The Heartbeat International pregnancy center ministry knows thousands of pregnancy centers in the United States stand ready to help women with abortion alternatives, but it also understands that women needing help aren’t restricted to North America.
As a result, Heartbeat is expanding its outreach to help women in Hispanic nations in Central and South America who need the support of an organization focused on ensuring they have the support they need during pregnancy and options other than abortion.
Margaret Hartshorn, the president of Heartbeat says it has recently welcomed a new Latin American partner, Centro de Ayuda de Muyer Latinomaericana (CAM), and their 93 centers as affiliates in the Heartbeat International network. The organization is providing the staff and volunteers of the CAM pregnancy centers to help young women like Maria.
“Maria was nearly a victim of the abortion businesses in Medellin, Colombia. She was raped and left alone, afraid, and pregnant,” Hartshorn says. “In Medellin, abortion is legal under three conditions: rape, life of the mother, and fetal defect. Three legal and sixty-seven illegal abortion clinics have grown up in this city. They prey upon victims, at times misleading women to abort their healthy babies.”
“Because of the shame of her situation and the laws in her country, she decided to have an abortion. Yet by the grace of God she found the one pro-life pregnancy help center in Medellin, where she was loved into choosing life and then adoption for her baby,” Hartshorn said. “There is a desperate need for more pregnancy help centers to be raised up and strengthened in cities like Medellin.”
The center Maria found is a Heartbeat International affiliate now, thanks to CAM linking up with the organization, and its founder, Patricia Gallo, attributes the precious life saved to Heartbeat’s core training program.
“Heartbeat is overjoyed about the expansion of our network into Latin America,” Hartshorn says.
However, the Heartbeat president knows that more centers are needed as pro-abortion activists target the pro-life laws of these Hispanic nations and push for more women to have illegal abortions.
“We are inspired by the heroism of the men and women that the Lord has called into the battle in Latin America. As laws protecting babies and mothers from abortion have begun to fall, both legal and illegal abortion clinics are opening and competing for business. Latin America is being actively targeted by Planned Parenthood and United Nations population control radicals,” she said. “Together we can advance the pregnancy help movement in Central and South America. No woman should ever feel forced to choose abortion. When a pregnancy help center is in her community she can find the love and support she needs to choose life.”
