Did you know that “data suggest that among at risk women the combined provision of counseling and ultrasound results in nearly 60% more stated decisions for life than with counseling alone”?! 60%! Statistics created by Focus on the Family’s “Option Ultrasound Program” have concluded that since OUP’s humble beginning in 2004 roughly 81,000 babies have been saved. 81,000 precious and beautiful lives! Between 2004 and 2010 OUP has granted 378 ultrasound machines and 128 sonography trainings throughout the country. “The Option Ultrasound Program (OUP) provides grants to qualifying pregnancy medical clinics for 80% of the cost of a new ultrasound machine or sonography training for your medical personnel.”
Approximate costs for an ultrasound machine average: $21,000 – $33,000
Approximate training costs: $13,000 – $17,000
Saving a life & seeing your child for the first time: PRICELESS
With the help of Focus on the Family’s OUP, pregnancy medical clinics can file to become eligible to receive an ultrasound machine for their ministry at %20 of the cost (Focus on the Family covers the other 80%). Lee of Tennessee shares with Focus on the Family that “…going back to that first ultrasound, where I saw his heart beating, and then to hold him in my arms when he was born, I just thank God for every moment of it…that I made the right choice.” OUP had worked with organizations like Project Ultrasound to help more at risk women view ultrasounds and choose life. Project Ultrasound states that “Between seventy and ninety-percent of “abortion minded” mothers who see an ultrasound choose life, but only 40% of crisis pregnancy centers nationwide are equipped with ultrasound machines due their extremely high cost.”
Likewise, the Knights of Columbus have created the “Ultrasound Initiative.” “The Knights of Columbus Ultrasound Initiative seeks to provide medically certified pro-life pregnancy centers with the modern technology to monitor the health of babies in utero, and to allow mothers to visually experience their development.” The ultrasound is literally a “window to the womb” in which parents are able to see and realize that their child is a human being not a “choice.” Creator and Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson stated that “Even from the early stages of pregnancy, a mother can see her developing child, hear the baby’s heartbeat, and to recognize the miracle of the new life within her.”
“To actually know that everything had developed in such a short amount of time, if I could not have seen that, I would still have been in disbelief that that is still a child. Just to see that big bright light (the heart beat) coming out of the machine was just incredible. To know that that was a human and that was a part of me…you just gain this closeness that was really life chancing for me and I guess that was the point that I had to stand up and say that this is my child too.” – A fathers ultrasound experience
