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The Daily Signal
How This
Ultrasound Program Brought Life to 358,000 Babies
Leah Jessen
January 07, 2016
The pro-marriage, pro-life group Focus on the Family is celebrating the
12th anniversary of Option Ultrasound, a program that rejoices in the
birth of 358,000 babies who had been at risk for abortion.
“Here at Focus on the Family, what we wanted to do was help equip the
pregnancy medical clinics around the country to be able to provide that
ultrasound service to a woman who found herself with an unintended
pregnancy and weighing her options,” Kelly Rosati, the Christian
organization’s vice president of community outreach, told The Daily
Signal.
Option Ultrasound was designed to provide grants to cover the costs of
new ultrasound machines and sonogram equipment training for medical
personnel at pregnancy centers around the country.
“Ultrasound has been described as a window to the womb,” Rosati said.
“It gives the woman an opportunity to see for herself and to connect
with her child.”
Since its start in January 2004, Option Ultrasound has provided 695
grants across all 50 states and one international grant.
“We do these grants specifically in high-abortion communities,” Rosati
said, adding:
We have a set number that we are able to provide each year, and the way
that we prioritize the need includes making sure that clinics in
high-abortion communities are the priority for purposes of grants.
Along with the babies born instead of aborted comes an “equal number of
moms who have been spared the pain associated with an abortion
decision,” Rosati said, including dads and other family members
involved in the decision.
“Sadly, I think abortion has really had a corrosive impact on the
dignity and value that we all place on all human life,” she said. “I
think as it cheapens life, and as that corrosiveness has taken hold, I
think it causes a wedge.
“Seeing people through the eyes of God and the dignity and the value of
each person is kind of the foundation for how we want to teach one
another and love one another.”
Focus on the Family says it collects “rigorous data” and powerful
stories of women who chose to have their babies after having an
ultrasound. The majority of women who start out leaning toward an
abortion will carry a baby to term after receiving counseling and an
ultrasound, the group found.
“One of the things that we’ve done through the program is continually
investing in the medical clinics that we work with,” Robyn Chambers,
director of Option Ultrasound, told The Daily Signal.
Option Ultrasound provides medical services free of charge to women at
pregnancy centers around the country. The program helps make the
services more widely available.
“We’ve been able to go into these clinics and really identify their
greatest need,” Chambers said. “Maybe it’s a replacement machine or
additional nurses trained. … It’s not just one machine and we’re done.”
Option Ultrasound, funded entirely by donors, has channeled millions of
dollars’ worth of help to pregnancy centers. Rosati said:
We have more requests for grants than we are able to fulfill right now.
We are looking at ways that we can possibly expand and continue to meet
this need and partner with the local pregnancy centers to provide these
services to women.
The future is as bright as ever.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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