- A growing chain of women'spregnancy centers in Texas
is now offering contraception.
Historically, pregnancycenters have not done this,
but CBN's Heather Sellsspoke with Andy Schoonover,
CEO of The Source, about howcenters around the country
are rethinking the model.
- Andy, thanks for joining us.
You are pro-life and so are your clinics,
but you decided to goin a different direction
and offer contraception.
What motivated you?
- Yeah, I got here about two years ago.
I started with the organization
and I originally was very skeptical
of using contraception as a tool
to help some of these women,
but as I saw women come into our centers
who were on their second or their third
or their fourth abortions, I just realized
that we had to take amore proactive approach
in reducing unplanned pregnancies.
And so, along with STD/STI testing,
well women check-ups, prenatal care,
we've also expanded ourservices to offer contraception.
- And some pro-life people are worried
that if you offer contraception,
it will encourage people tohave sex outside of marriage.
What is your response to that?
- Yeah, all the studies out there show,
or most of them show, orat least the big ones show
that that's just not the case.
Most of the women, all the women actually
who come into our officesare having either,
they're either pregnantor they have STD/STI
or at high risk, andso these women are not
in that decision-making process
of having sex or not having sex.
They have crossed over that bridge,
and now the question for us is, one,
how do we protect them, and then two is
how do we bring themback across the bridge
to a more biblical view of sex,
and we think that using atool like contraception,
we can build a relationship with them
and the gradually introducethem to the gospel,
and like I said, hopefully bring them back
to a more biblical view of sex.
- And so far, what areyou finding with this,
with the women that you've been supplying
with contraception?
How's that been working out?
- Well we're actually starting in January,
so it will be new for us in January.
We just announced it this month.
So we'll see.
We're actually embarking upon a study
to show that we can actuallyreduce risky sexual behaviors,
reduce unplanned pregnancies,
and introduce more women to the gospel,
and that study is gonna start next year,
it's gonna be a one-year study
that we hope will prove out our theory.
- There's also concernthat some contraception,
like the morning after pill,is actually a form of abortion.
How do you plan to handle that?
- Yeah, we're not usingany abortifacients.
And so there was a prettyfamous Hobby Lobby case
from three or four years ago
in conjunction withthe Affordable Care Act
where Hobby Lobby said,"We don't want to pay
"for these four forms of contraception,"
because they thoughtthey were abortifacients,
and we agree with Hobby Lobby on that.
And so we are going to keep from offering
those forms of contraception.
- As you know, Planned Parenthood decided
to forego federal TitleX funding this year
rather than comply with new rules
that restricted its abilityto refer women for abortions.
You are now able to compete for that money
by offering this contraception.
How big of an opportunityis this for you to grow?
- Well, we think it's a big opportunity,
but our growth plan is not predicated upon
getting this Title X money.
We are in the middle of a capital campaign
to raise $20 million to buildan additional 20 clinics
throughout the state.
We have eight currentlyin the state of Texas
in the four major
metropolitan areas.(phone rings)
So sorry about that.
(phone rings)And we...
(buttons click)
We, sorry, we are gonna build20 more clinics in the state,
we have eight currently, andwe're raising $20 million
to do that.
- All right, and any otherpro-life pregnancy centers
in the country that you know of
that are offering contraception right now?
Do you think you're the first?
- No, we're not the first actually.
We've had an article comeout in The Washington Post
about a month ago now, and since then,
we have had a couple, actually,
organizations reach out to us and say,
"Oh we thought we werethe only ones doing this
"and now you all are doing it.
"Welcome to the club."
So there are a couple others
that we've heard from that are doing this,
so we're not the first.
- All right, well it's gonnabe interesting to follow.
Andy Schoonover with TheSource, thanks for your time.
