FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY
Catholic PRWire

COLUMBUS, OH (March 8, 2012) - Heartbeat International’s Option Line reaches and rescues as many lives as possible by connecting women who face unexpected pregnancies with the pregnancy help organization that can meet their needs.

Focusing on maternal health and child well-being, Heartbeat International and our affiliates renew communities for life by helping each person to understand his/her own inherent worth, by restoring dignity to women, and by helping each mom to recognize the inestimable value of the child in her womb.

The visionary founders of Heartbeat International, Dr. John F. Hillabrand and Lore Maier, made it our mission to track every haven of pregnancy support around the globe and to publish the Heartbeat International Worldwide Directory™, a list of resources for women facing untimely pregnancies. For 40 years, our goal has been to connect women with the help they need to welcome new life.

In 2001, for the first time, Heartbeat made the Directory available online to help women connect with the emotional support and practical assistance they needed to sustain a healthy pregnancy.

In 2002, we founded Option Line as a joint venture with Care Net.

Now, Option Line is solely a program of Heartbeat International and has a new phone number, 1-800-712-HELP, where bilingual consultants are available 24/7/365 to connect callers to the closest pregnancy help organization. Through our state-of-the-art locator system, we connect those in need to a network of more than 1,800 pregnancy help organizations, including pregnancy centers, life-affirming medical clinics, non-profit adoption agencies, maternity homes, and abortion recovery groups.

The Option Line contact center has grown to handle more than 200,000 contacts (phone calls, emails, instant messages, and chats) each year. Since answering that first call in January 2003, Heartbeat’s Option Line has served more than 1.5 million women, men, and youth across the U.S. and Canada.

Often we hear from pregnancy center directors and clients who want to share the life-changing power of Option Line. Here’s one such note from a client care director at an affiliate in Florida:
“Carrie (name changed) had called the Option Line one day in August after being at the abortion clinic just a few hours before. The abortion clinic told her that at 20 weeks she was too far along to abort in this county and gave her referrals to go to another county. She started looking on the internet for more information about abortion and she found the number for Option Line. She was connected to us to talk about all her options. She said that, though she wasn’t particularly religious, she prayed on her way here for God to give her direction about what to do.
When I talked to her and told her we were a Christian organization and that we believe that God did indeed direct her steps here to hear the truth, she sobbed uncontrollably. She had a sonogram at the abortion clinic but was told she had the option not to see the images and she chose not to look. We performed an ultrasound for her here and when she saw the images of her baby moving around she was mesmerized and fell in love with her child. The next day when we followed up with her she thanked us and said, “I was getting ready to make the biggest mistake of my life! I’m so glad I found you guys.”

Please take a few minutes now to update your contacts list in your cell phone, as well as church bulletins or other places where you have promoted Heartbeat’s Option Line. Heartbeat’s brand new number, 1-800-712-4357 [HELP], is the toll-free number that saves lives one heart at a time.

We know that nothing can take the place of the one-on-one, practical support offered by life-honoring pregnancy help organizations. That is why Heartbeat’s Option Line is so vital. The support of thousands of financial partners is what keeps pregnancy assistance flowing at Heartbeat’s Option Line. Please visit HeartbeatInternational.org/olhelp to pledge your support for this vital service.

Contact

Heartbeat International
http://heartbeatinternational.org/olhelp  OH, 43229 US
Virginia Cline - Director of Public Relations & Public Policy,  614-885-7577 ext 112

Keywords

Pregnancy centers, heartbeat international, option line

Category

Pro-life Resources