant women who find themselves in difficult situations.

And one of the things that we wanted to talk about today is specifically how the pro -life movement is working with life and some of the different ways that it happens.

Now, to help shed some light on that is today's guest. And joining me today is

Bob Hershey. He's the executive director of the Cleveland Pregnancy Center in Ohio.

Bob, welcome to the show. Thanks, Jeff. It's a privilege to be on here with you. Thank you.

And now if you get a chance, why don't you give us a little bit of an introduction to yourself and how you came to be in the position where you are and a general idea of what you do.

Yeah, I think it really goes back. Actually, the start of my story, probably why

I'm in the position I'm in, is because at 18, we were in a pregnancy situation, not married, just into college and trying to figure that out for ourselves and saying,

OK, what do we do? There's always this other side that says, you know what, you don't have to go through this. You know, and so we were really trying to we were struggling with what to do with our pregnancy situation.

So we actually went to a doctor. He basically looked at us and he said, you know what, you're too young, intelligent people. Why would you not want to have this baby?

So when we get back to the car, I kind of wake up and and go, you know what? This is my responsibility.

We need to get married. So part of that story is we're married 42 years now. We have three kids and we have five grandkids.

Like my story is so much different if we run into somebody that says, oh, you don't need to do that. Just terminate it.

And so the story ends up a little bit different. So probably about, oh, I don't know, 10, 11 years ago, it's been now that a buddy of mine said

I was out of work. Buddy of mine says, hey, why don't you go volunteer at a pregnancy center? I just kind of looked at him stupid, like what are you talking about?

He says there's the guy side to that story also. And I said, OK, now you're speaking where my heart is and my passion is, is for men to be raised up to be godly leaders, to protect, to provide those kind of things.

And how can I help them? Because it's such an important story of pregnancy center ministry, especially now it's getting more and more.

So anyhow, I went and I volunteered at a pregnancy center for about a year as a men's leader.

And then a volunteer coordinator position came open at the Cleveland Pregnancy Center. And so I applied for it.

I was there for about five years, just part time doing volunteers and training them and such. And there's a part just kind of felt that was kind of calling me away for a little bit.

So I was away for about a year and a half and found out that they needed an executive director.

So I contacted the board. They said, yeah, let's talk and let's sit down. And so here I am just over five years now as executive director.

So it's been it's been really neat being in the pregnancy center ministry for just over 10 years now.

It's neat. That's an interesting it's an interesting story. I think it's it's key that you brought up the idea that this is not just about women.

Obviously, the primary concern is for women. They're the ones who are carrying the child. They're the ones who are under the most pressure socially, culturally, financially and so on and so forth.

But I think that's something interesting I want to explore more as we go forward is the idea of men specifically in pro -life and what groups like this do.

Now, when it comes to a pregnancy center like Cleveland Pregnancy Center, what sort of things do you do?

If somebody just has no idea, what does this what is a pregnancy center do? Yeah.

Yeah. I'll just kind of lead you through basically what I do is kind of a tour through the center. OK. And so basically what it is, we we are primarily trying to attract abortion minded abortion vulnerable because we know they're the ones that that are trying to make a decision.

And they you know, there's many that have chosen life and we do, you know, minister to them also. But for those that are just trying to figure it out, like like we were, you know, way back as an 18 year old, like what do we do with this?

And there's this crisis in front of you. And so how do we how do we help them? So basically what we do is we have a an ad, basically a

Google ad campaign. So if somebody's looking for abortion or a facility near me, you know, whatever it would be that there's these ad words.

And so there's an ad that pops up and says, hey, here's a place to go, you know, check that out, call them. So they'll call.

A lot of times I will answer that phone and it you know, it's, hey, I'm looking for an abortion. I'm looking for, you know, whatever.

And and so what we want to really do is to help them first. Are you pregnant? You know,

I always tell people that, hey, you don't take an aspirin if you don't have a headache. Right. So let's figure out if you're pregnant, first of all.

And so what we will do is make an appointment. They will come in. They will do a pregnancy test. They will meet with an options.

Well, it's options educator. I call them an advocate, you know, because that's really what they're trying to do is to help them along their path.

Yeah. And so so they will meet with them while the pregnancy test is done. If that comes back positive, we will do an ultrasound.

You have to wait till about six weeks or so to do ultrasounds. And then we'll do the ultrasound. If there is a boyfriend there or a husband or whoever might be with them, they are often invited in also to see the picture.

