Listen to Shawn Zierke and Jacob Barr discuss the benefits of a national PHC coalition of state PHC coalitions.
Summary
This is Jacob Barr, and I recently had the opportunity to join the Pro-Life Team Podcast with Sean Zurki. We discussed the National Association of State Pregnancy Wellness Coalitions. This conversation was particularly enlightening and significant in the context of the post-Roe era and the evolving landscape of pregnancy centers and their state coalitions.
Sean Zurki, a seasoned professional in the pregnancy center world since 2005, shared his journey from converting a pregnancy counseling center to starting a medical clinic organization. Utilizing his MBA in social entrepreneurship, he’s been instrumental in forming state coalitions of pregnancy centers. The vision of creating a National Coalition of state pregnancy center coalitions, conceived with a fellow pro-life leader, eventually materialized, leading to the formation of the National Association for State Pregnancy Wellness Coalitions.
The association, registered in Florida, has a board comprising individuals like Jim Sprague (President) and Lisa Maloney (Vice President), among others, from various state pregnancy center coalitions. Its primary aim is to support state coalitions, especially in this crucial period following the Dobbs decision, where the legal and social dynamics around pregnancy centers have shifted significantly to the state level.
Key issues like combating misleading advertising accusations and supporting pregnancy centers in states with varied abortion laws were discussed. The association aims to provide a unified voice and messaging for pregnancy centers, emphasizing the necessity for strong and cohesive state coalitions. This involves public relations campaigns, legislative advocacy, and supporting weaker centers to maintain high standards.
Sean highlighted the multifaceted role of the association in empowering state coalitions, offering lobbying training, and providing nuanced policy interpretation. They aim to facilitate effective public policy and explore funding options at the state level, recognizing the importance of protecting local groups while advancing pregnancy wellness initiatives.
The podcast concluded with a focus on the unity and collaboration required among pregnancy centers at both the state and national levels. The overarching goal is to foster a strong, unified front to address the needs of women facing unplanned pregnancies and to effectively counter the narratives often presented by opposing groups like Planned Parenthood.
#Hashtags relevant to this podcast:
#ProLifeLeadership, #PregnancyCenterCoalitions, #StatePregnancyWellness, #PostRoeEra, #UnifiedProLifeMessaging, #LegislativeAdvocacy, #PregnancyCenterSupport, #NationalCoalitionFormation, #ProLifePublicPolicy, #StateLevelStrategy.
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Welcome to the pro. Life Team Podcast. I’m Sean Zurky, and I’m here with Jacob Barr. And we’re stronger Together. We’re going to talk about the National Association of State Pregnancy Wellness Coalitions and how we’re here to support and encourage existing State Pregnancy Center coalitions or the formation of new state pregnancy center coalitions. So Sean, I’m excited to have you on the pro-life Team podcast again. So let’s dive into the state Coalition yeah, the Coalition of Coalitions, Tell us. Yeah, tell us where you are and how you’ve gotten here with this new venture. So first of all my name is Shawn Zurki. I have been in the pregnancy center world since 2005 and having converted a pregnancy counseling center and starting a pregnancy help medical clinic organization from scratch and all the way until now where I have a Zurki Consulting Group. And one of the lanes that I run in is using my MBA in social entrepreneurship which is the business of nonprofits to help form state coalitions of pregnancy centers in a post row world. And so out of that, about a year and a half ago, my best friend and I who is also a leader in the pregnancy center world, we said, hey, wouldn’t it be awesome to have a National Coalition of state pregnancy center coalitions? And we’re just kind of dreaming. And then there are other groups that were also having those conversations. And honestly, since I am doing it every day helping states like Tennessee, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, the list goes on and on of states that I’m helping form their state coalitions, I just created it with a conversation amongst a couple of us pro-life leaders. The problem is we’re not state pregnancy center coalition leaders and honestly not appropriate for us to be in long term board leadership because you don’t qualify for membership of our coalition at a national level. But that’s OK. We just got it done. We created the blueprint and framework to bring people along, on board and alongside that were ready for this national organization. And so the National Association for State Pregnancy Wellness Coalitions was formed. Articles of incorporation filed in the state of Florida, which is where I live. And we had a founding board and as of today, we have a slate of functional officers. So the president of our National Coalition is Jim Sprague, and he is