Four outstanding pregnancy help leaders received the prestigious Peggy Hartshorn Servant Leader Awards during Heartbeat International’s 53rd Annual Conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, on April 24-26.
The Servant Leader award recognizes individuals in the pregnancy help movement “who have given of themselves sacrificially in the service of life, as both servants of others and leaders in their own right.”
Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International, said all four award recipients exhibit “what is a common spirit, a common thread, and a common reality” among all who serve in the pregnancy help movement.
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The 2024 honorees were Vikki Parker, Dr. Catherine Stark, Dr. Dermot Kearney, and Jim Sprague.
Vikki Parker
Parker, who founded Options Pregnancy Center in Cabot, Ark., two decades ago, is also a Certified Life Coach, speaker, and trainer affiliated with the John Maxwell Group and Breakthrough Life Coaching. She trains and certifies pregnancy center life coaches, equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need to provide compassionate support and guidance to those in need.
Godsey described Parker as “not only a champion for her local pregnancy center but also for others around her.”
“She has gone on to be “a champion at the statehouse on matters that affect us, that harm those we would serve, and harm us as we try to serve them,” he said. “She is deeply passionate about this work and this mission and how we accomplish it, and the lives we impact and save.”
Dr. Catherine Stark
Before calling Stark to the stage, Godsey described her as “someone representative of an entire group that we don’t get to see at conference enough: medical people.”
“This person has been a medical director for not one, not three, but six centers,” he said. “Not only that, but she has trained those that came to the practice to do the same.”
Stark managed her thriving obstetrics practice for 25 years and co-founded the Michigan Coalition for Pregnancy Wellness. She has been a treasured member of the Abortion Pill Rescue Network since 2018 and the Abortion Pill Rescue Advisory Team since 2021.
Dr. Dermot Kearney
Kearney received the third Servant Leader Award after delivering the lunchtime keynote address on Thursday. In presenting the award, Godsey said, “Christa Brown and the other nurses on the APR Network will tell you how difficult those ten months were” when Kearney was prohibited from prescribing progesterone anywhere in the United Kingdom.
“Our team had to listen to the desperation of the UK women calling and saying, ‘Isn’t there something you can do?’” Godsey said. “And the hardest part is that we knew that there was, except that the General Medical Council had clamped down on that and threatened Dr. Kearney,” charging him with professional misconduct for trying to rescue babies from chemical abortion with the proven progesterone protocol.”
Charges were dropped for lack of evidence mere days before his scheduled hearing, set for February 24, 2022.
“We rejoiced when that decision came down and we could give women that hope again,” Godsey said. “And that’s why we want to recognize Dr. Dermot Kearney as a Servant Leader.”
The crowd of over 1200 people greeted this announcement with a standing ovation.
Jim Sprague
Godsey presented the final award to Sprague just after his brief comments and prayer at Friday’s midday general session. Sprague, CEO of Pregnancy Resource Center, where he has served since 2001, said this year’s theme of United for Life “should be the theme for every conference from now until Jesus returns.”
Sprague then exhorted the gathered members of the pregnancy help movement to remember that unity was the desire of Christ, when he prayed that we would be one as he and the Father are one, “so that the world would know God visited this planet.”
A defining aspect of Sprague’s vision for his center is a commitment to serving not only the unchurched, but also women within church communities who may feel isolated or judged due to unplanned pregnancies. Sprague and his wife Jody are proud parents of Jacob, Madison, and Kevin, each of whom they adopted from birth mothers who faced the choice of abortion.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News.
