In yesterday’s article, I made a bold assertion:
“Here’s a painful truth about the Pro-Life Business Industry: In the way they interact with abortion-seeking women on first contact, many, if not most, pro-life pregnancy help centers, from a marketing and sales perspective, do not demonstrate that they have those abortion-seeking womens’ best interests at heart.”
When I say things like that, it makes some pro-lifers angry because they think I am judging the hearts of the individuals who work at the centers.
I am not.
I am simply using my marketing experience and expertise to evaluate the procedures those centers use when they interact with abortion-seeking women on first contact.
Please allow me to demonstrate with a fictitious example, but an example that does accurately capture what I see take place every day at many pro-life pregnancy help centers across the country.
Jane’s Story
Let’s go out in to the future 20 years to the year 2040 where we meet Jane.
Jane is 38 years old, married, with two young children.
Jane is grateful that she lives a good life.
She is generally happy most of the time, and feels blessed.
However, for the past couple of years, something Jane did many years ago, something she thought she had “put behind her,” has increasingly started to weigh heavily on her heart.
For nearly 20 years, Jane has harbored a secret deep within herself about what she did back in 2020, something so private that only two other people – her husband and one very close friend – know about it.
The emotional stress caused by the regret of what she did became so severe recently that Jane signed up to attend a special retreat this weekend – a retreat designed to help heal her emotional scars.
Jane Back in 2020
The source of Jane’s regret?
It happened when Jane was a freshman in college in the year 2020.
At a fraternity party, Jane meets a boy she likes.
They both have a little too much to drink, one thing leads to another, and they sleep together.
Jane isn’t too proud of this, but she thinks to herself, “Hey, that’s what college kids do, right?”
Four weeks pass, and Jane is late for her period.
She’s concerned so she takes a home pregnancy test, and is shocked to see the result – Jane is pregnant.
Her mind is racing a million miles an hour – what about my college plans? my career plans? what will my mom think of me…?
Jane feels so ashamed and afraid that she decides not to tell anyone she’s pregnant.
She’ll take care of this on her own.
She takes out her smartphone and does an internet search using the words, “where can I get an abortion?”
The search results appear, and she calls one of the organizations listed.
Jane feels nervous as the phone rings, and then, a staff member at the organization answers the phone….
What You Want, or What You Need?
Before we listen in on the call between Jane and the staff member at the organization, I would like you to keep in mind the quote from yesterday’s article about the definition of marketing, as expressed by the internet marketing podcaster I follow: “Marketing is about connecting the dots for people. They don’t know they need it. But because you have their best interests at heart, you help them see that they need it.”
Jane is calling an organization because she wants an abortion.
Even though Jane wants an abortion, a marketer who is pro-life will focus on the question of whether or not an abortion is in Jane’s best interests?
In other words, even though Jane says she wants an abortion, is an abortion what Jane truly needs?
Of course, any pro-life individual, professional marketer or not, knows that an abortion is not in Jane’s best interests.
Asking an abortionist to intentionally kill her own child is not what Jane, or any woman for that matter, needs.
Any marketer who is pro-life and has the opportunity to engage with Jane knows, with 100% certainty, that what is in Jane’s best interests, what she needs, is to choose life for her child.
The pro-life marketer’s job is to help Jane see that it is in her best interest to choose life, not abortion.
What to Say?
With that background, let’s return to Jane’s phone call and listen in.
Fortunately for Jane, the organization she called is a pro-life pregnancy center whose stated mission is to serve abortion-seeking women, helping them choose life instead of abortion.
After general greetings between Jane and the organization’s staff member who answered the call, Jane states the reason for her call.
“I took a pregnancy test this morning, and it’s positive. I’m in college and I can’t have this baby, so I want to get an abortion. Can you tell me what I need to do?”
The pro-life staff member has now heard what Jane wants – an abortion.
But knowing what Jane truly needs, which is to choose life, what should the pro-life staff member say?
Clearly, the response to Jane will need to demonstrate significant marketing and sales skills in order to begin a process that will help Jane see that it is in her best interests to choose life.
Connecting the dots for Jane must be done very skillfully, and with great care, in order for her to see that, it’s not abortion, but choosing life, that is in her best interests – that choosing life is what she truly needs.
Let’s see how the pro-life staff member answered Jane’s question.
The pro-life staff member replies to Jane, “I’m sorry. We neither perform, nor refer, for abortions.”
Now, I have no hesitation in confidently stating the following: That reply given to Jane by the pro-life staff member is not, in any way, shape, or form, the reply a skilled professional marketer would give.
My questions for you to ponder this weekend: In what way does the reply given by the pro-life staff member to Jane express any desire on the part of the pregnancy center to help Jane see what is in her best interests? To start moving Jane away from what she says she wants, to helping her see what she truly needs? To help connect the dots for her?
I ask you to consider my questions carefully because that reply given by the pro-life staff member in Jane’s case is the standard reply that many, if not most, pro-life pregnancy help centers across our country give every day when asked by abortion-seeking women if their centers provide abortions.
The result in Jane’s case?
She kindly thanked the staff member, hung up, and called the next number on the list on her smartphone: a Planned Parenthood facility.
And you know what that meant for Jane and her baby…
And this is also what many women actually do, every day, when they receive that reply from pro-life pregnancy centers.
Jane Got What She Wanted, But….
Returning to Jane in the year 2040.
Jane knows well the source of her emotional angst.
She first experienced it when her “first” child was born 10 years ago in 2030.
As overjoyed as she was to see her son’s face, a terrible realization gripped Jane’s heart at that moment – she remembered what she had done to her true “first” child back in 2020.
Fast forward to the year 2040, with the full support of her loving husband, Jane plans to attend a three-day abortion healing retreat in the near future where she hopes to find answers to help heal her emotional scars caused by the abortion she experienced 20 years earlier.
Thankfully, the counselors at the retreat Jane will attend have a high success rate at connecting the dots for those who have had abortions – helping them come to know that they can be forgiven for what they did.
Truly, the counselors at the retreat have Jane’s best interests at heart.
Regards,
Brett