You can make a difference!

10 Things You Can Say and Do To Make Abortion Unwanted Today and Unthinkable for Future Generations

1. Pray daily for an end to abortion, for hope and healing of those involved in abortion, and pray to be used to save and change lives through your words and actions. Pray for Heartbeat network of life-affirming leaders and workers.


2. If you communicate with a woman or man who faces an unplanned pregnancy, use Heartbeat's LOVE Approach. Allow real Love, as described by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (Chapter 13), to be felt through you: patient, kind, bearing with, believing, hoping, and never failing.

L Listen and Learn about her feeling, thoughts, wants, values, and beliefs, her perceptions of her needs, pressures, strengths, and resources (She must believe you care for her, not just her baby!)

O Open her Options of abortion, parenting, and adoption, lovingly, with accurate facts.

V Introduce a new Vision and Value that she is made in His image and has been redeemed. She can be forgiven, healed, and can make positive choices for herself and her baby.

E Extend and Empower her to carry through, with concrete resources and support.

3. Memorize 800-395-HELP and OptionLine.org -- Heartbeat's 24/7 Option Line that connects those in crisis to life-saving help in their community. Have students memorize these, advertise, and distribute them widely.


4. Affirm every child as a welcome child. Congratulate every pregnant mother (and father) you know or even casually encounter. Give a flower, send a note, especially if it is an unexpected pregnancy. Never imply that more children will be a burden-- to the parents or the earth-- or that having two children "is just right."


5. Affirm motherhood and fatherhood as noble callings. Don't neglect to share your own joys in parenting or your love for your parents. Affirm men in their God-given roles as protectors and women as nurturers of their families. Constant complaints and poor role modeling lead many young people to think they never want children.


6. Make a point of telling all the young people in your life there is nothing they could ever do to make you stop loving them, just as God loves us despite our faults and sins. They never need fear to tell you anything.


7. Affirm birthmothers who choose adoption as good mothers and adoption as a life-giving choice for all involved. We are all adopted sons and daughters of the Lord. Adoption is not "second best." Never say, "How could she ever give her baby away?" Someone may hear you and choose abortion instead.


8. Affirm hope and healing after abortion. Never say, "How could anyone ever have an abortion?" No woman will ever approach you if and when she might be pregnant -- she could feel that you would never understand her desperate feelings. If she has had an abortion, this reinforces her secret shame, and could lead to another abortion. Rather, share frequently about the love and forgiveness of the Lord for all of us sinners.


9. Encourage sexual integrity among single people and within marriage. Inspire young people, don't frighten them, into reserving sexual intimacy for marriage. Be a source of open and accurate information on sexual questions. Share the satisfaction of married love and intimacy as a beacon of hope for those who are surrounded by coarse, dangerous, and degrading sexual messages.
10. Give of your time, talent, and treasure within the pro-life movement. If you don't know where to start, find your local pregnancy center at OptionLine.org or begin with Heartbeat International! You are needed!