And from seeing the picture, we know that about 85 percent of the time they're going to choose life because nobody goes into an unexpected pregnancy going,

I want to have an abortion. Like nobody signs up for that. Right. I mean, I mean, I think it's Abby Johnson that says nobody goes in, you know, saying, hey,

I want to have an abortion like they want to have an ice cream cone. Right. No, you just don't do that. So we offer them space to be able to talk about it.

You know, it's not like we're going to force them into anything, but you need to know your options. And so I always tell them there's three options.

Right. You can carry the term, you can do adoption or you can do abortion. We want to know all those, you know, three different things because it's going to change their life.

And so we will talk about all of those. So as we come through that, if they do choose that they're going to parent their their child, then what we do is we move them to the resource side.

And basically what the resource side does is they meet with a life coach through their pregnancy to help them through that path.

And then what they'll do, they will take classes. We have online classes and we have classes in the center also.

And so their online classes will lead them through all three trimesters of their pregnancy, how to breastfeed, parenting, budgeting classes,

Bible study, you know, all these different classes that we have for them. And it's really a life skill that trains them up.

And so we'll take care of them through their their child is a year old and continue to follow them through that path.

So when when, you know, a lot of times you'll hear that, oh, you don't take care of them after. Oh, yes, we do take care of them after.

And so we are walking with them along their path. And what we try to do is to connect them back to the church because the church is really a disciple making peace.

Right. The pregnancy center isn't necessarily the disciple piece, but it's a way of doing life skills to connect them back to the church right in their neighborhood.

And and then a group comes alongside them and helps them through that. And so so as they go to classes, meet with life coaches, they get points for those.

They can go shopping in our boutique. And so there's diapers and wipes and clothing and strollers and all those kind of things.

They also right before they're before they're due. They will get what we call a layette.

And this thing probably weighs like 30 pounds. And it's got a Bible in there and it's got diapers and wipes.

It'll probably last them for the first two months, you know, before they have to come back into the center. Yeah. And so just another way that we can bless them if they do decide that, hey, you know what?

This isn't for me. I'm going to do abortion. You know what? That's their choice. And and we have to be

OK with that. And and so basically what you know, what I was told a long time ago that we are responsible to them, but we aren't necessarily responsible for them.

And so they they get to make their own choice. If they do make the choice of abortion, we have what we call our heart program.

It's healing the effects of abortion related trauma. And it's a workshop that you go through that there's healing on the other side.

And and I actually just started doing this workshop with men myself probably just a few months ago.

And I've already led three guys through that piece of it, too. Most of the time that abortion happened 30 years ago.

And now they're realizing that, oh, my goodness, like this is what's been messing me up for this last 30 years.

Yeah. So so that's kind of everything that we do pretty much in a nutshell right there.

So just a tour through the through the pregnancy center. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's interesting to hear that there is sort of this holistic view that's going on.

And I think that's not only important in encountering the idea that persons who are opposed to abortion are just opposed to abortion, that pro -life movement is actually doing something for life.

But down to the details that these are human beings that these centers and we as pro -life people care about, there's actually resources there in the practical sense, teaching people how how do

I handle being a parent? All of a sudden, what if I'm having struggles with things like finances and diapers and wipes and all that kind of stuff that goes into that?

I think it's also interesting you brought up the idea of of working through some of the trauma that's associated with abortion.

You made a good point in reminding everybody that that in some of the rhetoric that goes back and forth with abortion is that even on the side of persons who are in favor of abortion, in some sense, there isn't a lot of joy or happiness involved in it.

In other words, that's sort of this cartoon caricature. Women generally, they're not going into abortion clinics, clicking their heels happy about this kind of thing.

There really is pain involved. And there is. And even when you when you hear the stories of those, we have a group of ladies that lead our healing program.

When you hear their stories, when they go into the recovery room and everybody's got their head down, nobody's looking at one another.

There is no talk in that recovery room whatsoever. Like there's just a lot of pain that's going on there.

And when you realize also that there so the statistics say that there are four in 10 women that have been attending church at least once a month are still having abortions, even within the church.

And a new study says that five in 10 men is that same deal that they're having the abortions too.

And so it's how do we minister to them after that? And so that's where the healing program really comes in.

Yeah, I think that's important. And also a point that's worth emphasizing is that one of the reasons that pro -life is an important perspective isn't just the sake of the unborn child, that abortion does have serious psychological, spiritual, personal, sometimes medical consequences for the people who are involved.