the President of the board for the Michigan Coalition of Pregnancy Centers. The Vice President is Lisa Maloney and she is the Board Chair President of the Connecticut Pregnancy Center Coalition, which coincidentally was formed in 2015 and formalized in 2017 as the 1st 5O1C6 Pregnancy Center Coalition in the Nation. The Secretary is Marsha Middleton and she is the leader of the Missouri Alliance for Life and which is their State Pregnancy Center coalition they are a five oh one C three organization and they do pass through funding for pregnancy centers. We also have for Treasurer John Murwarth, pending his acceptance of that appointment, he had to get off the call he got voted in. And John Mirwarth is on the founding board of the Pennsylvania Pregnancy Wellness Collaborative, which is their state coalition, also A5O1C6 coalition that I formed for them. Then we have 5 regions and we still have some at large positions of our board. Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and Northwest are still open board positions. But the Midwest director on the board is Savannah Martin, who is the director of the Ohio Coalition of Pregnancy Centers, leading 123 pregnancy centers in a very tight, cohesive, informal coalition. They have not formalized yet as far as the IRS is concerned and they have 5 regions in their state so and I was the president of the forming board, but now I am the executive director of the National Coalition. So that’s where we’re at right now we are our meeting today that we had coincidentally included Heartbeat and Care Net as they’re getting calls all the time from state pregnancy center directors in various states about either forming A coalition what do I do? Help give me advice, what are other states doing? And so they really want to see this happen. So would you like me to tell you what this National Coalition would love to be able to do? Yes yep that’s one of the questions I’d like to have covered so, yeah, go ahead and keep going this is really good. Yeah so what are the. Yeah what are the highlights of what yeah what are the current goal lines or directions you would like to go with this? Can you say that to the name one more time? It was national the National Association of State Pregnancy Wellness Coalitions of State Wellness. Naspwc OK and it is the website is www.nasppwc.org and the email address that you could reach me at is admin at NASP wc.org OK, perfect. So we are really interested in encouraging state coalitions to form in this post war row era excuse me after the Dobbs decision and the fight has gone to the state and honestly, this isn’t new to states. This is just new to some states, because the deceptive advertising practices accusation was codified in Connecticut a while ago, and so they’re up against that. You already know what is supposed to go into effect in Colorado on October 1st, which is that APR cannot be conducted by, well, that it’s just you can’t do APR abortion pill reversal with the exception of one clinic, Bella, and in there in Denver. So bottom line is, there’s a very coordinated effort across the nation to shut down help for mothers and babies who are in need. And there hasn’t been this huge coordinated effort, unit unified, coordinated effort to address the needs that women have facing unplanned pregnancy. Because whether your state has banned abortion or limited access to abortion or has unlimited access to abortion, the reasons that a woman would even seek an abortion don’t change. They are either in school and think they can’t finish they are in an abusive relationship, maybe be addicted to drugs they already have other children and can’t afford childcare. They lack housing, or there’s food insecurity. They don’t know where to get help. They have no mentorship there’s i mean the list goes on and on that’s why her plan is so amazing, because of how they develop their directory to cover all those areas of need. But a National Association of State Pregnancy Wellness Coalitions can really help with that unified message right now. Our Treasurer, John Murwarth, just said today, and he made this great point, that there’s definitely a public relations campaign for pregnancy centers, but it’s run by Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is out there telling the world what they want the world to think pregnancy centers are. Pregnancy centers do not have that type of coordinated messaging to really inform lawmakers and the general public and businesses of what pregnancy centers do across the nation. And that’s one of the very first things that needs to happen. Savannah Martin, who is over our entire Midwest of the National Coalition. She also leads the Ohio Coalition she made a really good point at the Care Net conference on a panel discussion about coalitions. And she said pregnancy centers are only as strong as their weakest center and the weakest center that is not following standards. That is, I’m not even going to name the things that we see happen. But it the problem is if CNN finds that weakest link and uses them as an example of what pregnancy centers are, and we can’t have that. States need to come around. All of the pregnancy centers, small, rural, limited funding. Maybe they’re dabbling in medical, the