“Pregnancy help cannot be both a safe harbor and a source of punishment,” Jor-El Godsey, president - Heartbeat International

COLUMBUS – 11/11/2025 – As some abortion opponents renew a debate over whether women should face criminal penalties for seeking or undergoing abortions, Heartbeat International reaffirms its commitment to compassion, support, and hope for every woman facing an unexpected pregnancy.

Pregnancy help organizations cannot both openly advocate for criminalizing women and remain safe harbors for them.

Our mission is rooted in “personal, confidential, and nonjudgmental” care that meets women in moments of crisis and empowers them to choose life. The call to criminalize women for abortion, however well-intentioned, directly conflicts with the heart of pregnancy help. Such measures would undermine the trust that allows women to reach out for support and would erode the safe, compassionate spaces that define the movement.

For more than 50 years, pregnancy help organizations have offered what laws alone cannot provide: customized practical assistance, personal emotional support, and applied spiritual encouragement. Through life-revealing ultrasounds, positive parenting classes, material aid, housing, and connections to community resources, these organizations have reached millions of women, helping them restore broken relationships, overcome fear, and choose life for their children.

While political and legal debates continue, the work of pregnancy help organizations rise above legislation. It offers a path of mercy rather than punishment. The movement’s focus is not on condemning those wounded by abortion but on rescuing, healing, and walking alongside them with human compassion.

Abortion must end because it destroys one life and deeply wounds another. Yet the path to a world where abortion is both illegal and unthinkable will not be built through criminalization of the victims of a lucrative abortion industry, but through compassion, through the tireless work of those who extend hope in place of fear, support in place of shame, and life in place of death.

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About Heartbeat International

Founded in 1971, Heartbeat International is the largest network of life-affirming pregnancy help organizations in the world, with nearly 4,000 affiliated locations spanning more than 100 countries. Through training, resources, and support, Heartbeat International empowers pregnancy help organizations to reach and rescue more women, and to renew communities for life.