I had just picked up some coffee, hoping the jolt of java would help me power through the rest of my day.

As I approached the intersection, I saw her, holding a sign which read, “Pregnant. No job.”

I beeped my horn and signaled for her to come up to my car window. I knew handing her cash was not enough–she needed much more than a few dollars could bring. She needed hope, compassion, companionship–not to mention a car seat and baby clothes.

What she needed was downtown–at a pregnancy resource center.

I quickly gave her the name of the center. The stoplight turned and I had to join the parade of traffic passing through the intersection.

But my conscience would not allow me to abandon this woman, or the distressing situation in which she found herself. So I ultimately circled back, parked the car, and approached her again–this time with cell phone in hand, ready to give her the address of the pregnancy center.

I explained to her the resources and services which the center could provide. She seemed a bit incredulous, not realizing that there was an entire facility dedicated to serving the needs of pregnant women, free of charge.

Pregnancy resource centers provide a critical safety net for women who find themselves in difficult situations. The comprehensive counseling and mentorship which the centers provide can be crucial to a pregnant woman’s journey.

Internet ads, billboards, and flyers can all help to spread the word. But sometimes the best messenger is another person, who can carry the message of love through a personal interaction.

I am so grateful for my local pregnancy center, and the many centers which dot my state. They provide a safe haven for women and their babies during difficult times, and contribute greatly to the quality of life in our communities.

They are a beacon in the darkness, and their light of hope shines brightly during these stressful times.

I will forever remember the intensity of those eyes.

I would gaze into them as I was nursing, and they would pierce my soul. I never felt so connected with my baby girl as I did when I looked into her pale blue eyes.

Science tells us that a baby’s eyes start to develop a mere 19 days after conception. These windows to the soul carry with them so much possibility and promise.

Yet, nearly 900,000 times a year in the U.S. alone, that possibility and promise come to a terrifying end. The culprit is abortion, which forever steals from those eyes of the majesty of sunsets, the glory of flowers, the pristine wonder of new fallen snow.

So much of our humanity is expressed through our eyes. Who among us has not been deeply touched by the kindness expressed through the eyes of someone who truly cares for us?

As I was in church the other day, I saw a man lift up a baby and stare joyfully into her eyes. It was a moment of profound connection—sacred time.

Part of the tragedy of abortion is that the mother is robbed of the experience of gazing lovingly into her baby’s eyes. The bond between mother and child is severed in a most violent and heartless way. In fact, it is only in denying the humanity of the preborn child that abortion is able to flourish. It is through intellectual blindness that abortion proliferates.

As advocates for life, it is incumbent upon us to teach the world about the development of the unborn child. People need to know that by the 10^th week post-conception, a preborn baby can move her eyes into a squint. Our fellow travelers on this earth need to know just what is at stake with every abortion—the loss of an unrepeatable human life.

May we always see the miracle inherent in a preborn child and share that miracle with the world!

My body is not their property. So said Madi, a 21-year-old college senior who was 13 weeks pregnant.  Featured in a recent ABC News story, Madi flew to Mississippi’s lone abortion facility, with her mother’s blessing nonetheless, to get the abortion she could no longer get in Texas, stating, “I had to keep in mind that I was doing this for me.”

At 13 weeks, Madi was in her second trimester, and her child was about 3 inches long, the size of a peach. His heart was beating, his gender distinguishable, and his vocal cords newly formed. He could respond to light touch, turning his mouth toward it, an indication of the rooting reflex used when nursing. Madi’s baby could even hiccup. His little body was physically joined to but genetically separate from his mother. His body was not her property.

But no one seems to tell Madi this fact. Rather the entire ABC News segment focuses on aborting her child as THE only choice, leaving out information on any other option.

Missing is any evidenceof an ultrasound, perhaps because seeing her baby would have changed Madi’s mindas it does to the majority of women considering abortion.

Missing is the hundredsof easily accessible pregnancy resource centers equipped to help Madi materiallyand emotionally through her pregnancy and long after.