medical side of things, and they need guidance they need standards. This is where state pregnancy center coalitions can come alongside those leaders and shore them up with mentorship, relationship, confidants, standards they can share their best practices. Heartbeat and Carinet and Nephla are all there to help as well. But having your peer, another CEO or executive director at another center in your state, come alongside you is even more powerful and helpful and often less costly. To be frank, so the our purpose is multifaceted. We want empowerment and support. I mean, at the core, we aim to empower state pregnancy Wellness coalitions by providing lobbying, training, and support. We truly understand that effective public policy and legislation can make a significant difference in the lives of the women and the families and the babies that are served by these pregnancy centers in every state. So we want to offer public relations, media training, unified messaging, source that accurately represents pregnancy help organizations in all of our state coalitions. And it’s this cohesive approach that will enhance the and influence the reach of each of the state coalitions at their state level. So to talk a little bit more about policy advocacy and legislative support, we want to offer some nuanced policy interpretation when legislation is proposed in various states, we want to be able to have the state coalitions propose appropriate policy language to lawmakers in their state that they can find common ground with. And honestly, we want them to be able to explore funding options at the state level in states where they can make some headway with that. We really do recognize the importance of protecting local groups while advancing pregnancy Wellness initiatives so we want to provide expertise and recommendations on the 8 alternatives to abortion Funding, Temporary Assistance for Needy Family Families, Tana funding. And we really want to proactively address and defend the accusations of misleading advertising tactics and allegations related to fake clinics. So the way to do that is encourage state coalitions to form, give them that supportive framework at the national level, and B that resource for each of the state coalitions wow so it sounds like one was one of them lot a lobbyist that might be at the federal level or maybe supporting local state lobbyists. Does that was that one of those or yes, lobbying support, advocacy, legislative advocacy so yes, when I help form state coalitions, part of the package of hiring me to form your 5O1C6 that I do out of my Consulting Group is that I give lobbying training. Ok, yeah and also, I really like the fact that, you know, when it comes to the having state coalitions formed where we currently either have no state coalition estate or maybe there’s one that’s struggling perhaps or maybe not healthy or growing. Because it seems like the state coalition would be the best player to know the other, to know the clinics within their state. And to be able to provide really excellent advice on how to best spend grant money. As well as, you know, essentially connecting crazy clinics with these funding sources in a way that doesn’t compromise their ability to provide service and care and also to grow with additional funds it seems like there’s this opportunity here for understanding funds as well as knowing how to spend funds well versus maybe it being a political game. We have several coalition members including our new Secretary of the National Coalition, Marsha Middleton, as a five oh one C three pass through funding coalition for their state pregnancy centers. They are great when it comes to being a resource for other states that want to form as AC three and be able to manage that funding. A new one who was just granted that access was the West Virginia Pregnancy Center Coalition and so they just won the bid to be the pass through funding organization for their state pregnancy Centers for those newly appropriated funds. I’d like to tell you a little bit about the types of coalitions we’d love to encourage formation of and what difference is that there are that are currently out there? That sounds great yeah, let’s go over the different types OK. So the first is an alliance for combined action which includes lobbying or group buying power that fosters relationship building among its members as well. So not only is it legislative advocacy but also leader and organization building kind of goes to that whole statement or idiom that a rising tide lifts all ships so if you can really identify the leaders that are new in your state and pair them with mentors that are seasoned and experienced and really successful in donor development and leadership and expanding their services or really being able to match their services to the needs of their community so they aren’t getting caught up in mission drift. So those are the relationships that we’d love to see in and it’s either as a 5O1C6 or an informal coalition that has a lot of active members. The next would be a formal 5O1C3 coalition specifically for networking purposes within a state. Another would be an informal but active coalition consisting of at least five pregnancy help organizations, maternity homes and or