A new initiative by pro-life groups promises to support pregnant women in emergency situations by providing accurate information and help from medical professionals.
“The fact is there are many medical professionals on standby, right now, who are willing to assist mothers facing troubling information,” the initiative’s webpage, PregnancyEmergency.com, reads. “You are not alone.”
PregnancyEmergency.com, launched by Students for Life of America (SFLA) through their Standing with You initiative and with Heartbeat International and Infinite Worth, exists to cut through the fear of pregnancy emergencies — from miscarriage to ectopic pregnancy — by accompanying women with guidance and professional help.
“The great thing about this webpage is that it is part of the larger Standing With You initiative, an online directory which houses more than 4,000 resources connecting women to additional support including maternity homes, government programs, adoption, food pantries, information about safe haven laws, etc.,” Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life, told Our Sunday Visitor. “This way, if a woman’s pregnancy is medically able to continue and she chooses life, there are helping hands extended to her through pregnancy and beyond childbirth.”
PregnancyEmergency.com offers support for pregnant women in three main ways: By providing information about emergency situations (miscarriage, prenatal diagnosis, ectopic pregnancy, and molar pregnancy), by listing a number that women can call or text 24/7 to reach professional counselors who can connect them with medical help, and by offering a 24/7 chat line with a nurse.
To ‘help lives be changed and saved’
The initiative began after Hawkins noticed abortion supporters creating a narrative about the supposed need for legal abortion to save women’s lives after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973.
Instead, PregnancyEmergency.com pledges to “help women get better answers than ‘get an abortion,'” Hawkins said in a press release.
“This does not replace 911 in a crisis,” she added, “but for mothers told that they can’t be treated for ectopic pregnancy, for example, it’s a great place to get medical facts, not pro-abortion spin.”
The information on the webpage regarding miscarriage, prenatal diagnosis, ectopic pregnancy, and molar pregnancy was compiled using medical sources, Hawkins told Our Sunday Visitor, and the healthcare professionals women are directed to are trained.
In the press release announcing the initiative, Hawkins, who leads the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization, with more than 1,400 groups on middle, high school, college, university, medical and law school campuses, stressed that their goal is to help women.
“[W]e know women are worried that they’re at risk in a Post-Roe America,” Hawkins said, adding that PregnancyEmergency.com gives women answers and direction.
The other two pro-life groups involved also applauded the initiative.
“Women deserve answers in their pregnancy decision-making, not directives,” Jor-El Godsey, the president of Heartbeat International, a network supporting thousands of pregnancy centers, said in the press release. “Hearing a friendly voice who can help them understand the terms and the potential helps make a truly informed decision.”
Rachel Owen, the CEO of Infinite Worth, which fosters relationships through text and phone calls between nurses and women considering abortion, highlighted the nurse chat widget that her group is responsible for.
It “will help lives be changed and saved,” she said, before adding, “We are excited to see the life-long relationships that will come from this partnership as we serve women and connect them with pregnancy centers in their moment of need.”
The Catholic Church’s position on abortion and emergency pregnancies
Abortion is never permitted, according to the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
In the directives, the U.S. bishops define abortion as the “directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus.”
In other words, the Catholic Church prohibits any action made with the direct intent of ending an unborn baby’s life either before or after he or she can survive outside the womb.
“Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo,” the bishops continue.
At the same time, the bishops stress that a Catholic woman can seek life-saving care even if that care means that her unborn baby will die indirectly as a result.
“Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child,” they write.
With this in mind, the bishops add that, in the case of ectopic or extrauterine pregnancy, which is life-threatening for the woman, “no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.” Instead, she must seek a life-affirming solution.
