A new award acknowledging Ohio schools that work to incorporate respect for human life into their curriculum has been named for a married couple who are longtime advocates of pregnancy help.
The Ohio Christian Education Network (OCEN) established the Hartshorn Dignity of Life Award to encourage its member schools to integrate pro-life values into their instruction.
OCEN is a program of Center for Christian Virtue (CCV), which is Ohio’s largest Christian policy organization, and has approximately 120 Christian and 60 Catholic schools as members.
“It was born out of a desire to encourage schools to become intentional about building a pro-life worldview into their instruction,” said Troy McIntosh, executive director of OCEN, “and then to recognize those schools who are doing a really good job at it.”
The new award is named for Mike and Peggy Hartshorn who have a more than 50-year legacy in pro-life and pregnancy help ministry, stemming from an early call to do something about abortion.
When Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973 the Hartshorns responded by becoming active in pro-life work. In 1975 they began housing pregnant girls in their home, and later they founded the first pregnancy help center and 24-hour hotline in Columbus, Ohio, in 1981. The pregnancy help center would later be named Pregnancy Decision Health Centers (PDHC).
In 1986 they became involved in Heartbeat International where Peggy Hartshorn was president for 23 years.
Heartbeat is the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the U.S. and globally, and manages Pregnancy Help News.
Mike Hartshorn remains on the board of PDHC. He is a private practice attorney since 1972 having aided nearly 100 women with adoption plans in the 1970s-90s. He was also a member of Heartbeat International’s Foundational Board.
Peggy Hartshorn was recently recognized as one of the "50 Greatest Pro-Life Leaders of the Past 50 Years" in the Legacy of Life Book produced by the Florida Family Policy Council. In 2023 she received the People of Life Award by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Peggy Hartshorn's L.O.V.E. Approach has been changing hearts and saving lives for decades as a training manual for pregnancy help organizations and then later also became a written resource on relationship-building for individuals, couples, families, small groups, ministries and churches. It has been expanded into the Heartbeat International ultrasound training making the effective pro-life tool of ultrasound more impactful.
[Click here to subscribe to Pregnancy Help News!]
After her nearly quarter-century serving as president for Heartbeat International Peggy Hartshorn became Board Chair of Heartbeat in 2016. She also serves on the Board of Center for Christian Virtue (CCV).
"Mike and I grew up together in the same faith-based school from grades 1-12. At our school, every child was a wanted child, and when a classmate's mother was pregnant, it was a cause of celebration!” Peggy Hartshorn told Pregnancy Help News.
“Our coursework reinforced pro-life, pro-family values and had a great influence on us,” she said. “Decades have passed, and, unfortunately, our schools must be more intentional than ever to counteract the pervasive 'culture of death.'”
The OCEN organization seeks to ensure every Ohio student has access to biblically based education, and that faith-based schools are free to glorify God in everything. To that end, OCEN views the pro-life message from Scripture as an essential teaching.
The Hartshorn Dignity of Life award focuses on encouraging schools to impart this vision.
Tweet This: The Hartshorn Dignity of Life award focuses on encouraging schools to impart biblically based education infusing the pro-life message.
“Both Mike and Peggy Hartshorn have served in the pregnancy help movement for many decades and witnessed the very difficult outcomes arising from a culture that fails to promote the dignity of every human life,” said Jor-El Godsey, Peggy Hartshorn’s successor as president of Heartbeat International.
“We applaud the Hartshorns for inspiring education that affirms the value of each and every human individual,” Godsey said.
Accompanying information on the Hartshorn Dignity Award explains how the 2023 passage of Issue 1 enshrining abortion into the state constitution prompted creation for the award:
The passage of Issue 1 in 2023 entrenched the right to an abortion in Ohio. We now live in a state where a child can be aborted for almost any reason, even up until birth. If we hope to overturn Issue 1 and return Ohio to a place where the pre-born are protected, Christian schools must make the dignity of life an explicit part of their worldview instruction. The Vital Signs report commissioned by Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) immediately after the election indicates why Christian schools must engage on this issue.
The CCV’s Vital Signs study revealed the deep need for schools to be more intentional about speaking to the issue of life and providing Biblical answers to students thinking about this issue and not leaving a vacuum which the world will fill in with abortion rhetoric.
The disturbing data from the study underscoring the need for this initiative to foster pro-life values in Ohio’s faith-based schools includes:
• 1 in 3 self-identified Evangelicals and Catholics who attend church weekly voted “FOR” Issue 1.
• 55% of Catholic and 31% of Evangelical school alumni voted “FOR” Issue 1.
• Pro-life voters are aging. Only voters 65+ voted “against” Issue 1. In contrast, the 18-25 age group overwhelmingly voted “FOR” the issue 77%-23%.
“One of the things we found out is that 55% of Catholic alumni voted for Issue 1 and about a third of Evangelical school alumni voted for Issue 1,” McIntosh said. “I think it was always assumed students were catching a pro-life worldview and ethic.”
There are three levels at which the award will recognize schools adopting the Statement on the Dignity of Life and then acting: Bronze, Silver, and Gold, with corresponding levels of commitment and engagement in the areas of outreach, programs, activities, and curriculum.
“We want to encourage schools to move toward the ultimate level,” McIntosh said. “Hopefully five years down the road we have a very different landscape when it comes to how our schools are teaching a pro-life ethic.”
Applications for the award will open in the spring of 2025 online. Notification of application status will be made by May 15 with official recognition each fall at OCEN summit. Each of the OCEN Network’s 180 schools are eligible for recognition.
“The activities that will help schools earn an award are practical, do-able, and impactful!” Peggy Hartshorn said. “We know they will help create the next pro-life generation, and we are honored to be associated with such a powerful initiative."
More information is available by contacting OCEN at OCEN.org.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