adoption agencies that are in a particular state or region but are regularly meeting and are very active. So in that second one, the five oh one C three, ideally they are also a pass through funding organization in the state but they may or may not be we really don’t want to endorse a coalition that’s merely a directory only website that lists all the pregnancy centers in the state and organizations that are just funding distribution entities without active networking or their division of a state government or groups. Small gatherings of fewer than five organizations probably wouldn’t count as well. Ideally we would like to work towards entire states being unified into one coalition formalized in some way. That’s definitely so. Would a state have a purpose for both a pass through 5O1C3 slash networking alliance of group or group as well as the five O 1C6 or you know, is there a need for more than one entity type per state? Or is it ideal to have one entity per state so you can have a my parent child relationship with a firewall in between, but typically A5O1C6 doesn’t administer state. Granted funds A5O1C3 would, but you could have a child corporation that is a different entity type. Ok, so one entity could include both types by being, you know, there’s a parent umbrella and then a child organization underneath it. Would the C3 or is it, is it OK, Yeah. So would the C3 be the parent or with the C6 or it just depends on the state and the organization, where they’re at in their life cycle? Where are funds going to move how are funds going to move so I can’t really prescribe that right now. It’s very customized to some extent but that makes sense that there could be 1 entity per state and cover the different purposes that are sometimes limited to certain entity types because one entity could include additional entity of a different type in order for certain functions that makes that seems to make sense. So if your problem is legislative issues and attacks and so laws attacks lack of funding and you want to be in the legislature protected in A5O1C6 form A5O1C6 when you are successful in your state i’m not going to say if, but when you are successful you can transform your six to a three and become that pass through entity. You can never go back to being AC six however, once you become AC three, OK. And it has to do with the assets in perpetuity issue. So for those who are listening. Yeah so if so let’s say there’s a pregnancy clinic listening how? What question should she be considering as she’s thinking about the coalition of coalitions let’s say we have a director who’s listening and she’s thinking, you know, how might this affect my clinic? What question should I be asking or looking into to see, you know, how this will affect what you know what I’m doing in my county, so I have a list of questions let me bring them up. You’re so organized wow very good. I would already have it had it loaded. Are you really surprised? Come on, not really, no. I figured you would have had a PowerPoint ready to this game. You probably do have a PowerPoint ready to go. Almost so the first questions you want to ask yourself as a pregnancy center leader in your state about what type or whether you need to form a coalition is first are the pro-life organizations in your state representing the interests of pregnancy help organizations, maternity homes, and or adoption agencies? So about 70 % of the responses I get when I ask this question are no, I don’t feel it right to life or family values or other are really getting what pregnancy centers do. Or maybe sometimes they do, but then they’re saying things that have nothing to do with us and then they end up not really representing what pregnancy centers need. They’re certainly not delivering the message of what we do every day to counter the PR campaign that Planned Parenthood and the like have about what they want the world to believe pregnancy centers are. So then, however, there are some states where these other organizations are cheering on pregnancy centers to form a state coalition so that when their right to life, their state right to life, their state family values, their state Catholic conference, and so on are registering positions on bills as lobbyists that your state coalition or pregnancy centers are now adding an additional position on a bill. There you’ve got another person, another entity representing all the pregnancy centers in the state now sitting at the table with lawmakers and your constituency is represented. You have a voice uniquely for pregnancy centers. Let me jump in for a moment. Ok, go ahead well, before we go to the next one, would the Coalition of Coalitions lobbyist or the spokesperson, would that person then engage at the local state level in that dialogue or would there actually be a unique person that’s different for that state? Ideally there’s a board chair or a hired executive director for the state coalition. Each state is different in their composition and their budget. But the National Coalition would want to come alongside them and give them media training and talking points and shore them up. Not to come and step in front of any state at all, but more to be behind in the shadows, encouraging them, guiding