Jacob Barr interviews Jor-El Godsey about Heartbeat International’s pivotal role in the pro-life movement, emphasizing abortion pill rescues and the promotion of sexual integrity.
Summary
This is Jacob Barr, and in this podcast episode, I had an enlightening conversation with Jor-El Godsey, President of Heartbeat International. We discussed the critical work of Heartbeat in the pro-life movement, specifically focusing on the Abortion Pill Rescue Network (APRN) and the challenges they face, including legal battles with the Attorney General of California. Jor-El shared his journey in the pro-life movement, the evolution of Heartbeat International, and their mission to unify and advance pregnancy help globally. We also explored the growing prevalence of chemical abortions and the importance of educating both men and women about sexual integrity and healthy relationship choices.
Relevant hashtags for this content are: #HeartbeatInternational, #ProLifeLeadership, #AbortionPillRescue, #PregnancyHelp, #SexualIntegrity, #ProLifeAdvocacy, #ChemicalAbortion, #ProLifeEducation, #PregnancyClinics, #LifeAffirmingChoices.
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Jor-El Godsey :
Hi, I’m Jor-El Godsey, President of Heartbeat International, and I have the privilege of being on the pro-life podcast, Grateful for Jacob’s Invitation and this podcast we talk about Abortion Pill Rescue Network we talk about some of the dynamic things that are happening, including being sued by the this Attorney General of the state of California and some of the other adventures that we get involved in and really why it’s important for pregnancy help and what that makes such a big difference for women all across this country and all around the world.
Jacob Barr :
So Jor-El I’m excited to have you on the pro-life Team Podcast once again. In this intro, would you introduce yourself, along with introducing the company you know, Heartbeat International, who you represent?
Jor-El Godsey :
Sure well, I’m Jor-El Godsey i have been in the pregnancy health movement now for more than 30 years and even longer than that in the pro-life movement actually got started but really by getting arrested with operation Rescue back in the day, actually found out about pregnancy centers while I was in jail, literally had after having been arrested they’re like, hey, there’s this thing called a crisis pregnancy center that’s happening, you know, that’s trying to open in your area you might want to go and check it out so I got to be the one to do that for our church and well stepped into a center that wasn’t yet open, was just wood frames and working its way towards opening and I managed to be a part of that and then eventually join the board and eventually a few years later went on staff at that center and that’s been my I’ve been working full time in the pregnancy health movement since 1996 And so Fast forward basically 10 years later i end up at Heartbeat International and here in Columbus, ohio and take that local experience and get to really be part of the national international pregnancy help scene and pro-life leadership across the nation and it’s been quite the journey and really a privilege to serve people who are in this movement i so it’s kind of how I cut my teeth on this and it’s a privilege and a pleasure to be serving those who are doing this on a daily basis.
Jacob Barr :
Awesome And I know that, you know, this podcast is not built to be a commercial for someone who’s a guest and trying to promote the organization. But at the same time, I think it’s really important for what Heartbeat does as a leader in the pregnancy clinic pro-life space or really in the preacy clinic space of the pro-life movement, can you share the vision and mission of Heartbeat like what drives Heartbeat? Oh yeah, What’s driven Heartbeat International?
Jor-El Godsey :
Well, heartbeat started out it was called Alternatives to Abortion International, started in 1971 it was the very first of its kind in the US You know, this had this all really kind of started as far as pregnancy centers had started officially in 1968 with the first birthright that was the very first pregnancy center that we know of. But pregnancy help was around before even that you know, people were answering their phones our mutual friend, Sister Paula. Yeah, who passed a street not too long ago, was one of the founders of Heartbeat International and before Heartbeat, she was answering hotlines and she had the Girl Scouts helping her out at one point, as I understand and there were all of these activities that were happening, saying, well, as soon as this stuff gets straightened out with abortion, we’re gonna get this right it’s gonna be fine. But we need to help women who can’t wait for it to be set straight. And so they were doing it however they could they would, you know, they were meeting them by over the phone then this is back in the day when, you know you had a Rotary dial and you had a cord that was attached to the wall. And so this was, you know, a long time ago and a lot of technology ago, but it was the good heart of people reaching out and saying how can we help and Heartbeat was founded in that really called into existence by the pregnancy help movement of that time. And so it became the 1st and it’s and it’s the largest in the really in the US and in the world we have over nineteen hundred pregnancy centers that are affiliated with Heartbeat International in the US alone. Then we don’t affiliate just pregnancy centers because we really see pregnancy help, the pregnancy help movement as a spectrum, right you know, pregnancy help happens in all kinds of places, including on the sidewalk it happens in, you know, in pro-life doctor’s offices it happens in all kinds of places where people are being helped to not need abortions and certainly it happens in pregnancy centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies and similar organizations like that which we call pregnancy help organizations that help make that happen, help serve women with that need and help them not need abortions altogether so we changed the name back in 1993 from Abortion or Alternatives to Abortion International to Heartbeat International, which was the name of our newsletter at the time was Heartbeat and Sister Paula was actually the one that was the most common contributor to that in those days and so it’s a, it’s a pleasure and privilege to be part of Heartbeat International and it’s really serving the pregnancy health movement worldwide i like to say we are all about unifying and advancing the pregnancy help movement. Our official mission is that we are to reach and rescue as many lives as possible through an effective network of pregnancy help and renew communities for life.