Missing is the father ofthe baby, with whom she said she had been in a committed relationship.  Co-creator of this new life, he is denied anyrole as to whether his child lives or dies.

Missing is any mention whatsoeverof the other A-word: adoption, and the fact that for every baby placed foradoption there are 36 couples waiting to grow their family.

Missing are specifics ofhow the “procedure” is done, whether the baby feels pain, and where his littlebody ends up.

And missing is just oneperson to say “Yes, you can do this and I will help you.” Even Madi’s mother iswilling to exterminate her own grandchild so that her daughter can get back to her“typical college life.”

With abortion dominating headlines due to Supreme Court cases, we can expect more liberal media stories sympathetic to the abortion industry. Indeed, poor Madi is upheld as a new Norma McCorvey of sorts, the original Jane Roe, who was used by the abortion lobby and then tossed aside.  McCorvey actually never got an abortion though, and her daughter lives today. Madi’s child does not.

Among the many things Madi is never told in this thinly veiled propaganda piece is that she doesn’t have to choose between her child and her future.  That she should be empowered and supported to return to school and chase her dreams. That she can take responsibility for her child to whom she is already a mother.  That she engaged, by her own admission, in baby-making behavior that indeed made a baby.

Also unspoken are the long term consequences of abortion. While Madi gushes over the kindness of abortion staff, one must wonder where any of them will be when a more mature Madi, perhaps trying to conceive one day or watching her next child’s ultrasound, awakens to the reality of the precious life she sacrificed.  Where will the abortion advocates be when the anxiety, addiction, depression, relationship issues, and suicidal thoughts that plague many post-abortive women come to haunt Madi?

No one reminds her that pregnancy is temporary, but abortion forever. And forever is a long time to feel the ache of grief and guilt over a child needlessly killed.

Equipped with truth about the baby within her and supported by family and community, Madi might have taken another road. All she needed was someone to tell her the plain truth that yes, her body is not their property, and it never was…even when she was 13 weeks old in her own mother’s womb.

What to do about the vast number of poor, starving children?  That was the question that Jonathan Swift, best known for writing Gulliver’s Travels, answered in his 1729 essay A Modest Proposal.   In response to the poverty that crippled Ireland at the time, Swift offered what he believed to be a win-win proposition. Having been told that “a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled…” Swift recommended that children “at a year old be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune” for their consumption.

In this way, “the constant breeders will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.” The population of the lower class will be kept in check, the appetites of the rich satisfied, and the well-being of the ruling elite preserved.

Swift’s piece was, of course, satirical. Even his contemporaries recognized that.  He did not want to kill poor children and feed them to the rich. He did not espouse cannibalization.  His point in proposing such a ridiculous notion was to highlight the failure of politicians to address the very real problems of his day.

Yet, Swift’s sinister solution has taken root in our modern culture, albeit in a less conspicuous, but no less distasteful, form.  While thankfully we are not killing one-year-olds to feed the wealthiest in society, tragically we are killing unborn babies en masse and using their livers, hearts, brains, scalps, and more to “feed” scientific research. An entire industry has risen from this…one that starts with the abortion provider, moves to a tissue procurement company, and ends at university-level research labs.

It’s a lucrative business. Past invoices indicate intact fetal hearts from a child 18-24 weeks gestation sell for $595.  Half of a pre-natal liver for $350. A thymus for $500.  Lives of unwanted babies are ended and their much wanted body parts commodified. (Click HERE to see documentation.)

In an even more ghoulish turn, there are allegations that the hearts of babies may still be beating at the time of organ harvesting. Grant applications from the University of Pittsburgh to the National Institute of Health reference “ischemia,” the point at which organs lose their blood supply, and indicate that does not happen until “after the tissue collection procedure.” The implication is that babies are born alive and killed by dissection.  In this way, pristine tissue and in-tact organs, the coveted “gold standard”, are obtained for research.