them, being a resource for them at the national level. Ok, so the local state would have a local champion whose wingman would be at the national level providing support and resources so seriously, there’s a very strong wingman, but the but the main champion in that state would be the local person who is completely informed about local. You know, the local state level and the support person would be more of like standards and national level advice it sounds like or you know. So here’s another way to look at it. I can’t i have a master’s in public health and health management and policy, and I was the executive director for the Iowa County’s Public Health Association, which was a division of NATO or the National Association of County Health Organizations. And so this would function much the same way. Another example is you have the National Association for Public Health and then you have state public health associations. So you have the National Association of Governors, right, and each governor governors their state so the National Association brings those leaders together to give them policy advice, help with all of their state infrastructure, understanding of federal funding opportunities and limitations and so on. So those are all examples of how this might function for this to support the state pregnancy center coalitions. Awesome yeah let’s go ahead and go on to your next point of yeah, what a preacy clinic director might consider or think about with considering this coalition of coalitions and yeah, how she might want to, you know, connect with her local state coalition or maybe help. Yeah, be part of that spurring of creating one if they don’t have one yet or growing one if it’s maybe in a state of needing to grow or build. Yes. So the next question is, do you have an opportunity to influence legislation and funding for your organization but are fearful of lobbying and impacting your five oh one C three? And so I sorry, I don’t know if you can edit this little part out, but my dogs are working. It’s OK. It’s an authentic podcast so if we leave it in, it’ll be OK. Sorry about that. No worries. Hey, it’s better than the chicken that I just had to shoo away from outside of my office, the rooster i mean, it’s awful oh, OK. Anyway, you’d think I live in the country and I don’t. So many pregnancy center leaders haven’t engaged in public policy and legislative advocacy because of the limits on that placed on them as leaders of their five O 1C3 nonprofit organization. So if they haven’t done that, then if they formed A5O1C6 organization for example, they could take their hat off of executive director for XYZ Pregnancy center, which is a five oh one C three, and then step into their role as a member of their five oh one C six state coalition and they can lobby without fear as they represent their five oh one C six wow yes. And so it sounds like they probably would want to keep that five six and have a five O one C three as well possibly more so than just converting it just because they would just be able to lobby. Every single state is different. Every single state is different. Where they’re at with laws and what their fight is currently OK. Honestly, if you don’t have a funding opportunity to pass through, there’s a strong argument to not worry about being AC 3 right now. Because if you’re effective at the five O 1C6 you can convert to AC 3, but you just have to remain that way forever yeah so the other thing about forming A coalition, whether it be AC three and formal C4C6 is do you want to create a mentor, a mentee opportunity for pregnancy center directors in your state? Do you want to shore up other leaders? Do you have a set of very new young leaders and a set of leaders that have been doing it for 20 plus years and maybe they lack a succession plan, but they can pass on their knowledge. And so there’s so many things that can be done as a group. Yeah, in a state. And then the last question is, do you want to improve opportunities for health benefits and medical liability coverage rates and other purchases for all organizations in your state so as a 5O1C6 state coalition, you can look at group buying power in order to improve the expense or lower the expenses for all of your members in certain areas that you can negotiate group buys. What’s an example of a group BY in your opinion? So several association level organizations negotiate insurance coverage rates for everyone in their coalition that steps in and buys in that is lower than if they did it individually one-on-one each organization. That makes sense because it’s probably lower risk too for the insurance company to have a group potentially as a whole. It’s also a guaranteed sale i mean if you’re in Ohio and they have 123 pregnancy centers and you decided to be AC six there with group buying power. If you are were an insurance provider, wouldn’t you much rather have a guaranteed 123 buy into your group at a lower rate than to worry about dealing with each one individually even if it was a slightly higher rate? Yeah, it’s cutting out a lot of sales and reducing admin so that reduces costs which makes a lot of sense that’s probably if my if I had a ballpark it I would say that’s like a 15 to 20 % discount just on admin and sales