Jacob Barr :
That’s good i really appreciate your group being one of the leaders of our movement because we have a lot of organizations working to serve and in as a unified group in some ways and as independent but yet still really parts of this larger body of Christ working to ultimately serve those who are being targeted and to rescue and provide healing and essentially when it comes to what I think of Heartbeat International, I think of the education that is offered, the guidance that can be provided i also think of option line when it comes to providing twenty seven services that go beyond someone ‘s hours of operation. I also think or I, and I, and i’m not an expert on this part, but I’ve also heard a great deal about the trauma research and work that Heartbeat has done when it comes to helping people deal with responding to trauma and working in that area, there’s probably a lot of parts of Heartbeat I’m not even touching on, like there’s extend, there’s APR, there is.
Jor-El Godsey :
Abortion pill rescue network.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah let’s go there. Sure yeah but Doctor Delgado and another doctor i don’t quite know his name, but I believe there was two doctors harrison. Ok.
Jor-El Godsey :
Yes, Doctor Harrison was the very first. Happened in 2006 was presented with a young woman who had taken that first pill showed up you know at his at his practice or talking to him and basically she said I did this, i regret it, i can’t go through with it is there anything you can do And Doctor Harrison was did the research, looked at it, he said I think we can try this and basically gave her a high dosage of progesterone which is something that OB’s commonly prescribed to women who are at risk of miscarrying or deficient and of course we know that mifepristone, the abortion pill, the first of the of the two abortion pills is really designed to block mifepristone to kind of out compete it for the mechanisms that’s in a woman’s body and basically starve the baby well, that particular high dosage of progesterone was administered and you know, of course he couldn’t make any guarantees and praise the Lord, it was successful. That young lady is 16 years old today and look, well should have a seventeenth birthday here very shortly. So that was the first rescue that rescue using abortion pill reversal that we know of and then doctor delgado now he was a doctor Harrison was in North Carolina and doctor Delgado in San Diego was the next person he a couple years later he had someone present a very similar story presented and then fortunately he was he was he would did the same research progesterone eventually Doctor Delgado and Doctor Harrison got connected and Doctor Delgado really felt called that this needed to happen more regularly, more doctors and so he started the first what was known then as the Abortion Pill Reversal Network. We changed it to Abortion Pill, Rescue Network and that was kind of unintentional because Abortion Pill Reversal we see as the protocol, right, the protocol that she is going through that she’s basically saying I need this help and this is the help that we’re going to provide her but the idea of a rescue network is much broader because there are nurses on our hotline. We have over 20 nurses that answer the those calls around the clock. We have then of course the physicians or the prescribers that we’re able to refer to and then the pregnancy centers that are part of the network we’re able to connect because there’s always that need for a follow up ultrasound. So we see that whole team really as being the rescue network and abortion Pill reversal is that protocol that is being prescribed to her. Oh and by the way now since Delgado started, so we now count more than four thousand five hundred lives that have been saved in that in since the beginning so that would have been 2012 and I know that there’s probably more in that numbers growing every single day.
Jacob Barr :
Awesome yeah, that’s actually what I was going to ask you how many saves? So what percent? So when a woman takes the APR protocol within 48 hours, is it still at about 60 % or what % of women will end up having, you know, the baby will end up surviving?
Jor-El Godsey :
So the in the study that Delgado did in 2018 there was a study involved nearly 600 women, I think it was like 574 women. The success rate that he found was between 64 and 68 % kind of dependent on what method was used because there’s different methods injection, there’s there was a cream, there was a oral, oral medication so there were some differences in the responses, but we’ve also seen some other studies in fact one very small study actually shows us effectiveness as high as 80 %. So it can range it’s gonna depend on one on how quickly we can get to her. We are finding that the women that are talking to us desperate for a different decision, really about 75 % of the % of those women are presenting in the 1st, 24 hours. So you can just see like that, like it’s just something happens after they’ve taken that first pill you can imagine and many of you report this to us is that they were really wrestling with the thought before they took that pill and once they took it they, you know they basically said that was wrong how can I very much like that very first story that was wrong I should have done that how what can I do now And when they reach us they are desperate for that information they really want to know is there anything I can do And we’re delighted to be a part of that process to help them get and not all of them make that decision you know, some of them are still questioning, you know they the pressures haven’t necessarily changed the people around them that are kind of encouraging them to make an abortion decision haven’t changed. And so some of them don’t actually follow through they’ll continue with their abortion and of course that that’s difficult but we’re grateful that many of them still do about, I think it’s about 75 % of them will still go through with the with the reversal that they’ll actually start their reversal and we’re pleased to be a part of that.
