Life-affirming pregnancy help network Care Net has reached a landmark 1 million lives saved through its affiliated pregnancy centers, the organization announced in a press release.
Between 2008 and 2022, centers affiliated with Care Net saved 1,010,931 lives, according to its Impact Report.
“The secret sauce of Care Net's success has always been that we are a Christ-centered, gospel-focused ministry,” Vincent DiCaro, Care Net’s Chief Outreach Officer, told Pregnancy Help News, adding that the organization focuses not only on saving lives but building strong families.
“One important way this has played out is that the percentage of affiliates that have fatherhood programs has doubled in the last decade,” DiCaro said. “This holistic approach is what has allowed Care Net to reach the milestone of 1 million lives saved.”
Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International, the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the United States and globally, says his organization celebrates the announcement.
“The Care Net team has worked tirelessly to support and strengthen affiliated pregnancy help centers across the U.S.,” Godsey told Pregnancy Help News.
“Such a milestone is a testament to their work nationally and, of course, a recognition of the hard work for each local Care Net affiliate in loving, serving, and encouraging women in their valley of decision about an unintended pregnancy,” he added.
Godsey points out that as impressive as this achievement is, it represents only part of the estimated millions of lives saved by the pregnancy help movement in the last half-century.
“Centers just like those affiliated with Care Net have existed in the U.S. since the early 1970s, a full 40 years before the dates Care Net's statistics cover,” he said. “Nor are Care Net affiliate locations the only pregnancy centers rescuing lives being lost to abortion during the time of their statistics."
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Care Net–affiliated centers make up approximately 1,200 of the more than 2,750 pregnancy centers across the United States. With an average of 842 lives saved at each center over the last fifteen years, based on Care Net’s numbers, it is likely that pregnancy centers nationwide have saved more than 2.3 million lives over the same period.
Pregnancy centers provide no-cost resources to women and families, with client satisfaction rates as high as 99.6%. These life-affirming centers vastly outnumber abortion facilities across the country.
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Andrea Trudden, vice president of Communications and Marketing for Heartbeat International, said Care Net’s milestone is something to be celebrated.
“We celebrate every life that is saved and served through pregnancy help, and we are blessed to work alongside Care Net for the last several years,” Trudden said. “We are very glad to see our sister organization continue to champion life.”
The announcement comes amid a surge of political attacks smearing pregnancy centers. Yet, says Trudden, “as political as this topic [of abortion] has been recently, pregnancy centers are not political. We are there for our sisters and always will be.”
She stresses that pregnancy centers operate within their communities regardless of the legality of abortion.
“The one thing that we strive [for] within the pregnancy help movement is to really reinforce the fact that whether abortion is legal, whether you’re in a life state or an abortion state, no matter what your views, our goal is to be there for that woman who is waking up today and she feels scared and alone and that she might be pregnant and doesn’t know what to do,” said Trudden. “So, whether abortion is here or not, we are here to serve her.”
A study published in the journal Contraception found that pregnancy confirmation services are more accessible at pregnancy centers than abortion facilities, and with shorter wait times. DiCaro says such findings are unsurprising.
“Abortion clinics do transactional work that shows little regard for the people they serve,” DiCaro said. “But pregnancy centers do transformational work. They care deeply about the emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of the women and men they serve.
“This is reflected in the amazing, usually-free services they provide to hundreds of thousands of people every year,” he said. “Last year alone, Care Net–affiliated pregnancy centers provided more than $96 million in free services to their communities.”
The Charlotte Lozier Institute estimated the total value of resources and services provided by pregnancy centers nationwide to be nearly $270 million in 2019. That number grew to $350 million-plus in 2022.
When asked what’s in store for the future, DiCaro says Care Net is focusing on resources to facilitate deeper connections between churches and their local pregnancy centers.
“One of the most common pieces of feedback we get from our affiliates is that even though they have dozens of church partners, they struggle to get them involved in a deep way with their work,” he said. “Only by getting the Church involved can we make the world-changing impact we need in this post-Roe environment.”
Trudden agrees the work is far from over.
“We celebrate every life that has been saved and we are grateful that we will continue to do so for generations to come,” she said.
Trudden added, “Heartbeat International has been around for more than 50 years and to have moments and milestones like Care Net in achieving more than 1 million clients served, it’s fantastic to look at that and find new ways to reach more communities, more women with services, to provide that preventative service and intervention service and healing service so that no matter where a woman is in her pregnancy journey, we are there for her, to be with her and walk alongside her.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