Now, a question that I wanted to make sure that we discuss that sort of in that same vein is reminding people that we typically don't understand all the circumstances that people are involved in in their lives.

And it doesn't take a lot of creativity to think of reasons why a woman would be in what we would call a crisis pregnancy.

But from your perspective, what sort of motivators or reasons bring women to a facility like yours?

What's their driver? What's their motivation? What's leading them to seek something like what you're offering?

Most of the time, it's going to be, you know, I don't have enough money. My relationship is bad.

I don't have any housing. You know, I'm in school. I mean, those are probably your top four right there.

And so what we one of our taglines that we have is we are helping to overcome obstacles and helping families thrive.

And so if we take away the obstacles, if you had enough money, if you had a house, if your relationship was good, if we could help you finish school, if we take away all the obstacles, why do you not have that baby?

Right. Because circumstances should not drive a bad decision.

Right. And so and so we want to help them to make a wise decision and a better decision. I mean, even in my case, like,

OK, here we're 18 years old. I'm not working right now and we're in school. And yet we come away and say, you know, we can do this.

And of course, it's some of that support that we have around. That's why we connect back to the churches, because there's some more support that's there.

There's no family support. And and we were able to kind of work our way through because we did have some support that, you know, wasn't the pregnancy center that was there, you know, where we were, because we didn't know anything about the pregnancy center at that point.

Yeah. But that's why we are there to offer that support and that help to those that find themselves there, because they're, you know, you don't need to make that decision on those basis.

Right. Talking about a life. Do you do you find that women are often surprised to find out that a facility like yours exists or is this a resource that a lot of women are aware is there and they're just considering this as an option?

Yeah, I think I think there's some that realize that we're there. There are many that we get a lot of referrals from like cousins or, you know, the sister or, you know, and refer them to the center because they've been taken care of so well.

And then there's the others that we get on the phone that really think we're an abortion clinic. And we and we tell them we don't refer, we don't, you know, perform abortions here.

But yet they sometimes don't hear that, you know, and so they still come in thinking they're probably going to get an abortion.

Yeah. But, you know, we also tell them like like an abortion is a two step process. You have to go in.

You have to meet with a counselor. You have to do your ultrasound. That's your first step. Then you make another appointment for the abortion.

And and so just trying to help them understand like this is the process. You know, if that's the direction you need to go, this ours is the first step you need to take.

So why not do that at no cost? Where if you go someplace else, they're going to charge you for the pregnancy test.

They're going to charge you for the ultrasound. You know, they're going to charge you for the counseling. They're going to charge you for all those things.

And so, you know, as ours is a first step to figure out if you are, in fact, pregnant. I mean, why would you go someplace?

And then, you know, you came to us and you got a negative test. If you had gone someplace else, you would have wasted, you know, wasted your money and doing that, too.

So, yeah, it's another benefit, too. So from that standpoint, though, the way you're describing it is that you as a pregnancy center, you're not charging the women for the services, the classes, the supplies.

Right. Exactly. And what's great about that is that really leads us to be unbiased because if you're going into an abortion clinic, what are they trying to sell you?

They're trying to sell you an abortion. And so, you know, at a pregnancy center like we have nothing to gain.

We're not looking for financial gain from you. Right. We're looking to keep you healthy because after all, a pregnancy is healthy.

Right. Right. Because that's the way it's supposed to work. So we want to help them. So from from from a funding standpoint, then what is the way that a pregnancy center sustains itself?

Obviously, diapers and wipes and stuff like that don't come out of thin air. That's one of the reasons women need to go to pregnancy centers.

So what's the way that a pregnancy center actually has the revenue to do stuff like this? Yeah. Yeah.

So materially, many churches will do a baby shower and they'll get the wipes and the diapers and that kind of stuff and then just bring those in.

There's some of them that do that at Christmastime. So like the giving tree, you know, and they'll bring in all these presents that are all just wrapped up and there's clothes and all kinds of stuff.

And it's just a fun time when they do that. Financially, the way that we have been funded, we do two to basically two primary fundraisers.

We do our banquet and then we also do our walk, which actually is coming up real soon, too. And that's, you know, just some some basic fundraisers that we do in that.

But other than that, it's the churches that that are partnering with us. And we have a bunch of churches that have been partnering with us for lots and lots of years.

And then we also have individual donors. And those are ones that have said, hey, you know what, I want to be a part and I want to do something.