Jacob Barr :
Oh, that’s awesome. Would you, would you talk to us about the, well, talk to talk to me about the outreach of Heartbeat to promote the moral education about sexuality to both young men and young women? Like what is Heartbeat when it comes to promoting education in that space?
Jor-El Godsey :
Well, we realized a long time ago that we’re not i mean, this is decades ago. We’re not just a kind of a Hail Mary moment when she’s in the middle of her unplanned, unintended, unexpected pregnancy. We really, we, you know, it’s not just enough. It’s not enough just to talk to her about that particular pregnancy it’s also talking about the conditions that she found herself, where she made that decision. So we began to explore the opportunity to really find ways to kind of minister to her in that moment and that’s what many pregnancy centers do is that they will look for that moment to say hey how can how can we have make healthier decisions in our relationships. And so that led us a number of years ago to create a program we call sexual integrity program. It’s a term that we learned early on and I think we’re one of the early promoters of that term sexual integrity kind of to offset the you know kind of the dated term of abstinence it certainly includes abstinence but sexual integrity really is a more holistic idea of how we should operate in our relationships And so it’s been a our privilege we’re actually retooling and kind of retuning that particular program with more updated material we have a great partner in that doctor Joe Malone has been a part of that, helped us create some new material and has he himself came. He’s a professor at a university in Tennessee and has become a very helpful instant with some updated research on that so we’ve been delighted to have him at our conference where we’ve been grateful for him being involved in retooling that particular program for us. So it’s all about kind of getting information out to the to the pregnancy help community so that they can interact with their clients that they can really in those moments where they can start to say all right you know, we not only need to need to talk about the pregnancy, we need to talk about what situation has kind of surrounded you to find yourself in this situation how can we help improve that and you know that’s I think an important message, an important opportunity for us to help these women really make better decisions now I know some of them are kind of trapped in those decisions or in those relationships, and we want to help them escape that as well. But for many of them, they just have never been taught, They’ve never been taught about their own sexuality, about their kind of the way God has made them. Some of the things that we don’t necessarily have to talk to them about God, but we can certainly talk about God’s creative power and how wonderfully women are crafted, women are made, and how their own femininity is a superpower and so we encourage that and really want them to kind of have and understand that identity.
Jacob Barr :
That’s yeah. And we’ve had, yeah i’ve interviewed Joe Malone and he likes he uses that exact phrasing and I would say he’s brilliant and spot on and I’m really glad I did not know he was partnered with you on that and that front and so that’s exciting to hear because I think he is, yeah, adding a lot of value to that space. And talking on that topic, would you talk to us about what’s going on with the AG in California with APR and what that, what’s going on there when it comes to the Attorney General there filing a lawsuit against or you know essentially the attack on APR?
Jor-El Godsey :
Yeah so I have limitations on what I can say and how I can describe it but as far as you know what I can tell you what’s gone on yes the AG Banta has put a lawsuit out against Harpy International for the for the promotion of abortion pill reversal. So they have grave, they have concerns about so-called that they say that this is deceptive and misleading and fraudulent practice and of course we totally disagree with that and that’s going to be part of what the lawsuit is about is about they’re going to try to present information that suggests that that’s true and we are going to stand up and say that’s not true this is something that is that progesterone has been safe and effective for women for decades, right so going back I believe it going to be prescribed in the forties or fifties, right so we’ve been at we’ve been having that out and available a long time that it certainly is a is a cutting edge use of a of a very familiar and common prescription that for women that are facing that the abortion pill itself Mifepristone is really designed to essentially create a miscarriage and that’s exactly what progesterone has been prescribed for is to help address miscarriages and really the idea of having it as a high dosage means is we really are helping it out compete the Mythoprystone which is designed to block what progesterone does so that’s the that’s what we’ve been using APR for and the AG has found that is not they don’t think that that’s acceptable. We of course are not unfamiliar with the fact that they’re that the AG is highly supported by the abortion lobby the pro abortion dollars for campaigns and such and so to us it can’t it certainly appears to be more politically motivated than actually motivated but we’re looking forward to kind of fighting that battle we are very confident in abortion pill reversal it’s affects the fact that this is what women want and we certainly can’t find ourselves in a place where we would abandoned women to abortion and abandoned them to only what the abortionists and those that the that champion abortion would want for them these women deserve better and we’re very excited about fighting for their opportunity to have one chance to a last chance to choose life.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah and when I appreciate you sharing what you can about that and I and it yeah and then if I, if I ask you a question where it’s just too hard to separate what’s you know, public versus private, feel free to pass, but I didn’t mean to put you in that spot, but.
