Pregnancy Center Conference Brings Pro-Life People Together to Help Women and Save Babies

The 53^rd annual Heartbeat International Conference, held in Salt Lake City, has just concluded, and – when counting those who participated in the conference virtually – was the largest one yet (about 1300 in person and some 700 virtually).

I’ve been at 30 of the 53, and can say that the determination of the participants to do the life-saving work that God has called them to do has never been more palpable and strong.

As Peggy Hartshorn, Board Chair and Past President of Heartbeat told me, this is likely because “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Participants – who represent the work of pregnancy centers who are counseling, training, and healing people every day — came with a deep awareness of the consequential challenges the pro-life movement faces this year. We need to elect pro-life candidates and stop pro-abortion ballot initiatives that force abortion-on-demand into state constitutions and take away from the people and their elected representatives the right they have to shape policy on abortion.

The theme of this year’s conference was “United for Life.” Many of the speakers reinforced that theme of unity, stressing how essential it is at all times, and especially now.

The unity we experienced at the Conference was international, and a favorite moment of many participants each year is the “Parade of Nations.” Prior to the first evening’s dinner, of a procession of dozens of people each carrying the flag of a different nation enters the banquet room, to the applause of all. Each of these nations has affiliates of Heartbeat International operating within its borders, and many of these center leaders travel from those nations to the Conference.

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We heard, for example, from the woman who runs the only pregnancy center in Bulgaria. Her faith and her determination to serve were an inspiration.

The Conference, of course, is marked by numerous workshops, covering a range of topics from fundraising to the best ultrasound equipment and from the latest medical updates to the most common legal challenges.

Not only are key leaders and experts there to present their knowledge and experience, but the grassroots servants of the movement are also there to share how they make their centers work from day to day, and to thrive, despite every imaginable obstacle.

One of the special moments at each Heartbeat Conference is the granting of the “Peggy Hartshorn Servant Leader” awards. In the light of the Christian gospel, of course, leadership is service, after the example of the one who “came not to be served, but to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Each year, this award is given to several people who have exemplified that spirit of servant leadership. Of course, in a movement that serves those who cannot repay us and in a room filled with those who go on the frontlines each day to save babies from abortion and replace the despair of their parents with new hope, such people are not hard to find.

This year, the servant leadership award was given to Dr. Dermot Kearney, MD, who has done heroic work, persevering through many obstacles and much opposition, to bring the abortion pill reversal protocol to the UK. Heartbeat International has become the home, the infrastructure, that supports the worldwide work of abortion pill reversal, which now counts over 5000 lives – whose process of chemical starvation had already begun – as being saved by a progesterone treatment that in most cases reverses the deadly effects of mifepristone.

Servant Leader awards were also given this year to Vikki Parker, Dr. Catherine Stark, and Jim Sprague.

Aside from the waterfall of learning and training to be gained from the individual workshops, participants in the conference were equipped for their work through the presence of dozens of exhibitors, whose organizations and ministries serve to empower and defend the work of the centers.

For instance, Life International was there, which provides a worldwide prayer network in support of the life-saving work of the movement. Likewise, SperaVita Institute had a booth. They serve and equip centers in 34 states and abroad. Participants could also visit the booth of Passion Life and Beautiful Feet International, which are both busy growing pregnancy centers all over the world.

There are many pro-life conferences, large and small, throughout the year, and hopefully, every reader is able to go to at least one of them. But Heartbeat International is in a category all its own. It is awe-inspiring in its display of compassion overcoming, with boundless creativity, a hateful culture of despair and death. Indeed, one could say that the Heartbeat Conference has once again shown in living color the meaning of the Scripture, “Love is stronger than death!” (Songs 8:6).

LifeNews.com Note:  Frank Pavone is the national director for Priests for Life.

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