Listen to Jor-El Godsey and Jacob Barr talk about the window of time to reach an abortion vulnerable client.
Summary
This is Jacob Barr, and I had an insightful conversation with Jor-El Godsey from Heartbeat International on the Pro-Life Team Podcast. We discussed the evolving landscape of abortion services, especially the shift towards medication abortions and the challenges it presents for pregnancy help centers.
Jor-El shared his extensive experience in the pregnancy help movement, highlighting how the approach to helping women considering abortion has changed over the years. With the introduction of RU-486 and the shift towards chemical abortions, the window for intervention has significantly narrowed, making it more challenging for pregnancy centers to reach women in time.
The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated this shift, as restrictions relaxed, allowing women to access abortion pills more easily and quickly, often without medical supervision. This change requires pregnancy help centers to adapt and find new ways to reach out to women considering abortion.
We discussed the importance of extending the availability of pregnancy center services beyond traditional business hours. This adaptation is crucial as women can now access abortion services almost 24/7. Jor-El emphasized the need for pregnancy centers to be more agile in their response, potentially using technology to connect with women outside of normal operating hours.
The conversation also touched on the risks associated with taking abortion pills later in pregnancy and the misinformation surrounding their use. We concluded with Jor-El leading a prayer, asking for guidance and strength for pregnancy help centers in adapting to these new challenges.
### Hashtags:
#HeartbeatInternational, #ProLifePodcast, #MedicationAbortion, #PregnancyHelpMovement, #AbortionPillReversal, #ProLifeAdvocacy, #DigitalOutreach, #TelecareOpportunities, #RU486, #COVID19Impact, #AbortionServices, #PregnancyCenterAdaptation, #WomenEmpowerment, #HealthRisks, #MisinformationAwareness, #FaithBasedSupport, #PrayerForGuidance
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Jacob Barr :
Welcome to the pro-life Team Podcast i’m Jacob Barr. And today I’m joined by Jor-El with Heartbeat International. And today we’re going to talk about the window of providing services to a woman who is choosing abortion, especially for women who are choosing the medication form of abortion. So Jarrell, I’m excited to have you on the podcast with me again. Would you introduce yourself to those who may not know you and who are listening on their commute and somehow on this podcast who don’t happen to know you because I think most people who are on here will know who you are.
Jor-El Godsey :
Well, I hope so i’ve been around a good long time, Jacob i’ve known you for a long time i appreciate that friendship that we’ve had and i got started in the in the pregnancy help movement actually in the very early nineties and have been involved i was a board member as a local volunteer in a local center in South Florida. And then i went full time in this work in 1996 became went on staff with that very same center and then moved to Colorado in 1999 where I became the executive Director of a center, was there for seven years and then came to Harped International where I get to work in the pregnancy help movement and across the pregnancy help movement both nationally and internationally and it’s been a privilege to do that for this many years now.
Jacob Barr :
Awesome so I think we’re going to be talking about today is the window of intervention. Tell me, tell me, what are your thoughts on this, or how do you want to begin this conversation about the window of intervention and the speed to service?