Jor-El Godsey :
No, I appreciate the way you answered and I well part of it it’s still early right the comment you know this just happened we learned about this actually we learned about it from a reporter who said this was the email the reporter said hey in a few minutes you’re going to be sued by the state of California like how did they know that like in this and here’s the here’s the that’s the bad news right. Then we learned that we actually were in a staff meeting coming out of our staff meeting at the end of September we were learning that was the case, that it had been reported that was going to happen we didn’t get served until like more than a week later. But we learned about it through the reporters and then we then we also were aware of the press conference that the in the press release that the attorney’s office put out. And here’s the good news that happened on a Thursday. All of the hoopla really kind of unfolded Thursday and Friday because it hit the news cycle on Friday here’s the good news is that weekend? Three times the number of women that reach out to the Abortion Pill rescue network called us that weekend and three times the number of women that start a worship pill reversal on a weekend started their own reversal. So if it took AG Banta’s press release and all of those announcements to make that more widely known, then we welcome that you know, that more women had a chance to change their mind is a good thing. And we celebrate that we wish it could happen in a different way we wish that the bullies at a big Tech weren’t censoring our advertising they weren’t putting their thumb on the scale, so to speak, and protecting abortion in the way that they do by censoring abortion pill reversal advertising. But that’s what’s happening and it’s been happening now since September of 2021 So hey, however we can get the word out and you know, we have ways that make them happen. Fortunately for those that are desperate and change their mind they’re able to find us and that’s exactly why we want to be there, to help them.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah and yeah so my team, we’re praying for you and essentially for that. Yeah for that situation. And so we’re, yeah, we’re in support and I just want us. Yeah and I would encourage those who are listening to yeah to pray as well for a heartbeat. And yeah, essentially the friends who are being, you know, essentially who are fighting for life in California with this, in this fight.
Jor-El Godsey :
Thanks, Jacob. They didn’t just tag us, they also went after Real Options, which has five centers in the Bay Area. Yeah, was it real option to?
Jacob Barr :
Obria or the?
Jor-El Godsey :
It’s real options, Obria yeah they use both brands, but they they’re also in the fight we’re grateful for them they were they’ve actually been doing APR longer than we have you know we took up the banner in 2018 when Doctor Delgado needed really more of a national international partner and all of that we were we were grateful to be able to kind of take the baton from him. But our friends at Real Options have been really doing this even a couple years before we were so we couldn’t be more delighted about, you know, being in it was with such a committed folks and being a part of it. And why they got singled out when others doing it, we don’t know we’re not totally certain. But that’s just one of the things that we’re watching kind of how the political process is unfolding here as well as of course the legal process those are arguments that we look forward to bringing forth and we’re grateful by the way for our partners at Thomas Moore Society they’ve jumped in on this with us. They have a great team in California. We’re very happy to have them on board with as well they’re brilliant lawyers and have been very successful in other conversations or tussles with the with the Attorney General and so we’re glad to have them on board as well.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah And so I’ve had the opportunity well real options OPRIA works with several vendors and I happen to yeah be one of the vendors that they work with and I mean before heartbeat yeah has really championed APRI was working with Delgado on it for well actually i met doctor George Delgado and nurse Debbie at Internationalized Services Advanced Training Institute event with sister Paula and at first I didn’t understand what they were saying i honestly, it took me about three months after the after that event to really like soak in, like, wait, you can reverse the abortion pill like it took me that long to actually comprehend the fact of what they talked about for so i sat in on a workshop, I talked to them and I really, it just did not make sense that you could literally reverse the abortion pill like I was thinking, it just felt like, is that real like I just didn’t register. And then I had an epiphany and it’s like, Oh my goodness, i need to see what I need to help out however I can. And so then I worked with them, I think for about 6 years. And then it was a great move to, you know, for her, you know, for your group to essentially amplify the voice and reach of that incredible messaging because awareness is was such a key point at that time. And I feel like actually here’s the question for you is what % of pregnancy clinics do you think currently know about APR is Have we reached like what? You know, back then it was like a minority for a long time, like it felt like it was 20 percent, 30 %. I know it’s, but, you know, it’s probably really good today but in your opinion, how many Presti clinics are currently in the know on this?
