By Lyndi Zembrodt
It’s been a year since the Dobbs decision. What have we learned after half a century battling Roe v. Wade? That it was indeed just a battle. Pro-life forces won that day but the war rages on. State and local legal battles, the ease of obtaining abortion pills, and slander against pregnancy centers, churches and pro-life stalwarts by legacy and social media platforms are just a few of the battlefields.
So how has Care Net responded to the rising heat and shifting sands of new battlefields?
We’ve expanded our reach to women most vulnerable to abortion. Advertising to women facing unplanned pregnancy has become extremely competitive, and platforms such as Google and Yelp are known to throttle pregnancy resource center ads. To protect our advertising dollars, we hired a marketing company to keep our ads highly visible.
Care Net also engages potential clients through Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok. Our advantage over clinics who profit from abortion is that we provide our services at no cost, including pregnancy tests and consultation, sexual health services and ultrasound to confirm pregnancy and viability. These free medical services bring women in our door at the moment of crisis. Last year, 91% of women who had an ultrasound at Care Net chose life for their children!
A new secure application allows us to expand and improve follow-up with clients while protecting their privacy.
With women increasingly carrying pregnancies to term post-Dobbs, we expanded educational support from 22 programs to 32 and are adding new mentors to meet the growing need.
A grant allowed us to hire bilingual advocate/mentor Adriana Torres (photo, left) to extend our reach to Northern Kentucky’s growing Hispanic community. Clementine Ntembe, a dedicated volunteer and former pregnancy center director from the Congo, is helping us engage French-speaking West Africans.
These strategies to support life decisions are not without costs, but they are vital as we boldly stand beside the growing number of women carrying their pregnancies to term.
Many of you invest in Care Net with financial gifts so we can carry out this life-saving and life-changing work, and I am grateful to you. Together we celebrate babies’ lives saved and parents whose lives have been changed through Care Net. Please join us in the trenches and help us declare victory in the new battlefields. May God have the glory!