Touring local pregnancy help centers (PHC) can be inspiring to supporters. The majority of PHCs hold annual banquets where they share their story and client stories with the community.
Heartbeats of Newark, Ohio, has been featuring an event that goes well beyond a simple facility tour, revealing the seldom understood effectiveness of PHCs.
“The Experience Tour” provides a center tour while also bringing to life the powerful story of pregnancy help and how the center serves women.
The staff simulates a client intake, pregnancy test, and ultrasound follow-up consultation with an abortion-vulnerable client through a mock demonstration which begins the moment the “client” walks through the front door.
These tours began early in 2022 and are promoted to the center’s donors and supporters within the local community as an opportunity to observe a mock appointment with an abortion-minded client.
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Ohio State Rep. Kevin Miller had commented on his experience of the tour, “This was incredibly powerful for me.”
“The resources, support and love were evident at Heartbeats,” Lori Benseler, marketing consultant from The River, a Central Ohio radio station, said of the tour. “What a valuable asset to our community and any individual facing an unexpected pregnancy or trauma of abortion.”
Pregnancy Help News was on site for a recent tour. This may have been a mock client consult; however, the client’s angst and reactions were right in line with my personal experience over 21 years at a PHC.
This insider view was an excellent demonstration of the power of pregnancy help.
PHC staff and volunteers understand it is both inappropriate and futile to attempt to make a pregnancy decision for their clients. If a woman decides to parent, they want her to parent intentionally and to know all the resources available to her.
If a client chooses to seek an abortion, PHC’s demonstrate in word and deed that they will still be available to her with love and support should she experience post-abortive issues.
If the staff does not lovingly and professionally present the options, clients will shut down and she will not continue to be so open and honest about what she thinks and what she plans to do. If the client shuts down, your opportunity to intervene and bring a positive, life-affirming solution to the situation is gone.
The Experience Tour at Heartbeats exhibited this crucial approach of putting the women and families they serve first.
The client in the recent Experience Tour, “Crystal,” exhibited stress through the tone of her voice and body language. She was welcomed by a center nurse, Angela.
Once situated in the consult room Crystal made statements to Angela about her frame of mind and plans, presenting her situation as a challenge for center staff. Like many women facing unplanned pregnancy, the scenario presented was one of a distraught young woman who thought she had no choice but abortion.
Angela reassured Crystal that all of the center services were free and provided continued reassurances of confidentiality and also that there would be no pressure, only information, doing so in a calm tone and professional demeanor.
Angela emphasized to Crystal that now, she was not alone in this situation.
This was the first among many powerful moments in The Experience Tour.
Just hearing from another person, “I see your situation, we are here to help no matter what you decide, so you do not have to continue to face this alone,” proves to be empowering for clients and is indeed the fundamental key to pregnancy help.
As Angela ran the pregnancy test, Client Consultant Kimberly came in to go over information with Crystal, highlighting the importance of Crystal understanding all her options.
Kimberly reassured Crystal of their commitment to offer help with no judgment and to clarify all options including abortion procedures, in keeping with the focus of her role.
Angela returned with positive test results. Crystal began to weep, whispering, “It suddenly got real.”
The information Crystal had given on her online intake form regarding her last period indicated that she was seven weeks pregnant.
“I can still have an abortion?” Crystal asked.
“Yes,” Angela replied. “We can provide an ultrasound for free to actually confirm how far along you are in the pregnancy.”
The tour continued with the understanding that the ultrasound had been performed, the first break in the drama of this mock appointment.
As The Experience Tour progressed, Crystal learned information about fetal development, which clearly had an effect as she realized her baby actually has a heartbeat. However, the thought of telling her parents loomed large.
Kimberly reassured her there was ample time to make her decision and focused on sharing what other clients had experienced with telling their parents. The consultant offered to text three short videos which specifically address this to Crystal’s phone.
These videos are just a couple minutes long and clarify that parents need time to adjust to the idea that their daughter is pregnant - and that many young women are surprised at how supportive their parents can be after the initial shock wears off.
The nurse offered free prenatal vitamins to Crystal noting that her body is currently going through a lot, and that these will help her. Additional information about their ‘earn while you learn’ program and a short tour of their baby boutique followed.
The reassurance that Heartbeats would be there every step of the way and Crystal could return as often as she liked demonstrated how in 2021 this PHC managed to see 423 women choose life through the compassionate service to its clients.
After The Experience Tour concluded, visitors were invited to the conference room to discuss the experience and ask questions. This revealed the powerful effects on the individuals who’d taken the tour.
One woman shared that this reminded her about the role she played in her roommate’s life back when she was in college. She was sad that she had not known about PHC’s then and that when her roommate needed a ride to an abortion clinic, she had taken her.
“I was quite overwhelmed by the reality of the appointment walk-through and touched by the gentle way she was guided and supported through the process without judgment,” she stated.
Another woman was especially impacted thinking about the generational effects of the secrecy and silence. More than 20 years ago her own daughter had kept an abortion secret.
“I knew something was wrong,” she shared, noting decades of collateral damage in her family. She had fasted and prayed, seeking to have the unknown source of so much pain and hurt revealed.
“There was a total revealing,” she said. “I learned over dinner about it.”
This had her thinking about how many people are hurting just as her family has, with the effects reaching into the next generation as the secret pain remains.
In the debriefing Heartbeats staff spoke about their extensive post-abortion support to women and men, sharing that it has exponentially increased in recent years.
Tweet This: The Experience Tour at Heartbeats brings to life the powerful story of pregnancy help and how the center serves women.
The Experience Tour has been beneficial for Heartbeats staff as well. Heartbeats Bookkeeper Teresa King said the tour was eye opening for her.
“Being a part of the Experience Tour at Heartbeats has given me a new vision of the difficult decisions clients face and the compassionate care they receive at Heartbeats,” she said.
Moses Hamilton is a local pastor who has participated, and he noted that The Experience Tour was a great way to get a glimpse of the good work that Heartbeats does.
“We stand against abortion, but we know that there is an even bigger picture,” Hamilton told Pregnancy Help News.
“Heartbeats offers more than an alternative to abortion,” he said. “They offer the love of Christ with caring individuals that show compassion to people that desperately need it.”
Heartbeats’ Experience Tour is scheduled to continue into the rest of the year. For more information visit the center’s website HERE or email