work that and I mean there’s things like I mean what are you using for banquet planning or do you have a whole state that is being accused of being a fake clinic maybe you’re looking at triple AC accreditation. So can you Co-op that as a state coalition? To some extent some are very individualized. But you know there are things that you can do for your state coalition members in bulk that maybe you can negotiate A coalition price contract with Sterry Cycle or Medline or the CDD. These are all expensive and our leaders are used to having. And it also seems like it would make sense that if there was a an attack on the whole, having representation for the whole would be more efficient than having representation multiplied by the number of parties. And so there’s also room for more streamlined representation that insurance company might have to provide in response to an attack. So that would also have economy of scale applied yeah, that’s good stuff. So out of the, you know, out of the states, you know what amount of states are maybe don’t have a state coalition that would fall into these different categories or which ones or how many might have state coalitions that are in a in a position where they need life support or growth or maybe rehoning into the pricey clinic space maybe they’ve gotten maybe they’ve had mission you know their mission has shifted and essentially need to sort of refresh back to yeah you know standards that are more common amongst the as a whole. So there are I don’t have my list I’ll tell you exactly who I believe they are. Let’s see. Ok, there are at least 18 states that are not formal, or they may need to consider becoming a five oh one C six or they have no coalition at all. Currently in the US there are probably more, but there are for sure 18. But there are over 25 formalized coalitions of some kind, whether they be regularly active in meeting, they’re AC three or AC. Six awesome. And also I could imagine a coalition of coalition providing sort of like with the messaging idea of, you know, providing messaging that could then be provided to all the coalition’s when it comes to graphics or something that we have having an economy of scale take place for someone can per receive something and then use it locally. I can imagine there being other things that can be built at the national level that could then be recycled per state. And I feel like there’s a lot of opportunities for recycling really good pieces per state when there’s pieces that can be recycled or there Evergreen amongst every state or they’re usable by every state. And so there feels like there’s a really great opportunity for raising the quality of something because you can, you know, and then because it’s going to get used many times across the country. And there’s, yeah, probably room for some great economy of scale by, yeah, supporting so many state coalitions with pieces that can be used at a variety or several overall well and you know from the marketing side that unified messages heard over and over and over and over change thinking. And that’s the one thing that pregnancy centers haven’t had is statewide unified messaging as well as national unified messaging. And there are many canceller organizations out there fighting for pregnancy centers, but their focuses are this and pregnancy centers or this and women and babies and mom moms. But nothing has been uniquely to pregnancy centers in at a national unified message that in this post row area era, I think that we’re just getting momentum. Some of the national organizations like Heartbeat and Carenet and NIFLA, they are great resources for when you are in the day-to-day at the pregnancy center level. But and I know that they want to see state coalitions formed and a National Coalition supported for things that they aren’t doing. Not because they can’t they won’t but it’s that it’s not their lane. Yeah and it’s interesting that, well, Kernet and Heartbeat were, I believe, both created in response to Roe i know that Heartbeat was. And I believe Karen, that probably was as well in direct response to Roe. And it’s also interesting that here we are a few years after Dobbs and you know Roe essentially took the fight mostly to the federal level. But then we still had the state level fight, but the federal level was the primary fight and the state level fight was secondary because of Roe. And now that Roe has been overturned, the primary fight is now at the state level not that the federal level is gone, but they have shifted yeah between first priority and second priority they have shifted and now the state level is the is the primary fight and the federal level still exists, but it now I would say it’s shifted into the secondary position. What are your thoughts on that? That’s just me reflecting i don’t, Yeah. But that seems like that’s true it flipped. It flipped i mean, yes, we would love to have abortion eliminated at the federal level and therefore then take that back from the states. But the reality is right now you we don’t have that the fight is at the state level and you know, while they like to, I just saw a recent report saying that once these different states banned abortion, they stop counting abortions in those state and it’s