HOPE Pregnancy Center holds grand opening

WADESBORO — HOPE Pregnancy Resource Center hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday, June 10 for their new facility, located at 101 Moores Lake Road in Wadesboro.

HOPE is a faith-based, pro-life non-profit organization that provides peer counseling, parenting classes, pregnancy classes, and limited ultrasounds. Founded in 2012 by Kathy Landon, HOPE received it’s 501 (c)(3) status in 2013, which was the same year current its current Director, Rebekah Carpenter, first began volunteering at the Center.

Pregnancy Resource Centers like HOPE began popping up around the country in the mid-2010s after a number of legal battles in the Supreme Court concerning abortion laws. Unlike Planned Parenthood and Health Departments, these resource centers are funded entirely by donations and receive no grants from the government.

These centers typically do not recommend abortions, even in instances where carrying a baby to term may endanger the life of the mother or on occasions of rape and incest.

“When we see women we make sure they are fully aware that they need to be advised by a doctor during the course of their pregnancy,” said Carpenter. “We also make them aware that we are not a medical facility but a resource. We do abide by the law and report cases to (the Department of Social Services) or domestic violence when necessary.”

HOPE also promotes abstinence-only education. Their mission statement on their Facebook page reads, “We believe God wants to: Heal the emotional and spiritual hurts from past abortions, lifestyle choices, and abuse; overcome the obstacles which would prevent a healthy lifestyle for both mother and child; protect the life of the unborn and the mother; encourage God’s design for sexuality through abstinence.”

Abstinence-only sex education has been a source of controversy in the U.S. and numerous studies have shown it actually increases rates of teen pregnancy and STDs among students. One such study conducted by Kathrin F. Stanger-Hall and David W. Hall found that abstinence-only education “may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.” They found that this trend remained after accounting for socioeconomic status, teen educational attainment, ethnic composition of the teen population, and availability of Medicaid waivers for family planning services in each state.

Carpenter’s own experience with teen pregnancy is what began her involvement with HOPE Pregnancy Resource Center. “Back in 2008, I found out that I was pregnant,” said Carpenter. “I was 17. I actually thought about having an abortion myself. I went to a pregnancy resource center, much like this one, and the women, they were so kind. They educated me on what abortion was. I had an ultrasound. I found out that I was nine weeks pregnant and that my baby already had fingers and toes.”

Seeing her baby’s fingers and toes as a young mother was what made her so dedicated to this cause.

“When HOPE started I went to (Landon) and I told her ‘I don’t care what I do, I want to help somehow’ because a ministry just like this impacted my life so greatly,” she said.

Eventually, Carpenter began volunteering, first at events, and then doing office work and providing client services.

“Over the years I’ve learned more and more,” said Carpenter, “I went to different conferences. When Kathy felt led to resign, the Board came to me. I was shocked. She felt like God was calling her in a different direction.” 

Landon retired in December 2019. Rebekah has been Director since January 2020.

“We originally started in a storage room at Cathedral Baptist Church in Wadesboro,” explained Carpenter. Hope then moved from the storage room to a small, two-room office in Polkton. “Then, went down to the corner of Morgan and Morven, we were there for a few years. Finally, we moved here. We opened, officially, here on June 1.”

HOPE’s long-term goals, according to Carpenter, “are to increase our clientele, to reach more women in the community, and to make the community aware of what we are and what we do. We also want to be more involved in the school system.”

Assisting Carpenter in accomplishing these goals is a small team of volunteers, one of which is Elizabeth Randall.

“I’m a retired educator,” said Randall. “When I retired I wanted the Lord to put me in a place where I could help. What made me come here was when some of the states, like New York, passed the full-term abortion law.”

The law Randall is referring to the Reproductive Health Act, which was signed into law on Jan. 22, 2019 by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The law legalized abortion at any time “when necessary to protect a woman’s life or health” or in the absence of fetal viability. The act allows licensed health care practitioners other than physicians to perform abortions if doing so falls within their lawful scope of practice.

Pro-choice advocates and medical professionals see the law as necessary to protect the life of the mother while pro-life advocates view the law as an attack on the unborn.