Jor-El Godsey :
Well, though what this idea of that there is a window of intervention is something that the pregnancy help movement has been operating in from the very beginning i mean, we go back, you know, the idea that a woman finds herself to be pregnant back in the day, you know, years ago, it was actually rather difficult to determine that she was pregnant and so she would have to go to the doctor it was, you know, it was a lab is actually a laboratory test that had to be done she had to wait, you know, for a few days at least for her response and so the idea of pregnancy help kind of grew up around that it’s like well, while you’re waiting let’s let’s talk about what your options are. And then that changed a little bit when the tests, you know, the personal tests that now you know are became available over the counter it was easy to do then it then it became cheap enough for pregnancy centers to start offering that pregnancy test so instead of them going to the doctor they could actually come in and take the tests right in there in the in the pregnancy centers office or with the professional, you know the not the professionals then at that time more of the counselors kind of a self administered test. And then as time we get, we get medical services coming in, we have nurses that are part of this and then they have more healthcare professionals that can actually administer the pregnancy test. But in time the pregnancy test itself becomes ubiquitous it’s something that you can actually pick up over the counter or even in a dollar store somewhere. And so the but the decision making around the test and around what was happening is she always had to take a step she always if she wanted an abortion she had to schedule the abortion. She had to make that you know call and schedule that with the abortionist go to that particular office or a doctor or whatever. And so there was this window of time that was at least days And of course in her in her pregnancy she’s she doesn’t. Depending upon when she finds out she doesn’t have to usually make an immediate decision. She has the had the luxury of days maybe even weeks where she could do that and without significant either financial penalty or problem physiologically of course you know the further along she is then the more expensive that can become as far as an abortion is concerned. So we normally dealing with days maybe even weeks well what we have in 2000 when we have the RU 46 that gets basically approved by the FDA that was driven by the Clinton White House at the time. We have chemical abortion entering in this you know developed in France now is on the shores of the US and as we’ve seen that grow and Jacob, our understanding of this just multiplied when we took on the abortion pill rescue network which we did about five years ago. And I suddenly saw the fact that not only was abortion pill growing, it was growing at a use, it was growing at an exponential rate. So we have, you know, going back a handful of years, there’s only about 11 % usage and then suddenly it was 37 % usage and then we realized just not too long ago, but as of 2020 the 54 % of all abortions were chemical abortions. And so now what’s happening is she doesn’t have to necessarily wait for an appointment to be on the table with a surgical abortion. You know, these are things that can be accessed much quicker. And so nevertheless though the FDA rule and regulation what they call REMS which involves risk and Emergency Management, they had a rule that was really required her to go see the doctor and be seen and sometimes that can be done telehealth. So she still had to present to a doctor to get that kind of satisfy the rules of the FDA. Well with COVID they the abortion industry relaxed, sought for the relaxation of the rules for REMS because of the proximity concerns, you know with the concerns at the time about the infectious nature of COVID and how proximity was a great concern and so the FDA relaxed the rules of that time allowing for greater quicker access to the chemical washing with less medical oversight. Then you have the Biden administration basically formalizing that in 2021 December of 2021 and from what we’ve seen is that is they basically have moved a lot of that instead of going to a physician, getting an appointment to then be prescribed a medical abortion or a chemical abortion, the abortion pill regimen, she can do that even now online she can do that with minimal effort really and have that either delivered to her door or made available, you know, through some other means. So in essence, what’s happened is the abortion industry has been lowering, intentionally lowering the friction in her decision making so that they can speed her up and as we know, the tactics of the abortion industry are to hurry her into that decision so that so that one, that they get paid and two that she’s able she makes that as soon as possible she makes that decision as quickly as possible. That’s rather efficient services that’s right that makes their cost less, makes their profit more. But the reality is it rushes a woman into a decision. And what? And if she’s being rushed into that decision so, for instance, she finds out she’s pregnant, sure thinks she’s pregnant she goes online, she can order the abortion and really have it within a matter almost of hours, like just a couple of days. And so from a pregnancy center perspective that that’s a that’s a window of intervention that has been shrinking and continues to shrink even as our own Biden White House is now in the abortion business referring those even through a doc Gov through abortion referring abortion clinics even through a doc Gov portal. So we know that ever since the FDA ruling in 2021 there have been more and more online efforts to sell chemical abortion this everything from Plan C and all that they’re doing and you know, there’s a whole host of them that are out there that are now basically making abortion, chemical abortion available to women as quickly as they can.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah and I think a lot of people, well some people are listening, may not know what Plan C is, which is the at home abortion essentially is the Medic Medical abortion and which is based off of the main Plan B which is like the morning after pill. And but yeah, just for clarity there. So what are your thoughts on what’s the response or what are your thoughts on how Tracy clinics and how we know what we should do as well Tracy Clinics offering services like how does that impact who we are and what we what we’re trying to do or how we’re trying to respond to this closing window or the efficiency level is increasing?