I can't just sit on the sidelines, but I need to do something. And so those monthly supporters are the ones that are really providing a way for us to plan and to get ready and to see that.

So those are what we call our pillar partners. And, you know, those are the those are the gifts that come in.

And you're like, wow, that's just such a blessing every month to see that every month and then to see those new donors. And you go, where did they even come from?

Like God just has to be tugging on people's hearts and and they show up and it's just amazing.

So that's that's really how we're how we're funded that way. Yeah, it's neat. It's neat to see that when we talk about pro -life as a movement or as a culture, that there really is involvement there.

So the the fact that pregnancy centers like Cleveland Pregnancy Center are able to function is because there are people out there who say, yes,

I think this is something that's important and I'm willing to volunteer my my time or my resources or my money to something like this.

Now, as somebody who's got sort of an inside track on that aspect of the of the pro -life movement, what sort of things do you see from a positive standpoint?

I want to talk about what we could do better. But for starters, what what things do you see beyond something like a pregnancy center that the pro -life movement or pro -life persons are doing or have been doing other than obvious things like legislation and so on and so forth?

What is pro -life doing out there? Yeah, you know, as far as, you know, legislation, that kind of stuff goes like I our center, we just kind of like I'm going to minister to the people that are around me.

Right. That's that's my place where I'm supposed to be. And so that's who I'm ministering to. And there are other parts of organizations that are doing the legislation stuff.

And that's great because they're making a difference. But we're going to minister to the people that are that are right here.

And so that's that's where really our focus is, the focus with our churches and stuff, too. One of the things

I'm connected with, well, the pregnancy center is connected with Care Net. Care Net is basically an overarching organization that shares resources.

They do training. They help with with board, you know, kind of things, that kind of stuff.

And so they're just a place that we can go to and have resources at the center for our clients, for training, for the staff, for that kind of thing.

So this last week I was at a Care Net conference, just very encouraging and very uplifting and just learning some new things and how we can apply that.

So there's a Care Net that's out there that's helping us, you know, along our path, too. And one of the things that Care Net has done recently, they have put together what they call

Making Life Disciples. And so many times you're going to get somebody that says, hey, I want to volunteer with you guys, but I'm not sure if my work schedule works with that.

How do I make that happen? You know, that kind of thing. And I lead them directly to Making Life Disciples, because if we know that four out of 10 women in the church have had abortions, we need to be ministering better to the people in the church.

70 percent of the women felt like they didn't have a place to go to have a conversation about an unexpected pregnancy.

So if that's the case, we need to talk about it more from the pulpit, for sure. All right. Simple way of doing that. There was a church that I heard did it this way from the pulpit.

They're doing announcements. They said, hey, if you have abortion in your past, if you're in an unexpected pregnancy, text

CARE to this number. Simple, anonymous, you know, really, really well done.

So anyhow, the Making Life Disciples, basically what it does, it does three things. It equips the church to be able to have the conversations right within the church and to be able to to hopefully lead them along a path to life.

And then it can also connect back to the to the pregnancy center. It also allows for the pregnancy center to send clients to the church.

And then they know a little bit about pregnancy center ministry and they can minister to them in a way that maybe they wouldn't minister to, you know, a single mom just in the congregation.

So it's a way to help them help them that way. Also, the other part it does is the post -abortive piece in the healing program.

And so it is just those three aspects that the Making Life Disciples does to really equip the church. I am a regional coordinator with Care Net.

It's just a volunteer position. But I believe so much in the Making Life Disciples that this is something you can do on your

Sunday. This is something you can do in the community. You know, when you're when you're at the grocery store and you're seeing a pregnant young mom.

Hey, is there some way I can help you? You know, and it's just a way of equipping the people, which which

I just absolutely love. Yeah, I like that. That resonates with me a lot because I and you obviously have a better perspective on this than I do.

So, you know, pull me back in my own lane if I'm speaking out of turn. But one of the things that I struggle with seeing sometimes is that we still have this sort of,

I don't want to call it prude culture. That's maybe not the best sort of term, but there there are still times where even within the church, there is enough stigma about an unplanned pregnancy, a teen pregnancy and so on and so forth, that there's more fear and shame about talking about it or dealing with it than there is of just trying to have a quick fix or solution that gets it over with.

And I like the idea of emphasizing that churches need to be safe spaces not to embrace sin, for example, but to be able to say, look, when when we make mistakes, when things happen, even when it's not a mistake and it's just a difficult circumstance, this needs to be the place that people can come to to look for help and to look for uplifting and assistance.

