Pregnancy care centers are in the business of encouragement. Their stock in trade is reaching out to women who are being encouraged (or forced) to abort their babies. Indeed, if ever there was a misuse of the word “encourage” it’s in connection with taking an easy way out!  W...

I celebrated my 60th birthday in a manner different than most. I walked and biked across a portion of northern Michigan, ending at Lighthouse PCC in Manistee, where I’m the director. I stopped at other pregnancy care centers along the way.  My goal was to raise money to pay down what rem...

Plans for the September 9 walk were proceeding smoothly, and then Shelly Burkhart, executive director at HerChoice (formerly Bowling Green Pregnancy Services) experienced a moment of panic. A coworker had learned through social media that a local pro-choice group planned show up at the center to pro...

If your center has been around a while and the board only has a few members, breaking it down into committees doesn’t make sense. But a healthy board that has been around 5 or more years with sufficient members could benefit by delegating responsibility to various committees.  How do com...

I met her first in the waiting room of our rural crisis pregnancy center. I overheard her boyfriend speak into her sad face: “I can’t believe you think you might have some disease. Who else have you been with?”  As I talked with this 16-yr-old in the counseling room, I tried ...

Many years ago I heard that pregnancy care centers were places where the pieces were compassionately put back together when people's lives fell apart. But there was another option -- one that just might hold a young person back before he or she tumbled off that precipice in the first place (Proverbs...