Jor-El Godsey :
Yeah, well, one is it is it makes her ability to access abortion nearly twenty four, seven right, nearly around the clock. Which means that she can, she can start her research and purchase her abortion in an in an incredibly short amount of time now that so that means that there’s less ability to market to her she, you know fewer are agonizing over the research and the decision over days they’re really being I think being manipulated by the other side essentially by the abortion industry to make a quick decision to hurry it up and so that in effect increases her likelihood of choosing abortion and decreases our ability to step into her decision making process with her, which means we need to be quicker to provide speed to service now our movement in pregnancy help has basically been built around largely around a volunteer model. Not that we’re all volunteers that’s not been true for a number of years but where we rely heavily on volunteers over the over the years and decades and that means those volunteers that have been available when are they available will in the US we have a phenomenal community that’s very charitable willing to give of their time. But they primarily do that because you know their kids are in school. And so that means that the regular business hours or school hours are the most likely hours for pregnancy centers to be open sure we have some maybe some evening hours maybe you know maybe we had some Saturday morning hours. But generally we were built to accommodate a volunteer workforce now I again I know how we got here, but what we what we begun to find is that is inconsistent with how people are searching for the abortion pill in particular that might have been a really good kind of parallel to the surgical abortion model. But when we’re watching what’s happening with chemical abortion, we’re seeing something entirely different. So I can tell you from the Abortion Pill Rescue Network, whereas when I look at the week, when I look at the call volume for the week, it starts out probably at you know Monday is certainly better than Sunday as far as call volume. But it grows from there and it gets stronger to where the most calls that we get are either on Thursday, Friday or Saturday for the abortion pill reversal which means that those are women that have just taken the abortion pill like they you know like they have completed the decision process and now they’re now they’re in the midst of taking that. But when I look at the hours open and we did a study in that we published in 2022 for hours open at a pregnancy center, we find that the weekly calendar actually is reverse of that of volume we see a good you know good hours. Almost 80 % of the centers are open on Monday, then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday about a little more than 80 % of the centers have some hours on those days. But then Friday is when it drops off substantially it drops to about 42 % of the of the centers have of hours open and then Saturday drops into about the 20 % range when you have when many actually many abortion clinics are open on Saturdays for those that are still receiving patients or looking to receive patients. So as we’re in this post real world we’re we need to re evaluate how do we reach her and how do we reach her beyond our hours open and so there’s a lot of ways to do that. One is that we are better at our marketing and I know that’s something close to your heart. Another thing is that we are able to connect and care for her quicker, which means that we’re able to answer her call or receive her chat, connect with her around the clock now the good news is option Line is helping do that that’s been something that we’ve had and there are other handful of other hotlines that are able to help with that as well, but I’m convinced that every pregnancy center needs to do more one is we need to look to be open a few more hours at the very least like find a way to make the building, the brick and mortar, more of a of a tool that it has been if it’s, if it’s been, if it’s continually closed on Fridays, then open up on Fridays, at least some hours. If it’s possible to open up on Saturdays, then open up on Saturdays and that may not mean opening the building and turning on the lights and get everybody it may mean that we are making a team of advocates available for interaction for ministry it may make it may mean making an opportunity for those that are able to engage maybe not through the brick and mortar but who now can interact with people through chat or through or phone calls. So that they’re creating that personal connection and they’re doing it much faster than when they are waiting to schedule someone for an appointment in the building. Yes, we want to get them to the ultrasound yes, we want to get them in the building yes, we want to connect with them in that face to face reality but tools like we’re using now where we can do video conferencing we can talk to each other we can see each other facial expressions not or just the old fashioned phone calls that we used to rely on early on in the movement when we were trying to create those connections earlier. These are things that we’re encouraging and I’ve already seen some movement in that direction.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah so I’m wondering for the people who are calling the APR network on Saturday, did they have an appointment on Saturday and they took their first pill on Saturday or is that a very likely scenario plus those who may have gotten the pill on Friday and they waited until Saturday, I guess it I would have. I would guess the abortion clinic is telling them to take the pill after they leave or before they leave and then to continue on with the regimen over a period of time. So that might mean that those were supposed Friday. Yeah, right.
