Pregnancy Decision Health Centers commemorates 40 years of saving lives

Pregnancy Decision Health Centers (PDHC) will gather in Lancaster and Columbus this month to celebrate 40 years of rescuing lives and impacting families for generations together as a community.

PDHC’s Celebration for Life Galas are set for 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 16 at the Crossroads Ministry Center, 2095 W. Fair Ave. in Lancaster and at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23 at Villa Milano, 1630 Schrock Road in Columbus. 

Special guests will be PDHC founders Mike and Peggy Hartshorn and their friends who helped envision the first pregnancy help center in Columbus, now known as PDHC. Both nights will also feature humorist, author and former professional golfer Kirk Walden as the guest speaker. 

PDHC’s first center opened in 1981 on the eighth anniversary of Roe v. Wade and had 309 visits and 2,800 hotline calls that year. 

In 1981, there were more than 40,000 surgical abortions in the state of Ohio with more than 50 abortion clinics providing this service. Fast- forward to 2020 and PDHC’s five resource centers set a record with more than 6,900 visits and over 40,000 hotline calls, texts and chats.

According to the latest statistics from the Ohio Department of Health, there were about 20,000 abortions in 2019 in Ohio, with Franklin County having the second highest abortion rate in the state. As of 2020, Ohio had eight remaining abortion centers.

While surgical abortions are decreasing, chemical abortions via the abortion pill are increasing at a rapid rate. In 2019, surgical abortions represented about 70% of all abortions in Franklin County.

In 2018, an abortion pill center opened less than 3 miles from PDHC’s busiest resource center.

Beginning in late 2019, PDHC joined affiliate Heartbeat International’s Abortion Pill Rescue Network and began providing abortion pill reversal services to help women who regret starting a chemical abortion and want a second chance to save the life of their baby. Since then, several women have received this service through PDHC and healthy babies have been born. More babies are expected to be saved through abortion pill reversal this year.

Learn more about abortion pill reversal and hear inspirational stories of lives saved and impacted over the last 40 years at PDHC’s Celebration for Life Galas. Those will include a couple who arrived at PDHC as scared college students unsure about what to do with their unexpected pregnancy and from three women with personal abortion stories that found hope and healing through PDHC’s abortion recovery programs and services. 

Register for the Celebration for Life Galas at SupportLifePDHC.org. For more information, email [email protected]