really sad that they’re doing that because chemical abortion, mail order abortion is prolific and those aren’t officially being counted. And then if you layer onto that abortion tourism or border state abortion, they also aren’t being counted. So you the reality of what’s going on and where the fight is still at is not fully transparent. So the honestly, these state coalitions know better than anybody who is going across the border. They can talk to marketing companies like I Rapture or Life Advancement Group or Choose Life or Fila Media and so on i mean the list goes on and on sorry if I didn’t list you and you heard this just coming to mind all at once. But all of you can show what Google search words are high and hitting out there in various states. You can see where that geofence results are. And so you know where this stuff is actually happening. You know that in Texas, women are still looking to get an abortion even though the heartbeat bill’s been on the books. Same with tennessee yeah. So yeah. And yeah, because they can go to New Mexico or Illinois. There’s border. There’s borders that are, yeah, with different rules, different laws. I would love to see a state that has an amazing governor and legislature that has appropriated a great amount of funds to look at possibilities for how they could really capture these women that are seeking mail order abortion online and eliminate it. Just say, you know what, our state’s going to take the lead and we’re going to invest in a plan to eliminate this nationwide. That would be pretty amazing. I have a couple states in mind that could do this. Yeah, seems like that ‘d be. I’m trying to imagine how the post office would process or you know, how law enforcement would process that say that again, sorry, I’m wondering, I’m wondering how law enforcement or a state could essentially prevent mail. Yeah essentially i find it difficult to understand how they would prevent mail from certain sources because of, you know, maybe they could send it without having to return address i don’t know it just feels like there’s that ‘d be difficult it feels like that ‘d be really difficult to prevent mail. Yeah i’m not sure nobody’s looking at your mail yeah. So they want to say we banned mail order. Ok well, these people are trying to kill babies do you think that they’re going to follow your state laws? Yeah I don’t think. Well I know they won’t because I’ve, you know based on what I’ve seen you know they’re yeah. The law is not it’s just yeah, it’s yeah, it’s a it’s a hard fight it’s a hard one to that’s a hard one but I feel like it still needs to be worked on i don’t. I wouldn’t disagree there but I would say it’s a difficult problem to solve and it also needs to be. But I guess before you can solve something you have to get buy in or you know you have to get you know approve the idea before you can actually then work on figuring out that and you know getting the state to have the buy in to want and desire to figure it out is probably the place where many states are probably rat. I don’t know actually. I’m sure speaking out of turn there because I don’t really know where they are at with that but just in general buy in’s important first before trying to get into the details of figuring out a strategy. yeah. So state coalition well I’m really yeah. Opportunity with support from a national organization now and I love the fact that the, yeah, the state, the coalition of coalitions is made-up of excellent leaders from state coalitions that seems like a really good recipe and that and also I love the fact that many state coalitions are made-up of pregnancy clinic directors or pro-life leaders from that state. That also seems like a good recipe. And yeah, so I feel like that’s, yeah, it’s really, it’s really sort of empowering those who are doing good work to really to help each other. Yeah here we are, we’re talking about on the pro-life Team Podcast and I feel like this is a really very much, I would call this a pro-life Team effort when it comes to helping friends with similar missions and the same vision and, you know, really yeah. It’s sort of, yeah. All working together, serving Jesus, you know, not siloed but working to support each other in this great mission of honoring. I have babies that are in the womb who reflect in a unique image, unique image of God and yeah and working together to honor and rescue those who were yeah being led to the slaughter. Yeah one of the biggest messages that we could probably bring out of our meeting today with the National Association of State Pregnancy Wellness Coalitions, there is a desire for unity amongst pregnancy centers at the in States and among states. And if we can help forge that unity and unified messaging and shore up all of the state coalitions to meet the goals that are unique to each of their States and their state leaders, that’s what we would really desire to do at the national level. Yeah and I feel like Marsha Middleton’s group, Alliance for Life Missouri to me is a gold standard or a beautiful example of networking at the state level with pricey clinics and life minded organizations essentially having relationship with each other and supporting each other. And I get to glimpse I get AI get a