Jor-El Godsey :
So that is true as of 2 and a half years ago two and a half years ago that’s exactly what happened that the doctor was required to see them in person that was a part of the FDA REMS. And so we saw this actually played out in the, in the movie Unplanned that was featuring Abby Johnson Story where you know she is the clinic director of a Planned Parenthood and you can see there’s a couple of instances back To me that was one of the most striking things that came out of that movie where the of which there were many, right there is some really difficult scenes but important ones to watch. But to me one of the most difficult one of ones was conveyed by a brown paper bag and one of the last scenes in the movie is a very young looking girl i swear she looks 15 or maybe she’s 16 and what she does is stands there at the counter and takes the first pill and then walks out with the second pill that the abortion pill protocol from that clinic. But the reality now, Jacob, is that these pills are being delivered to her without the clinic so yes, she may be instructed on how to take them, but she’s not having to go to the clinic to take them. She’s now taking them in the, you know, theoretically in the privacy of her own home we hope it’s her own desire to do that and not someone else is being forced upon her. But even then she’s doing that in maybe her dorm room or her home. And so the idea is that she takes the first pill and then she’s supposed to take the next pill within 24 hour in about 24 hours because the first pill is mithepristone. It’s designed to essentially starve the baby from the progesterone needed to continue. And then the second pill, the misoprostol, is designed to come in and expel the baby so that this is what they’re facing with this is some of the scenes that we saw and unplanned that Abby herself experienced. So our challenge so at Abortion Pill Rescue Network when we’re talking to her, she has already taken that first pill and she’s already in the midst of aborting that child. And so now the opportunity for us is to intervene on that. But I’m saying is that the window of intervening in her decision making needs to happen a more robustly than simply business hours Monday through Thursday. We need to get to get more agile in how we’re serving we need to be able to answer the phones, the phone, the phone referrals like so for instance option line is talking to more than a thousand people every single day, connecting them with pregnancy help centers all over the country. We if possible and we do have this with some centers. You know do they have a team that’s willing to talk to someone who’s it, who is at risk for abortion, who’s in that place where she needs to talk to someone now about she can’t wait for the appointment. Well, she may not wait, let me say this, not that she can’t, but she may not wait for the appointment. That might happen next Tuesday at 2:00 She needs to talk to someone now so that relationship can begin building, that the opportunity to intervene can begin happening. And again, option line is doing some of that. We’re helping where we can certainly overnights and weekends we’ve done. But my conviction is that every pregnancy help center needs to begin to be rethinking their service model so that they can begin to explore some new technologies to help them develop teams that can reach those that are in their community and even beyond their community more effectively apart from the actual hours that their physical brick and mortar center is open.
Jacob Barr :
I think a likely story would be that if a young woman is picking on when to start the abortion pill, if she’s in school, she’ll probably pick a Friday to start it because that way she doesn’t miss school and has the weekend to feel terrible and.
Jor-El Godsey :
So that that’s by the way that I agree Jacob, that’s the that’s what we’re seeing is that was when the those are the times when the abortionists were deciding on the appointments. And so that only makes sense that when she’s making that determination she would have the same rationale right She’s she knows her calendar she knows that classes aren’t happening on Saturday and Sunday. So if she starts it on late Thursday or on Friday then she’s going to hopefully she’s going to complete her abortion over the weekend now you and I know from the from the information that we’ve received is that sometimes that you know it can take a week or two weeks those things are very difficult and of course put her in some jeopardy as well. But yeah, she’s making the same decision as the basically the abortionist did when they were scheduling for her.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah so on a on a slightly different angle or topic, when a woman takes this late in pregnancy because there is no medical supervision and she’s further along in her pregnancy than what the abortion pill will well then what it’s you know what the paperwork says to take it. What are what are the consequences or the risks associated with a woman who takes it later than suggested slash recommended by the paperwork?
