Providing Resources to Help Women through Pregnancy and Beyond
Julz Savard: Life is a four-letter word that is celebrated when planned. The time when ultrasounds are shared on Instagram, gender reveal parties are met with anticipation, friends hosting baby showers send out the invitation. Life, when planned, is a word that represents joy, a hope for the future. But this simple four-letter word, life, when unplanned, is considered a curse by too many.
And not just the left or feminists, Hollywood actresses, or those who call themselves pro-choice. Life, when unplanned, has been designated unwanted, even by those in the church. And those who oppose the right of the baby to be born, who want to deny the baby life, have labeled we who are pro-life: anti-choice, anti-woman.
Diane Ferraro: I’m a member of Generation X, and I am pro-woman. I’m for every woman. And I was conceived out of wedlock to a married woman who had four little boys. Protestors didn’t convince her to keep her baby. She was a good Catholic, working on her college degree. My birth mom’s husband was not my father. She did what she thought was best for her family and decided to abort the baby for the sake of her marriage, for her four little boys.
She drove to Mexico with a friend who was also in an unplanned pregnancy, and they went to an abortion clinic. My birth mom’s friend had the abortion, but my birth mom changed her mind on that drive along the coast. Instead of aborting me, she chose adoption for me. That was 1967, when abortion was not legal in California, and six years before abortion became a constitutional right.
Fast forward to the 1980s. I grew up as a teenager in Anaheim, just a few miles from Disneyland. I would drive to my part-time job, and I would pass a Planned Parenthood. It was just a few minutes down the street from the happiest place on Earth, where well-meaning Christians and Catholics stood in front of abortion clinics with bullhorns and graphic signs.
They were yelling at women, but I know they had good intentions. They followed Jesus and they meant well, but sadly, they inadvertently drove women into the abortion clinics for safety, for comfort, and for abortions.
Julz Savard: Fast forward into the early and mid 2000s is when the millennial generation started to see one message being so profoundly pushed onto us.
It was the message of “my body, my choice.” And with the rise of social media and so many celebrities coming out and saying that, nowadays, you can’t even say you’re pro-life without being labeled as a bigot or uncompassionate. From every touchpoint, all sides, no matter where you look, whether you’re reading the news, watching an interview, a movie, going to a concert, or following celebrities’ tweets and stories, this generation is being sold the message that abortion is normal. It’s right. It’s okay.
I am a 30-year-old woman, and I am a woman that is a mother as well. And I live in Los Angeles, one of the most liberal cities in the United States. Just going to the coffee shop, I see posters and banners all around me saying, “Legalize abortion now.”
I literally cannot talk about my job sometimes because people will look at me and not even want to hear me. And so, it saddens me because this is the generation that we now live in where I, as a mother who wants to be proudly pro-life, can’t even boldly or comfortably say that I am pro-life. But I understand women everywhere who are facing an unplanned pregnancy.
As a young woman who also became pregnant, I had all the comforts and support around me, I was married, I had a great job, and I had a very, very supportive system. It was scary seeing those two lines on the pregnancy test. I said, “Am I ready for this? Am I going to be okay?” So, I can imagine the woman who is not expecting this at all, and looks at that same pregnancy test and goes, “Am I going to be okay?”
It’s astounding statistically how many abortions have taken place with women who conform to a certain religious viewpoint. And you can see it here from Catholics to Protestants, even those who don’t affiliate with the religious viewpoint, sadly, are getting abortions every day. What’s even more astounding is how our generation, the Millennial generation and the younger Gen Z generation view abortion, only about 3 in 10 of Gen Z believe that abortion is morally wrong.
Students for Life of America released a recent report that said out of 784 colleges and universities in the U.S. that are affiliated with the Christian Church, 103 of those colleges have some type of relationship with Planned Parenthood. And again, the statistics say it all.
Diane Ferraro: There’s something that should give us hope, though. There are pastors across the United States who want to speak up for women. They want to provide meaningful services for women in unplanned pregnancies. Pastor Marcus Mecham, the pastor of an amazing church called Seven Hills in Florence, Kentucky, right outside of Cincinnati, said this, “In a world that’s so easy to be known for what you’re against, Save the Storks has given us a better way. We can be known for what we’re for, not for what we’re against. We can proclaim the solution and offer real support to abortion-vulnerable women who need to know they’re not alone.”
Pastor Marcus Mecham and pastors around the country are now operating stork buses. In fact, we have 89 stork buses in 30 states run by churches and pregnancy resource centers.
And what is so amazing is that over 30,000 women have been served on these mobile medical units, what we call vessels of divine deliverance, and over 11,000 babies have been saved. Save the Storks is partnering with churches and pregnancy centers around the country. We’re equipping the movement with curriculum, speaking at universities, churches, and faith-based events.