Utilitarianism at its best.  Or at its worst.  Babies are being killed for the “sin of unwantedness” and their body parts collected and sold to the highest bidder.  And sometimes those babies might be alive when they are cut open.  We would not do this to puppies (rightfully so), but we will do it to the unwanted child. And then justify it because it is, after all, in the name of science.

What a Swiftian notion! Eliminate the undesirables, and in the process, utilize them for the betterment of the born.  What was once a work of fiction has materialized into a real-life horror story.

Shame on us if we let this continue. We must stop this cannibalization of the most innocent and vulnerable.  If we are to truly progress as a society, we must use ethically-obtained tissue for future medical research, not feed our babies to the scientific elites.

To sign our petition to the University Of Pittsburgh Board Of Trustees, click here.

Tiffany and Jay Gilbert are busy. Along with pastoring a fast-growing church in the Mount Washington area of Pittsburgh, PA, they are also growing two adorable young sons. Despite a full schedule of faith and family, the couple remains open to doing more to serve others. Most recently “that more” was to help stem the rate of abortion by providing life-affirming alternatives to women in a Pittsburgh neighborhood.

Although only having started to explore possibilities late last year, the East Liberty Women’s Care Center opened in record time this past April and has already offered a safe haven and welcoming arms to several women facing unplanned pregnancies.

The founding of this Pregnancy Resource Center comes at a critical time: Pittsburgh has the second highest abortion rate in Pennsylvania, second only to Philadelphia.  And we are learning more and more about the disturbing allegations against the University of Pittsburgh with regard to procurement of organs from aborted babies. For certain, the addition of another life-affirming resource center in Pittsburgh is welcome news.

The location of this Pregnancy Resource Center is also significant. It is one block from Allegheny Reproductive, where the greatest number of abortions are performed in the county. According to the PA Department of Health Abortion Statistics Report, in 2019 there were 6474 induced abortions performed in Allegheny County, comprising 20% of the annual abortions in the state.  Being in such close proximity to the abortion center provides an opportunity to reach vulnerable women with other options before making a permanent, life-ending decision.

Only after opening Women’s Care Center did Tiffany learn an ironic fact:  the very building in which they are located once housed Allegheny Reproductive. The space where babies’ lives were once sacrificed for profit is now the sanctuary where mothers and their babies are offered free and unconditional protection, where they are loved into life.

The center’s services go far beyond pregnancy tests and abortion alternatives. They offer resources to the entire family, including grandparents who may need assistance in raising their children’s children.  In addition to providing immediate material support of clothes, diapers, and the like, East Liberty has an Economic Self-Reliance program that empowers clients for the long term. This is a partnership with other community organizations to provide technology training that can lead to jobs with higher paying salaries. In this way, they hope to break the generational cycle of poverty that can grip families.

Among other services offered are post-abortion counseling, earn-while-you-learn classes for new and prospective parents, and a woman’s group that focuses one motional healing. And they are just getting started as they train more volunteers and look to increase open hours.

Tiffany is in awe at how everything has come together in such a short time. The Center was even blessed with the donation of an ultrasound machine. Until they can secure their own nurse sonographer, the Center is partnering with a mobile van unit that provides ultrasounds.

And that is key.

A recent study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that abortion-minded women who visit pregnancy centers are at least 30 percent more likely to change their minds and give birth to their babies. And we know from other studies that a majority of women who see their baby via ultrasound choose life.

Inside the center, the Gilberts, their team of volunteers, and their donors have created a calm and beautiful space for clients.  Soft blue walls frame a tastefully decorated and cozy sitting area with a nearby coffee station. A confidential counseling room is right down the hall. This is a place where women are welcomed, affirmed, helped, and healed, where relationships are built and life is chosen, a vast improvement over what used to happen: the exchange of money for a life. The building has undergone a rebirth.

Outside is a city streetlight, a rather quaint lamppost seemingly standing guard over this new beacon of hope. It serves as a fitting symbol of a place that is bringing light and life to the darkened corners of East Liberty, illuminating a new path forward for women, their children, and an entire community in a city that so desperately needs it.