Jor-El Godsey :
Well, the good news is because of our relationships and reach, we were able to kind of double the pregnancy centers in pretty quick order that were part of the, we call it APRN or the Abortion Pill Rescue Network. We think that thankfully some of our other sister organizations have picked up the charge as well and been promoting it. I know some of the APRN docs have presented at other conferences. Doctor delgado has been a tireless you know kind of advocate a champion speaking on this all over. You know, he did our conference years ago before we actually were in this and we were you know delighted to know about it but I like you like you Jacob, like I didn’t fully appreciate what it was until we started to see really the rise of abortion pill in the in the US you know go back to 2011 and you’re looking at maybe eleven twelve percent, 17 % are of all the abortions in the US were chemical but by the time we get to 2017 we’re seeing a 34 % and then we learned you know it actually in 2020 they estimate that was 54 %. And so we know that the numbers now are probably closer to 80 % of all abortions are now chemical it’s a cheaper product for them to deliver. The cost curiously is about the same as a surgical abortion and so the profit margin for the abortion industry is has certainly increased and that I think it’s just come out that there’s a curiously there’s a bunch of billionaires that are behind all of this as far as the pharmacy and promoting abortions and whatnot and it’s like it’s no wonder you know this is a multi billion dollar industry that we’re that we’re battling but the fact that chemical abortions are on the rise means that there are going to be more women that are regretting that decision that were kind of felt trapped into that moment Until you know it’s hard to say what happens in every instance but I, you know I I’ve, I have many stories of these women basically having just taken that pill sitting in the parking lot right outside the abortion clinic and calling and reaching us. And some of them have tried to go back into the abortion clinic and say is there anything you can do i don’t want to go through with this. And they’re told no. And that is that’s probably the biggest, you know, grieving that does that she’s being denied the information and this is for political reasons this is a proven process you know, we’ve seen, as mentioned, many lies have been helped with the progesterone it’s bioidentical to what she produces anyway it’s not. It’s the abortion pill that is the exotic creation out of a lab. We really are just giving her more of what she already does and what she already produces. And so i wish that there was less politics surrounding this, less ideology and more practical help for women in mind and I think this shouldn’t be something that we disagree about it should be something that if you’re if you truly believe in choice, then you should also believe in her choice to withdraw her consent from the abortion she no longer wants.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah so in your experience, what is one of the, what’s one of the top lies that the enemy is using to promote their position on abortion pill and abortion pill reversal? Because it feels like, yeah. So when it comes to expel, you know, shedding light on a lie that is being used, like for example, that lie you gave, you know, as an example of no, you can’t do anything to reverse it. So, but in your opinion, what’s from the top lies that the enemy is using and yeah, let’s shed some light on one of the top ones.
Jor-El Godsey :
Well, one of the biggest things is that this is just a pill this is the, in fact, even in the terminology, we refer to it as chemical abortion, right because to us that’s what it is it’s a it’s a chemical. And the other side wants to label it something that sounds more harmless. You know, they want to label it they call, they want to call it medication abortion like, OK, but what is, what does that really say or medical abortion like that says even less like so they’ve really been at this kind of PR idea from the beginning and they’ve in the process they also basically say it’s, you know, it’s safe, it’s easy you know, Yeah, you might have a little extra bleeding well, if you’ve seen the movie unplanned, you’ve seen that there’s often that it’s often a lot worse than that. And our friends at Charlotte Lozier Institute have actually done some studies in APLOG, the American Association of Pro-life OB Guides, that have basically done some research and found that, you know, with chemical abortion, there’s like a greater than 400 % increase in emergency room visits after a chemical abortion as opposed to surgical abortion. That says something, that something is going on, that the washing industry is being shielded and protected by mainstream media, by even the FDA is ignoring that the FDA has changed its rules to actually count less or get less information so that they can’t be held accountable for those things these are the travesties that are happening within the not just the abortion industry but within the pro abortion administration or leaders of these agencies that have basically been shielding the abortion industry along the way are frankly are women deserve better. You know they they’re being used in this instance to really foist in my mind that to really have an ideology foisted upon them and in the process they’re playing on the old sympathies that we or the old issues that we know from the past. You know, whether it’s surgical or chemical, we know that women aren’t choosing abortion. I can’t help but go back to the Frederica Matthews Green, she says Women don’t choose an abortion like they would choose ice cream or a Porsche. They choose abortion like a like a an animal chooses to gnaw of its own leg in order to escape a trap like that’s the sense that happens and you know, we’ve seen a study just recently that said what 64 % of women felt coerced into their abortion decision. That’s not, that’s not the championing of a right that’s really pressing women into making a decision they don’t really want. And that’s exactly what pregnancy centers are there for, to help her have that moment where she can step back and say, I don’t really want to do this then the opportunity then is for the center say, well, we can, we can help you with that. That’s exactly why we’re here that’s the beauty of pregnancy help centers.