You might have seen us featured in the pro-life documentary, The Meaning of Life, and we have a brand-new start course. It’s available for free. It’s an incredible series of videos. It takes only two and a half hours to watch. We’ve been delivering Stork buses to churches around the United States. In fact, Old Bridge Calvary Chapel has a wonderful women’s program there and they are getting their second Stork Bus in February of 2023.
I mentioned Seven Hills Free Chapel in Georgia now has a Stork Bus. And I wanted to encourage you all, if you are part of a church, you have the opportunity to bring in volunteers who want to serve and be part of these women’s lives. And also, look into conferences we have just for pastors.
Julz Savard: We know that more importantly, it’s so important that we talk about what we’re doing to a much wider audience.
And now that generations are receiving all of their information online, it’s important that we have our awareness outreach program as well. Just our social media alone has seen over 36 million impressions, and that’s from content that we’re creating every day on platforms like Instagram and TikTok and Facebook.
People are seeing and reading these stories firsthand on their phones or on their laptops. Stories of hope, stories of life, stories of empowerment, and even seeing people shift their views from being pro-choice to pro-life and calling out the pro-abortion agenda as we do every day.
Diane Ferraro: Sadly, our generations have not done well by women. Gen X and baby boomers really drove women into abortion clinics. Well-meaning Christians thought that they had the answer. We didn’t serve women well. We didn’t slow the demand for abortion. We were out of touch, and we were losing the daily fight for life as Planned Parenthood gained territory week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade.
Julz Savard: Millennials and Gen Z, we understand the need to address social justice issues, to tweet about international tragedies, yet not stepping up to stand for life, not stepping up to come alongside women in unplanned pregnancies, and instead buying into the lies that women have the right to take the life of the baby, just because the baby is unplanned or unwanted. We know that you stand with us to declare that pro-life can’t be just pro-baby. Pro-life must be for every woman.
Diane Ferraro: Save the Storks is honored to announce For Every Woman. For Every Woman is a collective pro-life enterprise. It’s a movement by Save the Storks, our ministry that’s been serving women for over 10 years.
The foreverywoman.org website is really part of an overall mission to educate and empower women who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy. It truly is a competitor of Planned Parenthood because women who are Googling at 2 in the morning when they think they’re pregnant will find For Every Woman. And it is really a collective enterprise that will serve women like never before.
Julz Savard: The problem that we’re seeing is that the first thing that an abortion-vulnerable woman does when she thinks she might be pregnant is to open up her phone, and go on Google, and maybe type in, “pregnancy symptoms,” or “I’m pregnant,” or “an abortion clinic near me.”
And sadly, abortion clinics will pop up in her search. The battlefield for the heart of a woman in an unplanned pregnancy starts online. One click makes all the difference between a choice for abortion or a choice for life. And when we look at Planned Parenthood, which spends millions of dollars on marketing to Gen Z and Millennials every year, we’re noticing that this is the problem.
In one year, Planned Parenthood had over 177 million website visits, with users booking 1.6 million appointments online. Roo, their chatbot, had over 700,000 conversations with women online, who are talking about their bodies, sex, relationships, and more. And as of now, Planned Parenthood ranks number one on Google when searching for pregnancy tests and ranks high for many other key terms such as, “abortion” or “I’m pregnant.”
What we’ve found, or what we’ve discovered, is if all the pro-life organizations in the U.S. put their marketing budgets together, it would only equal about 10 percent of the marketing budget in Planned Parenthood. Diane, you told me recently that Planned Parenthood will spend up to $300,000 on just one marketing campaign.
And what they’re doing is they’re making sure that every girl who opens her phone, whether that’s on Google or on Instagram, sees them first, and also sees that abortion is okay.
So, what’s critical at this point? What we need is a centralized online platform to incorporate network efforts, strategic marketing, and resources designed to meet this target audiences: a young woman, a collective pro-life enterprise designed to meet women at the moment they discover they’re facing an unplanned pregnancy. And by joining forces, we will reach women in the early stages of their decision-making and compete nationally and locally with Planned Parenthood.
Diane Ferraro: The For Every Woman platform is an online presence that will rival Planned Parenthood with a user-friendly, appealing database full of resources for abortion-minded women, including adoption, maternity housing, and even housing for single moms, insurance, education, job training, support groups, mentorship, the local church, which is essential, and we’re going to have so many other services for women really tapping these eight pillars of need when a woman is told by a Planned Parenthood that she can’t do this. She’s not brave enough. She’s not strong enough. She doesn’t have the financial means. We are going to address all of those concerns that Planned Parenthood’s planted with her and let her know she can do it and she can do it with our support.
We are creating awareness about a woman’s options before she is faced with an unplanned pregnancy. We’re committed to meeting her needs during her pregnancy, and we will continue to support her after the baby arrives, whether she chooses to parent or to place the child for adoption. In each stage, we’re going to connect her with the right resources to help her not just survive but thrive.
