Pregnancy Centers
Pregnancy care centers provide no-cost services like pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, and STD testing. These pro-life centers form relationships with couples and individual parents who have an unplanned pregnancy. Many offer financial and material support, family and parenting education, post-abortion counseling, prayer, and spiritual support. Nevertheless, a mainstream narrative exists in our culture that tries to hinder these facilities that cater to moms and growing families.
What Pregnancy Centers Do
Pregnancy help centers offer much-needed support for parents who find themselves in an unplanned, crisis pregnancy, as well as parenting moms and dads. This support often covers a range of standard medical tests and treatments and material assistance too, but also varies depending on the individual clinic. The clinics offer patients abortion alternatives. If a licensed medical director supervises the clinic, it is referred to as a Pregnancy Medical Center. If a facility is designated this way, it is a clear indicator that they provide medical treatment. Other centers might focus on providing different resources for moms in need. Alternate terms for pregnancy centers, or pregnancy help centers, include: Pregnancy Care Center, Pregnancy Resource Center, Pregnancy Support Center, and others.
What Services They Offer
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge once wrote, “Our country’s network of pregnancy care centers and maternity homes work to ensure that no woman is left alone in her own hour of need.” Pregnancy centers offer a range of support services including pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), consultation with medical professionals, Abortion Pill Reversal, parenting and post-abortive support, and material resources for you and your child like diapers, formula, food, baby clothes, strollers, car seats, childcare, financial aid, career services, housing referrals, and more. The services offered at a pregnancy center are free of charge. There are over 2,750 pregnancy centers in the U.S. As of 2017, these centers helped nearly 2 million people through free services!
Why They Are Important
Pregnancy centers offer important support to our communities, helping women and families in need. When a baby is on the way, any number of things can feel more stressful: finances, housing, healthcare, childcare for other kids, job security, support for your child on the way, the list goes on. Research suggests that “emotional motivators,” such as stress and fear, can lead to some women considering an abortion. Pregnancy centers don’t just offer an alternative to abortion, they actively help moms with their everyday needs. Words of comfort to a mom in need only go so far. In Scripture, we read, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 2:15-16). The staff behind pregnancy care centers not only offer prayer and moral support for the people who come to them. They offer real monetary aid and other physical support. In this way, pregnancy centers help moms and their babies not only live but flourish!
The Opposition that Pregnancy Centers Face
Centers that support moms in need often come under fire in mainstream media and thus in the culture at large. Even though many pregnancy centers offer medical services from professionals, the popular narrative typically refers to these facilities as “fake” health clinics. As of 2022, close to 82% of pregnancy centers offered ultrasounds, and 36% offered STD testing, according to Alliance Defending Freedom. These pro-life centers have been accused of being unsafe, of offering inaccurate results, and of not respecting boundaries. In reality, when a center offers ultrasounds and medical examinations and treatments, the procedures are conducted by professionals. Staff also respect the free will of the women they care for, but they will never advise anyone to have an abortion. They don’t pressure their patients but seek to offer relief. Despite this, some pro-abortion advocates have vandalized pregnancy centers, thus impairing their ability to offer life-supporting care to patients.
The Legislation That Opposes and Promotes Pregnancy Centers
Angered pro-abortion advocates have vandalized pregnancy clinics in Alaska, Colorado, Florida, New York, Vermont, and Virginia. The violence has hit closer to home too. A few years ago, the Chicago Tribune reported that the Women’s Care Center in Peoria was deliberately set on fire in 2021. More recently, an Aid for Women pregnancy center in Chicago was vandalized in 2024; the perpetrators splattered red paint on the building and cemented the doors shut. Pregnancy care centers deserve legal protection. Thankfully, some federal legislation in recent years reflects the desire to protect these clinics’ rights, such as the Pregnancy Center Support Act of 2024 (S.3610 of the 118th Congress) and the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025 (H.R.589 of the 119th Congress). At the same time, however, there are laws currently in effect that hinder pro-life clinics. The U.S. Catholic bishops opposed the FACE Act when it was passed in 1994; this federal law discriminates against peaceful pro-life advocates and has done little to protect pregnancy care centers from being vandalized. At the state level, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law the Deceptive Practices of Limited Services Pregnancy Centers Act in 2023 (passed by the Illinois General Assembly as Senate Bill 1909/House Bill 2463). The act targets pregnancy care centers, accuses them of manipulation and misinformation, and does not cite any facts when it asserts that such centers are marked by their “deceptive, fraudulent, and misleading practices.” Thankfully, a federal court struck down this law, and it has not been enforced. In reality, pregnancy care centers are just what they say they are.
There are many outstanding pregnancy centers within the Diocese of Rockford that cater to women in crisis pregnancies and families in need. The Waterleaf Women’s Center in Aurora and Aid for Women in Rockford are both Catholic pregnancy help centers. The Rockford diocesan LiFE Office is also proud to partner with the Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford and Rockford Family Initiative to provide Sidewalk Advocates for Life training programs. Once trained, these generous advocates offer life-supporting encouragement and can even direct women to one of the centers in the city or other resources.