glimpse of it when I go to their state conference each year but it to me it’s something that I would like to see emulated and replicated because I think it’s a really good experience and I feel like that’s it makes sense that would be a good example And so I’m glad that she’s the she was the secretary on the on the board which is great i think that’s I’m really glad to see that she’s yeah putting putting in her experience to help with this. So what are your thoughts on the nickname cola or the Cola of colas for like I’m not a fan i told Brandon I’m not a fan of that. Yeah it’s pretty touchy but yeah. The National Association of State Coalitions that’s a way of abbreviating it. Ok that’s good yeah. Well thank you so much Sean for well for really just using your skills your talents your wisdom and really just going you know working on the things that need to get done and while also you know connecting and networking with people who are like minded and yeah so I feel like it’s we’re, I’m really glad that you’re on our team as a as a whole working to. Yeah just draw us into better networking and sharing more resources and ideas and that obviously includes support grants being distributed in a good way that includes communicating with political representatives in a healthy way. And yeah just all of that seems really good and I feel like this really represents you know the shift from yeah from states being secondary to now being the primary place where work is being done and the federal level has Yeah shifted the second, the second spot and a lot of work to be done so yeah. I too really enjoy. Yeah, Heartbeat and Nifla as well as Carenet and just these different groups that are working really hard to provide support and education and training and supporting Prancy clinics in several ways but with the Dobbs, I feel like we have, yeah, the needs are shifting and the and the and the work has shifted as well. And so this is really exciting to see yeah, a new a new a new entity form to support state coalitions and really excited to see state coalitions that are you know maybe they’ve had their ups and downs seeing them gain momentum from other coalitions as well as seeing the coalitions that have not been formed yet getting formed and getting formed with the support system like this is this sounds really good yeah i’m excited for when California decides to form their coalition. That will be a massive, massive group with a huge voice. Yeah, that’s I’m connecting with a group, they’re called CA Alliance. But i believe they only represent a small % like i would expect it’s like 40, but there’s such a large number of clinics in California. If I had to guess, I would guess there’s 350 or something like that i don’t it’s a large number I would expect in all of California when it comes to clinics. That’s just my gut talking but I do know that there’s also there’s the let’s see something I see right the Life League of Southern California who had. Yeah, they’re a group that’s been there for a while. And then there are internationalized services who has been, yeah, since Sister Paula Path they’ve been decreasing in their efforts a great deal. But yeah, they’re also based out of Los Angeles County. But it’s probably other groups there as well i can’t think of them right now but yeah, I do that they have a couple of groups i don’t think there’s one that covers the whole Well, yeah, there might be one i don’t know there’s a lot of groups there and it’s sometimes it’s hard to keep track of all the groups. And some groups were call centers and maybe not really coalitions. Yeah, I’m thinking of some. There’s some call centers that are state based. yeah. But yeah, CA alliance is one that I can think of but I don’t know. Yeah, what their geographic scope is within California. But I don’t think it’s all of California. I need to find out. I just started connecting with them recently. But anyways, well, so Sean, would you wrap us up with a with a, you know, praying for, praying for this new effort and with the hopes that those who are listening will join in? absolutely. So if we look at Hebrews ten twenty four and 25 let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Not giving up, meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day approaching and very simply is not neglecting meeting together is, and encouraging one another. I just thank the Lord that He is blessing the unifying of leaders in the fight to save mothers and babies and families in this nation and that doors would open, opportunities would present themselves, and that the Lord and the Holy Spirit would just nudge state pregnancy center leaders to either engage more fully in their state that or coalition that exists, or that they would say, I can do it, I can bring a couple of my peers together and we can start forming this coalition. We need one in our state. And so, Father God, I just thank you for your unifying spirit, your provision, the divine appointments that you’re bringing for all of these relationships lord and as we dedicate our work unto you, Lord Jesus, with you at the focus and as a center, that you will then bless it, Lord, and your fruit will be seen in Jesus name amen.
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