The For Every Woman mobile medical unit is going to partner with local schools, churches, maybe even prisons, rescue missions, and other organizations to bring hope, healing, and empowerment to women by bringing For Every Woman online to life, on board the For Every Woman mobile medical clinic with partners around the United States.
You’ll see here on the screen a demonstration of how we will walk you through, how we’ll walk through that woman who finds herself in an unplanned pregnancy. Now put yourself in the mind of that young woman who finds herself in an unplanned pregnancy.
She’s probably Googling, checking her iPad or her phone. It’s late at night. And she’s just looking for answers. She’s looking for truth. She’s looking for real choice. She’s going to find this site that pops up. It’s the For Every Woman platform. And she’s going to see that we’re on a mission to educate and empower women who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy.
Again, Julz mentioned it’s just one click away. She just puts her state or zip code in. Say she lives in the Washington, D. C. area. She’s attending university out here. She’s going to see Maryland as an option. She’s going to click that search button. She’s going to find help. She’s going to find real choice. She’s going to find assistance. She’s going to find medical clinics. She’s going to feel safe, supported, and cared for with over 7,500 options. And that is growing.
So, imagine that woman who has been told by Planned Parenthood, been told from friends that, “You’re not brave enough. You’re not strong enough. You can’t do this.” We’re telling her the opposite. We’re empowering her to make the decision and make that decision for life with 7,500 plus resources in the United States. So we’re going to bring this back locally. There’s an amazing women’s health clinic right outside Washington, D. C. called Centro Tepeyac, and they actually do have a mobile medical unit.
So, she’s going to see in just one click the options for her that include counseling, financial assistance, parenting classes, and the ultrasound, just to name a few. And if she felt that this one wasn’t convenient to get to, there are a plethora of other resources that she can scroll down and see when she’s on this For Every Woman website.
She quickly goes through requesting an appointment. She fills out her basic information, and then she will be introduced to someone with that center. What makes For Every Woman truly unique, something different from other amazing organizations that also have online resources, is we’re taking those online resources and bringing it to life.
We will have hundreds and thousands of partners in communities across America. Partners like Every Mother’s Advocate, Embrace Grace, our Stand for Life collective partners, Bridge of Hope that offers housing. And for that woman who is struggling after abortion, Support After Abortion is an organization that we will recommend she visit for post-abortion healing.
There’s adoption resources, counseling, Life of a Single Mom, Another Counseling Bus and women’s health care across the United States. This network of national and care community partners is really the boots on the ground that sadly has been missing from pro-life but that For Every Woman will present.
Julz Savard: So, what we want to do with For Every Woman is to be there. We just want to be there for her because every woman should know the full story and should have real options, real information, and real choice. Real choice starts here.
Diane Ferraro: Will you join us to serve women? Will you join us to make abortion unthinkable?
Let’s do this here in the United States and be a light to the world. Let’s show other countries that here in the United States, we truly value women. We value moms, we value dads, we value children, and we value families. Let’s get back to our roots as Americans, where we demonstrate our actions, our resources, and our financial gifts. That we support liberty and justice for all, and all includes women who find themselves in unplanned pregnancies and their pre-born babies.
We have God-sized plans to build more mobile medical units and have these women’s health clinics on wheels in all 50 states. Our original goal was to have 400 mobile medical units by 2031. However, the abortion industry is more aggressive now than ever before. In early 2023, we learned that CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid will be dispensing the abortion pill.
This means that women will now have access to over 20,000 abortion providers when you add up all those pharmacies. Every home in America, including your own family home, could have the abortion pill delivered in the mail, thereby making your bathroom an abortion clinic, where your beautiful teenage daughter could take the life of her baby, suffering in silence emotionally, spiritually.
Our new God-sized goal is to have 1,000 mobile medical units built and delivered. And while many of these will be Stork Buses, some of the units will be branded For Every Woman. And they’re going to take the resources from our website, ForEveryWoman.org, with experts and caseworkers from various local ministries in your communities to reach out to women so they get the help they need, the help they deserve when they’re facing an unplanned pregnancy.
Here’s where you come in. We need business owners who have parking lots in visible locations to step up and allow For Every Woman mobile clinics to park and serve women. We need support from churches and ministries and towns across America to volunteer as mentors, to step up and offer childcare for single moms, to help with career counseling, financial planning, tutors.
We need your help to ensure moms have transportation to go to school, job interviews, and work. We need you to support Stand for Life so that the collective group of pro-life organizations can do more locally and nationwide. We need referrals to life-affirming programs in your hometowns to build up the resources available to women and unplanned pregnancies to moms.
All we need you to do is visit ForEveryWoman.org for more information. Thank you. Together, let’s stand for life and stand for every woman.