Would You Change Your Mind if You Learned a Talking Point is False?

This week our Director of the AZWOA Life in Action Team, Debi Vandenboom pulls back the curtain on what really goes on in Pregnancy Care Homes (which Katie Hobbs stripped funding from) and the sadly unhinged battle over the issue of abortion. Through all the screaming and fear, there really IS hope for understanding, compassion and healing on all sides--IF we courageously seek the truth. And if we speak it to others through love and respect. ~ Kim 

“You are just pro-birth. You don’t care about babies after they’re born.” This is a favorite pro-abortion talking point. I’ve heard it many times. I’ve had it directed at me. There are many unscientific and irrational sayings, like “It’s just a blob of tissue” or the myth about coat-hanger deaths pre-Roe, but today I want to tackle the first one, in part.

Thirteen years ago, I was a homeschooling mom with four young daughters. I had been actively pro-life for many years from an educational and legislative angle. Then the Holy Spirit asked me to do more. I had no idea what I was doing, but I wanted to directly help women, especially those who were pregnant and needing help, or were haunted by a prior abortion. I wanted them to find hope in a loving church, like mine. So, I just started offering help and talking with women. I found a few friends to join me. We got trained at Choices (then Crisis Pregnancy Center) and just started offering help. I did my best to serve every woman and teenage girl who God placed in my path. 

With each new and complex situation, I learned more. I learned about where to find free resources, what was required to get a GED, who did free ultrasounds and much more. But I learned very early on that the most difficult resource to find was housing. 

Pregnant women need homes for a variety of reasons. One of the first girls who came for help told me her mother had moved to Europe with a brand-new boyfriend and left her, pregnant and 17, to fend for herself. Shortly after that, I met an entire family, including a pregnant nineteen-year-old, living in their minivan because the dad had died, and they couldn’t keep up with the rent. I’ve also gotten late night calls from multiple young women that go something like, “I’m in the park. My boyfriend kicked me out, and I have nowhere to go.” I’ve met women who lived in vehicles outside drug houses, and were fleeing abuse, gangs, or human trafficking. And, although rarer, I’ve also met one or two whose parents kicked them out because they were pregnant and wouldn’t get an abortion. There are temporary shelters, but those are not a long-term solution for a vulnerable pregnant woman with more specific needs.

This is where Pregnancy Care Homes come in. They vary widely in size and specialty, but there are about 400 of them across the US. Most of them are run by Christian or Catholic organizations. Pregnancy Care Homes not only give women a home while they are pregnant, but also keep mom and baby for up to a year after birth. They also will typically help mom finish school and find a job. They provide transportation to church, school, work and prenatal appointments. They teach basic life skills and offer parenting courses. They help the moms get car seats and baby supplies and often host baby showers. Many will help women find counseling or addiction recovery, or have staff trained in trauma informed care. 

Clearly, the talking point that “pro-life people are only ‘pro-birth’ and don’t care for mom and baby afterwards” is SO FALSE that it would be laughable, if the lie wasn’t so tragic for vulnerable women and babies.

The goal is to help these mamas not just survive, but thrive so the mom and the baby can go on to live on their own and have a healthy, meaningful life.

There are close to a dozen such homes in Arizona, and they are always full. Most have waiting lists. Whenever a pregnant woman comes across my path who needs housing, or even thinks she might need it soon, I tell her to call all the Pregnancy Care Homes and put herself on every wait list. In Arizona we have some more specialized places like Where Hope Lives at the Phoenix Dream Center that rescues women from human trafficking but also operates in part as a care home. Women will sometimes either decide to finally leave their trafficker because they are pregnant, or they find out shortly after leaving them. Thrive AZ, which offers foster care services, including a home for young adults who’ve aged out, also operates in part as a Pregnancy Care Home if needed. However, most of the care homes in Arizona are exactly what they sound like. They are actual homes, in regular neighborhoods, caring for a handful of women at a time.

In the last couple of years, these care homes have faced increasing challenges. Economic hardships have caused increased homelessness, drug abuse and domestic violence, all creating a greater need for safe housing for pregnant women. Yet, as these care homes struggle to continue serving women, they and all pro-life organizations have faced threats of violence from pro-abortion activists since the overturning of Roe v Wade. Now they have to take costly security precautions, which diverts more funds away from women in need. 

Although Pregnancy Care Homes are almost exclusively funded by private donors, they have had access to some government funding, sometimes in the form of grants, due to the nature of the public service benefits they provide. However, most of that funding has been recently and abruptly removed by pro-abortion government officials who are hostile to anything pro-life or Christian. The Phoenix Dream Center has lost millions of dollars for not being willing to house men who claim to be women in the same room as vulnerable women. Maggie’s Place just lost several hundred thousand dollars that had been set aside by the state legislature to help homeless pregnant women. Maggie’s Place is about to open their fifth pregnancy home in the Valley and has 50+ women calling each week trying to get in to one of their homes. The White Mountains Dream Center (now Hope House Pregnancy Care Home) just lost several hundred thousand dollars that had been set aside over a year ago to help serve the heavily Native American community in Show Low. That area also lost another couple hundred thousand dollars that was going to provide free parenting and life skills classes to new parents provided by an outside resource.

So, here’s my question to those repeating the talking points: ‘Who really doesn’t care about babies after they’re born?’ In my humble opinion, for all the screaming about choice, it appears that elected officials like Katie Hobbs only want women to have one choice, abortion. Pregnancy Care Homes will continue their work whether the government helps or tries to hinder them.

Honest people who really care about vulnerable women and babies are needed more than ever. Please pray for all Pregnancy Care Homes and Resource Centers. Find and lend your support to any of the Pregnancy Resource Centers in AZ.

And, while you’re at it, maybe ask the governor why she stopped funding for the vulnerable, homeless, pregnant women who so desperately need help and housing.”

(Debi Vandenboom is Arizona Women of Action’s Director of the Life in Action Team. She is also a board member for Choices Pregnancy Centers, and serves Dream City Church as Dir. Of Dream Life pro-life ministries, and Dir. Of Civic Engagement.)