Jacob Barr :
That’s good so I really appreciate you sharing all this great information. So when it comes to a pregnancy clinic who, well, how many pregnancy clinics are affiliated with Heartbeat International like out of all the clinics in the country, where do you think you currently for those who are affiliated versus those who haven’t affiliated?
Jor-El Godsey :
Yeah so we count, we count more than two thousand eight hundred pregnancy centers, right so whether they’re we say resource centers or medical clinics like we count them kind of lump them all together including mobile units we kind of count them as an individual location because essentially they are a center, right they’re just they don’t have an address, you know they’re they, they’re a center that rolls on wheels so we count the medical clinics, the resource centers and the mobile units and we count more than two thousand eight hundred of those and we have just under 2000 of those in the US alone. Those locations are affiliated with Heartbeat International. We of course would want everybody we think we’ll win. Like you know this is, this is something that this is what we’re called to do is really serve the pregnancy health community and internationally. It’s harder to know the exact number but we count another probably another 2000 to maybe twenty five hundred around the world. And they start to look a little different in certain parts of the country or certain parts of the globe because they just don’t have the infrastructure or the economy to support a center as we would understand it you know whether you’re sitting in a, you know in a in a rural area or you’re in a metro area here you probably are have great advantages over pregnancy centers that would be say in you know, Kenya or in you know in parts of Asia it’s like these are or Eastern Europe these are areas that need more and we look we look for opportunities to do more with the international centers as well.
Jacob Barr :
And how many was that again, you said in the US, how many are affiliated out of the twenty eight hundred?
Jor-El Godsey :
Yeah, it’s nineteen hundred and something it’s close to 2000 at this point in time yeah. So OK, that’s awesome. It’s a good number.
Jacob Barr :
And so when a when a brand new clinic is opening their doors, you know, they’re being planted as a PHC seed to, you know to sprout up in a new region or a new zip code. How would you encourage that person to connect with Heartbeat when it comes to, you know, to getting assistance and help from the beginning and through the rest of that? Yeah, that growth essentially for you know as they as they blossom into this new clinic reaching their community and for years to come, how would you encourage that person to think about Heartbeat?
Jor-El Godsey :
Yeah thank you that’s a great question so first of all, like even in the fledgling moments of that, even before the center’s open, they’re going to be established as an organization. You know, they’re probably on track to that we affiliate them and Nope, we give them a year’s free affiliation in that in those kind of fledgling times for the very reason so that they can access as much as possible that we have available at Heartbeat we have a manual called built by Design it really is really helps people walk through what does it mean. There’s even a smaller version of that called a vision for your organization that we’ll send to whomever is even thinking about it. So we really want to be able to step into them into that timeframe with them. We certainly encourage them to get training early on in fact we’ve been able to have grants from time to time to help organizations at that very stage to get good training to get some gifts in kind that allow them to kind of hopefully catalyze what they’re doing. I have great confidence because what happens I found Jacob, is that the Holy Spirit is at work in those groups and the Holy Spirit will bring what they need. And we like to help the Holy Spirit wherever we can because we know that they’re on a good path. And if we can help them get established stronger, founded better and to be able to be really they call it what is it forming, norming, storming, right we really, we want to get that from forming to storming as fast as possible when really the mission is kicked into high gear the quicker that can happen the more lives will be saved and the more hearts will be touched in that community so we have a couple of folks and that are kind of specialists in that and helping centers go through that process, including boards or training. Hey, how can we help you get where you’re going faster? We wanna be a part of that so we hope that they’ll connect to us, that they’ll find us and then we can basically get as much to them as they’re willing to consume. It all depends on how God is calling them, how many people have they brought around them to help really help make that happen we’ve seen it happen not hundreds but thousands of times and we look forward to more of those there is definitely room to grow for pregnancy centers we have some key areas in our country that are underserved as far as pregnancy centers we did a report a couple years ago, really looking at the map, we did a kind of population evaluation to see how well are we doing in the states and you know, it’s not surprising that some of our abortion states really could do well with more pregnancy help locations now that’s not just new organizations, also centers opening up new satellite locations, expanding kind of stretching out their service area. We think that more centers should be doing really virtual services as well, looking for opportunities to be available because the chemical abortion is really changing the landscape, she doesn’t have to go to an appointment she, you know, she simply can order the order the chemical abortion online. It can be delivered, you know right to her door very. They’re doing everything the other side, the worship side is doing everything they can to reduce the friction for her to make that decision which is curious it’s, you know, it’s one of those things where you watch and you realize like you know the God of the universe does not rush us in decisions he wants us. You know he wants us to be obedient and respond. But the enemy of our soul really wants to kind of either pull us back from doing what God wants or rush us forward into doing what we want and that’s often where we find ourselves kind of out of really where God wants us to be and so I think this idea from a now from a business perspective, the abortion industry is just trying to make it as frictionless as possible really for the sake of their pocketbooks, right, so that their profits are maximized. But what that means is that was that people are being forced into a decision that they really haven’t even had time to think about and they haven’t had time to kind of sit back and say is this what I really want. But and the abortion industry is quite fine with that. Some of our, some of the states that are making laws now are quite fine with that. We think that women deserve better, that they really should have a chance to have someone in their corner helping them walk through that decision making process and that’s exactly what pregnancy help is all about.
