I claimed yesterday that Pregnancy Help Centers, in general, are performing poorly at ministry.
This claim will bring scorn my way from many in the Pro-Life Movement who will tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about because “ministry” is about serving others, and folks who work at Pregnancy Help Centers have huge hearts for service.
How dare me.
Let me be clear. I am NOT, in any way, doubting that people working at the thousands of PHCs across the country have hearts to serve.
I personally know many such people.
But what is the core intent of their service on behalf of PHCs?
The way we can find that out is to simply ask them why they are serving at a PHC.
But if we want to get to the real core intent, we can’t ask the “why?” question like adults would ask it.
Why? Why? Why?
When adults ask a question of another adult, they rarely probe beyond the first or second answer they receive.
That would be perceived as being “pushy.”
No, we have to ask the “Why?” question like a five-year-old who has both an insatiable curiosity, and a complete lack of concern for being thought of as “pushy.”
If you have experienced being “interrogated” by a five-year-old, you know what I mean when I say get ready for an endless barrage of “whys!”
I am going to simplify here for the sake of brevity, but if I channel my inner five-year-old and ask the question of a typical PHC worker, “Why do you work here?” the response chain will go something like this:
Me: “Why do you work here?”
PHC Worker: “I want to help women facing unexpected pregnancies.”
Me: “Why?”
PHC Worker: “Because those women are afraid and don’t know what to do.”
Me: “Why?”
PHC Worker: “Because in their fear, the women may choose to abort their babies, and I don’t want them to do that.”
Me: “Why?”
PHC Worker: “Because abortion takes the life of an innocent human being who has a right to life, and I want to save them from abortion.”
Notice how the first answer to the “Why?” question focused on helping the woman, but as we continued with the “Why?” chain of questioning, the focus shifted to helping the preborn human being growing in its mother’s womb.
In other words, once we drilled down to the core intent of the typical PHC worker we discovered that the true “ministry” is ultimately about helping the preborn human being get what he/she wants (life!), not helping the woman get what she wants (what do those women want? Find the answer by clicking here).
Again, I know that statement will make a lot of people angry who will tell me that I’m wrong.
But instead of responding to their anger with emotion, I will simply turn to the numbers and ask, “If PHCs are so effective at ministering to women facing unexpected pregnancies, then why are a typical PHC’s market share numbers so low relative to a typical Abortion Facility’s numbers?“
I believe the answer to that question is because PHCs, although believing themselves to be very “other-oriented,” are, in reality, very “self-oriented.”
“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let me explain.
If I am right that the core intent of PHCs is to save babies from abortion, then PHCs will project that intent in their interactions with women facing unexpected pregnancies.
In other words, in the best case, PHCs will project in their “choose life services” offering, that the preborn human is valuable in some way to the woman experiencing an unexpected pregnancy.
In the worst case, the PHCs will project that it’s ALL about the preborn human.
Either way, that projection of the value of the preborn human is NOT in alignment with what the woman wants.
That projection by PHCs is “self-orientation” – what the PHC workers want – masquerading as “other-orientation.”
Or perhaps more accurately, PHCs do have an “other-orientation,” but the “other” in this case is the wrong target, the preborn human, and the mistake in targeting is a result of the “self-orientation” of having the core intent of saving babies from abortion.
My belief is that because PHCs are fundamentally “self-oriented” – they want to save preborn humans from abortion – and not “other-oriented” toward the pregnant woman, PHCs are NOT focused on helping those women with the outcomes the women want.
And young women in the U.S. are very savvy consumers, so they can smell that “self-oriented” projection from a mile away.
I believe that is the primary reason why the Pro-Life Business Industry loses the game to the Abortion Industry before it even begins.
Controversial stuff, I know.
More to come…
Regards,
Brett
