Pro-Life Group Will Help 650 Pregnancy Centers Get Ultrasound Machines

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 22, 2005   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Pro-Life Group Will Help 650 Pregnancy Centers Get Ultrasound Machines Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 22
, 2005

Colorado Springs, CO (LifeNews.com) — Focus on the Family has announced a campaign to spend $4.2 million on ultrasound machines for pregnancy centers across the country. The goal is to provide centers with the equipment, which has been touted as helping to change the minds of many women considering abortion.

Julie Parton, director of the Pregnancy Resource Ministry, tells the Associated Press that Operation Ultrasound will place such machines in about 150 pregnancy centers this year alone.

The pro-life groups hopes to have as many as 650 machines in centers nationwide by 2010.

"Among women considering abortion, surveys indicate that 57 percent will keep their babies after receiving counseling at a pregnancy resource center," Focus on the Family said in a statement. "That figure jumps to 79 percent when expectant mothers see an image of their baby on an ultrasound machine."

Crystal Clinkenbeard, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, told AP that the abortion business makes ultrasound photos available to women considering abortions, but claims most do not want to see them.

"It’s very few — less than a quarter," she said. "And the ones that do as far as changing their mind? Very, very few."

But Lisa Vorhees, who supports legalized abortion, told AP that an ultrasound changed her mind about an abortion a few years ago.

"It was one of the biggest, hardest decisions I ever had to make in my life but, yes, the ultrasound was the biggest decider for me," she said.

As of January 2003, only 350 of the 2,300 pregnancy resource centers offered ultrasound, according to the pro-life group. Since the launch of the program in January 2004, 88 centers in 27 states have received ultrasound machines.

Focus on the Family pays 80 percent of the costs of the machine and the local pregnancy center funds the remaining 20 percent.

"These centers are out there on the front lines dealing with these folks every day, and our desire is to assist them and equip them in any way we can," Parton concluded.

Related web sites:
Focus on the Family – https://www.fotf.org