Jacob Barr :
That’s good and Speaking of like you know location you know identifying where help is needed or pregnancy clinics you know need to increase their you know essentially provide services in a high population area. I think that is awesome and so I would just like to encourage people who are listening, you know, to think, you know, if you want advice on where to open a location, if you want someone to bounce ideas off of, I’m sure this would you know heartbeat would be a great place to talk to in order to essentially, yeah, get insight and reflections i also would love to have that conversation with about anybody as well, because I think that’s really identifying where there’s need. Is really important also when it comes to like rural areas with less populations. You know, the narrative can be flipped from like we only saved 3 lives in this time frame of let’s say three months. You know that narrative can be can be flipped into saying thank God we saved 3 lives in three months and that is amazing. And so I, you know, we can’t not all of us live in Florida where there is a high density of abortion taking place because of the culture that the abortion clinic, just the number of abortion clinics that are present and the number of population in a small area when it comes to just having millions of people packed into a given county, i would just encourage people who are listening. You know we do need growth in high population areas or where there are, you know the number of abortions are just terrible and high. But we also need help in rural areas where there are people. And I would, I would encourage these are it’s not always a numbers game it’s sometimes it’s a matter of being it’s also a location vested interest. And so for your community I would encourage everyone who’s listening to think where do we need a preacy clinic based on the people that are in our. Yeah, in our community all. So what are your thoughts on, you know numbers versus location because I’ve been thinking about that recently a lot yeah.
Jor-El Godsey :
Well, I think it’s like churches, you know, if and McDonald’s like, ’cause I’m a McDonald’s fan, judge me sure. But you know, McDonald’s doesn’t create one ginormous McDonald’s in the middle of the of the metropolitan area. They go all kinds of places walmart does the same thing, right they go to these communities because they’re both a need and an opportunity. And that’s exactly what I think we need to do from now. Does that does that rural center need to be open, you know, six days a week and for 10 hours every day probably not. And that might be an easier thing for an established center and maybe in the in the city to then to then launch a satellite that you know so that you have really kind of economies of scale, right so they’re not having to lift everything from the ground up and then it may be may be an opportunity for a new, you know a new group to come in and do some things just that way so it’s their, it’s theirs and owned by them in the sense. But when we start looking at service areas like you know there are swats we did that in our study we actually did it county by county and the good news is when we did this study, we had 51 % of the counties of the US There are 3000 or so counties in the US and 51 % of them had at least one pregnancy center, Hallelujah, but that means 49 % did not, right so now granted, you know most of those are going to be rural areas i’m not saying that every one of those absolutely needs one, but I do think that there’s a lot that still do and that’s one of the things that if someone wants that study, we’re happy to pass that along it’s a it’s a couple years old now, but it’s still worth kind of using as an evaluation point and we look forward to updating it very soon.
Jacob Barr :
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah and that’s really good information. And in some counties, the need for a large number of Francine Clinics is needed because of the fact that, you know, there’s a larger population, there’s a larger amount of opposition who is actively promoting and marketing in that space. But the fact that we have at least one in 51 % of the counties, I had forgotten that number and that’s really encouraging. Thank you for yeah, sharing that.
Jor-El Godsey :
Sure well, I actually Jacob, i remember seeing it somewhere where the abortion industry was bemoaning the fact that there were, you know, that they were only in 12 % of the, I mean 88 % i thought that we didn’t know like we hadn’t even done that this kind of what inspired the research on that was like well how many counties are we in And we started to look at it and used our worldwide directory to help understand that which is which is counting all of the pregnancy centers right not just our affiliates that’s all of them that we know of and we were delighted to find that was 51 % and I I’m hoping that when we do we renew that information in the beginning of next year that we’ll find that it’s increased because I know we’ve helped open a few centers new ones through our life launch program in counties that did not previously have a pregnancy center so I know it’s gone up a little bit whether or not it’s been enough to kind of tick the counter up to 52 or 53 %, I don’t know yet.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah and then, yeah, and obviously, a new study, yeah, that’d be it’d be interesting to see how much growth we’ve had over those years. So for the sake of time, I think we’ve got about 5 minutes left and so there’s something I want to make sure that we address before we have to wrap things up. And that is the next conference, the next heartbeat conference coming up in is it it’s in Salt Lake City, utah. April something next year i don’t know what day in April, but it’s always April.
