In the face of recent calls for pregnancy care centres to lose charitable status and for Fraser Health to end its partnership with Hope for Women, a pregnancy care centre primarily operating in the Fraser Valley, pregnancy care centres need additional support.
Hope for Women and pregnancy care centres in general provide support for women in one of the most life-changing situations they find themselves in: becoming a new mother. Every year, hundreds of thousands of women experience an unplanned pregnancy. They are daunted by the prospect of being responsible for a child. For some women, a child will disrupt career aspirations or exacerbate their material needs. Some face the prospect of being a single mother or fear domestic abuse. Some women simply don’t feel ready to be a mother yet.
“But that’s where pregnancy care centres like Hope for Women step in,” explains Mike Schouten, Executive Director for the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada and their We Need a Law campaign. “Pregnancy care centres provide support that might be difficult or costly to otherwise find.”
Hope for Women, for example, presents the options of parenting, adoption, and abortion, but these conversations are simply the beginning, rather than the end, of the services they provide. They also provide free prenatal classes, emotional support, and maternity clothing to expectant mothers. They give postpartum support to women who keep their child. They provide post abortion care and support for those who need it. They even have support services for men, matching new dads with mentors.
“In many ways,” Schouten continues, “choosing to abort a child is easy. Abortion is publicly funded and easily accessible for women in the Fraser Valley. Abortion prevents disruption to a woman’s life and the tremendous emotional, financial, and physical costs of a child. Choosing life, on the other hand, can be hard. New mothers need support. In a society with shrinking family sizes and increasing rates of loneliness, pregnancy care centres may be the only place where expectant mothers can get the free support that they need. That’s why pregnancy care centres need our support, not our condemnation.”
“It is wonderful that we have a medical system that is free at the point of access,” notes Levi Minderhoud, a policy analyst for ARPA Canada. “But mothers need more than just medicine. Our health care institutions simply are not designed or capable of providing the wide range of non-medical supports that new mothers need. That’s where pregnancy care centres excel.”
New and expectant mothers are best served when both our medical systems and social support systems work hand in hand, such as when Fraser Health partners with Hope for Women.
“Rather than tearing down collaboration, revoking funding, and terminating contracts between Fraser Health and local pregnancy care centres,” concludes Schouten, “this partnership should continue to grow. If we truly want to support women, then there needs to be institutions that support expectant and new mothers. Not just institutions that provide abortion.”
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For further comment, please contact Mike Schouten at [email protected] or at 778-321-2457.