So I think it's great to hear that there's this theme of trying to coordinate with churches in that way.

Now, another thing that you had brought up that I wanted to make sure we hit before we run out of time is the idea of men and pregnancy centers.

And I will be completely honest. That's a fairly obvious concept, I guess.

And I'm not saying it never occurred to me. But as I was preparing for this conversation, most of what was going through my mind was how does this apply to the woman's life?

How does this apply to the woman's thought process? How do churches minister to women? And obviously, that is still going to be the main focus.

That's that's the primary purpose. But if you could, what what do you see as things that your organization does for men who are connected to these situations?

And what can the church do to get men involved in the right way? Yeah. Yeah. The so for me, one of the things

I continue to say, and you probably hear me say this like over and over and over, is that if we can solve the guy problem, we've pretty much solved the girl problem.

Right. Not all of it, of course, but most of it. If we can solve that piece of it, then then we're along a good path.

And so if we can help him understand how to be a how to be a protector, how to honor, how to provide, you know, those kind of areas that he needs to know, which are all godly principles.

And so so if we can help him along that path, then that's where we're gonna make a change in culture.

We're gonna make a change in in in in pregnancy centers, you know, all over. And so what we've done, we have what we call

Malachi men. And actually, there's a YouTube channel and it's just Malachi men. And our leader of that is

Tom Freeze. And he has some some great just like little biblical story kind of things that he does on there.

And I just love he's he's funny. And yeah, he gets right to the point and I just love what he does with with our

Malachi men. But we are making an even more strategic plan with the churches that are right around us in Cleveland that, hey, how can we help your men understand what it means to to live a godly life and to respect, you know, their their girlfriends or whatever.

And so there are many small group of men around us that we want to help them and really minister to them and help them along their path, too.

And so we've been looking at a couple of different things of helping them with that, because what we know is that if we can train those guys up, if they have accountability, most likely they're going to treat their their girlfriend right.

And they're not going to end up at a pregnancy center. Right. And so so that's really the whole just like I'm really trying to work myself out of a job.

Yeah, we can if we can help help them understand their responsibility, then you know what?

We're going to find less pregnancies and less abortions. Right. And so that's we're really trying to connect with those that are around the around the area with us and minister to their men, which they have an outreach in the community which reaches to more men.

Yeah. And so as we train and equip those, I mean, it's really about multiplication of ministry. You know, it's like not everybody's coming through my doors.

Right. Right. And so how can we help others where they're going to connect at those churches, you know, in the community and to make those connections to with those guys that are there?

Awesome. Awesome. That's neat information. Well, we're just about out of time for this particular episode.

I appreciate you coming on and talking to us about this. If you could, why don't you give me if you were going to give somebody what they call the elevator speech, you know, you've got your 30 seconds or whatever to give somebody an idea of what

Cleveland Pregnancy Center is and does as sort of a summary or a wrap up.

What would you say? Yeah, well, and I think I kind of said it before, is that we just want to help families to to overcome their obstacles and to help their families thrive.

I mean, it's as simple as that. We are out there. We are changing a heart, changing a mind and changing a generation.

And we know that the way that you change that heart is through Jesus Christ. And when he comes in and changes that heart, that will change their mind because now they have a plumb line to go by.

They can choose right or wrong and what that means. And then as they decide that they are going to keep that baby, now you've changed the next generation and that can continue on like that.

And so that's that's kind of where we're at and what we're doing. So, Jeff, thank you so much for having having me on here.

Excellent. I appreciate it. I appreciate the time. And I obviously appreciate what it is you're doing and the way that you're doing it.

So hopefully this conversation has been helpful for the folks who are watching and or listening.

Abortion is definitely a complicated topic, at least politically in our country.

There's a lot of heat. There's a lot of rhetoric. But it really is true that there are other options and places like Cleveland Pregnancy Center and the many, many other pregnancy centers that are in the area and pro -life persons really are doing things to try to work with that.

And my guest today has been Bob Hershey. He's the executive director of the Cleveland Pregnancy Center in Ohio to talk specifically about that.

Of what the pro -life movement is doing and can do and possibly some of the ways to help.

So as always, we hope that this has been a helpful conversation and check out the links that we have for some additional information.

And as always, if you have other questions, you can check out our ministry resources for those.

as we say, this has got questions. The Bible has answers and we'll help you find them.