Jor-El Godsey :
Well, what we understand from our friend Doctor Delgado who’s done a lot of research along this line and was the founder of the Abortion Pill Reversal Network, what we understand is that the further along the baby is, the less effective the mifepristone is in particular. And so more than, but more than likely it’s if she’s trying to do something on her own ADIDIY abortion or she’s now introducing more pills you know that there are some instances we’ve heard of when you can order these pills from outside the country and they’re arriving, they’re not arriving as a single dosage, you know, box, they’re arriving as multiples so she if she begins to take things into her own hands and kind of create her own abortion experience by adding to that, she’s just going to create more opportunities for what we know is a is a result of Mythropus and which is hemorrhaging that she’s going to create more opportunities for difficulties to arise for her and can likely end up in the emergency room.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, that’s so going back to the Precy clinics, So Precy clinics essentially you need to consider sounds like the encouragement would be to look at having hours of operation with your phone service, your chat service essentially to extend those hours beyond the operation hours of the brick and mortar to essentially possibly match or surpass or at least maybe the goal might be to match the abortion clinics in the area or to match the data that’s represent that’s recognized here, which is to include Friday and some and Saturday as being just as important as the current days sounds like that’s really the encouragement it sounds like.
Jor-El Godsey :
It is and it’s ways i particularly think that this is an important way for us to kind of rethink what who’s available for the for this missional outreach right you know we have more and more people who are available at home who are quite comfortable with their remote work job out of their house and thinking like well I do that you know that 40 hours a week or more when I’m working and I have a quite comfortable setup that I and I’m quite comfortable with the technology I can work from my with the comfort of my home and take some of these calls i think we’re going to need to raise up a generation of remote missionaries into the mission field created by abortion who can, who can do this from their home, Who are willing to take time from their family, but not too much time that they have to go into the into an office they have to drive somewhere to be somewhere else, but that they’re able to do it right from the comfort of their own home and be a part of say a digital outreach team or a kind of that online help telecare opportunity that’s one of the things that we’ve been doing to help stretch our solutions so that we have the ability to do video conferencing and chat and of course texting as well like all of these things are ways that we’re going to need to be communicating more robustly. Now pregnancy centers have been doing many of those things for a long time, but we have to think differently in this day and age when she’s able to access really she’s able to kind of close the research on abortion faster. She’s able to affect the abortion much faster and more simply we have to get find ways to get into her path so that we can begin to talk to her quicker and which also kind of goes against the idea that we still have many pregnancy centers that are operating where you know she’s not really a client until she enters the building like that dynamic has to change in our mind we have to start thinking about her really more dynamically as she’s making she’s actively making that decision now whenever you talk to her like she so to get to get that connection of that warm voice, that caring compassion that we are so good at that I believe is anointed. But we shouldn’t let our kind of task structure hold us back from really stepping into what I think is going to be a new era for outreach in our pregnancy help world.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, I agree completely and so would. So, Drell, would you, would you help us just lift these ideas to God by maybe closing us in a prayer that will allow us just to sort of, yeah, focus our desire and need and call out to God for help in this space?
Jor-El Godsey :
I would love that opportunity Jacob thank you very much well Father, I know that you have called us into a new place that you have designed and desired that now is the time for Roe to go and Lord that puts us in a new footing it puts us on new ground and Lord, just like 50 plus years ago you raised up the pregnancy health movement for the culture and for the need then, Lord, I pray that you adapt us for what lies ahead, Lord, that you make us digital missionaries as well as being willing physically to step into someone’s life and help them walk through that. May we have the opportunity to do both, Lord, but give us the opportunity to reach her in the moment that she’s making those decisions, Lord and before she closes the loop and pursues the abortion in such a way that we only have limits after that, we thank you that you empower us, Lord, with understanding, with opportunity, with innovation, that you equip us for the ability to reach her in her time of making that decision. Lord, you had been doing that through the pregnant cell movement for decades now, Lord, help us in this new era to do it in a new way. But with your complete anointing and with your spirit power, we thank you for this and your name we pray amen.
Sign up for email notifications when new episodes are published.
Our sponsor for this episode include Heritage House, Patriot Insurance, and iRapture.com.