Jor-El Godsey :
No, it’s not always April, but yeah, it is it’s landed in April the last couple years and occasionally we kind of dip at the end of usually we’re dancing around Easter, right depends upon where Easter’s moving. So we’re well after, i think Easter’s actually gonna be in March this year, but we’re at the end of April yes. Like twenty six twenty six twenty seven twenty eight somewhere around there. Yeah, so.
Jacob Barr :
I would encourage those who are listening. You know, if you’re affiliated, you probably have been to a heartbeat conference before you should go again. It’s this is, this is the place to be. You know they’re not teaching things that you know they taught 10 years ago hopefully, they still actually, hopefully that’s still the case. But there are things that are new, there are things that have changed and there are things that and really getting back to the basics, honestly, that is always part of everyone’s you know, be being prepared. Completely prepared is including basics but at the same time having knowledge and information based on the current environment and in a post row world and with current things going on, it’s really good the speakers are epic and that’s actually one of the things that inspired this podcast was to invite a speaker. So, you know, essentially Lori Davilas is one of the people I was thinking of when I was thinking through this idea of this podcast because she would go to a heartbeat conference or to another conference and she would share about 40 things in about an hour. And it was really good. But I longed for her to have only, you know, to have the opportunity to share one thing, maybe with an extra 30 minutes on that one thing. And so that was one of my inspirations for this podcast was to give someone who you know have the caliber of a Heartbeat international conference and giving them more time on less so because it’s such an awesome opportunity, but you know, and there’s so many good things to share. And so my goal was to try and just slow it down so someone could yeah, have less to share over a longer period of time because I. But I based on being inspired by literally the caliber of speakers that are often at a heartbeat international conference or consistently at a heartbeat international conference so.
Jor-El Godsey :
Well thanks Jacob it it’s one of our great privileges to really put that on and to get the chance to stand in the same room with so many heroes of ours. I think that whole idea of community and the conference really kind of represents kind of the best visible opportunity to see us all together in one room not that all of us are there, but this it’s a strong representation i know we had, we had close to i think in our we have two conferences really we have the in person conference and we have the virtual conference and you know we had nearly nineteen hundred people that were involved in all of that fifteen hundred you know sixteen hundred in a room at the OR with us at the hotel in Louisville where we were last year. We’re hoping for the similar numbers in Salt Lake City but it’s a great opportunity when we can just come together and just to be near each other because I really think there’s two things one is like no one really understands the work of pregnancy help like another person that does pregnancy help so to be in a room together to you know whether we live in you know Alabama or we live in Arizona, it’s like you know we’d come together and be in the same room is amazing thing and it’s really part of that community. And that’s another thing that really touches me about being at the conference is really the fact that we can be in community that’s really what we should be and you know that’s why one of the reasons why at our conference we don’t vary the cost for our affiliates versus non affiliates so it’s just as accessible to those that are not affiliated because we think that the opportunity is important to make it as available to all as we can.
Jacob Barr :
Oh, that’s that is awesome. So would you close out this podcast with a with a prayer i think we have about two minutes left and so I just want to, yeah, honor your time and. But yeah, would you close this out with a prayer?
Jor-El Godsey :
Certainly thank you, Jacob for the opportunity, Father i thank you for Jacob i thank you for the team and I rapture and for how so many years they’ve been serving the pregnancy help community with faithfulness, with a passion, and just with a wisdom and discernment. Pray that you continue to bless them and bless this podcast and Jacob for doing it and Lord, I just thank you for the pregnancy help community, how you have brought people who have been at this for longer than I have, Lord, have been at this for many years. And you’ve also brought people who have just stepped into the movement in the last year. And Lord, it is quite a dynamic time for that to be the case but thank you, Lord, for calling your people to accomplish your work and so, Lord, we thank you for this, the opportunity that you give us to champion you, the giver of life, and to champion what you give the gift of life and so, Father, I thank you for the blessing. It is to be a part of this missionary field that you’ve called us to and thank you, Lord, for everything that you provide the for us, for what you’ve called us to accomplish we trust in you. We believe, Lord, that you’ll that you do this and we thank you, Father, that you give us the privilege to be part of it and I ask your blessing on all of them. In Jesus name amen.
Jacob Barr :
Amen.