Texas pregnancy center celebrates saving 90,000 babies from abortion
A Texas pregnancy center is celebrating the lives of 90,000 children who've been saved from abortion in its first 30 years of operation.
Leanne Jamieson, the executive director of Prestonwood Pregnancy Center, which has multiple locations in Dallas and surrounding suburbs, appeared on CBN News’ “The Prayer Link” program Tuesday, where she said the organization had a “divine appointment” to save as many lives as possible by convincing women to choose life.
“When that young woman or couple walks through the door of our center, we see it as a divine appointment and in our experience, they also are often broken and looking for hope,” she said. “They’ve found themselves in this circumstance and it really often reveals other areas of their life that they’re struggling in.”
Jamieson described her staff as “really good listeners,” adding, “We’re really there to help them problem-solve and navigate their situation. And I tell our volunteers and our staff, ‘If you’re a good listener, then God is going to open that door.’”
“I think pregnancy resource centers are a very special mission field, so we exist to help those that find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy, and we provide so much for them,” she added. “We provide pregnancy tests and sonograms, we provide resources and those things that we need to do to help invest in that woman or that couple to help them become the parents that we believe God has called them to be.”
Addressing the importance of adoption referrals, Jamieson maintained that “We believe every baby is meant to be born, but not every birth mama is supposed to parent.”
Shortly after moving to North Texas, Pastor Jack Graham, the pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, founded Prestonwood Pregnancy Center in 1991. Graham had previously founded a pregnancy center in Florida after delivering a sermon about Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
According to Jamieson, “He felt like when he got out of the pulpit, the Lord said to him, ‘That’s great, but what are you going to do about it?’” Graham elaborated further on his founding of Prestonwood Pregnancy Center and its impact in a 2018 Christian Post op-ed published on the 45th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.
“I can’t help but think what would happen if every woman pressed to get an abortion had access to the support and resources of a center like ours. Abortion might remain legal, but fewer women would turn to it as a solution,” he concluded.
In addition to helping women facing unplanned pregnancies, Prestonwood Pregnancy Center works to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with those who seek care there. According to Jamieson, “We have thousands upon thousands of Gospel conversations every year and … well over 400 women chose Jesus as their Savior, helping us make not just an earthly difference but making that eternal difference as well.”
Last year, Prestonwood Pregnancy Center opened up a new office in Dallas directly across the street from a Planned Parenthood surgical abortion facility.
“God pointed us there,” Jamieson said to CP in an earlier interview. “We believe that we’re just called to be a light in the darkness, that we want women to know that before they turn into the parking lot directly across the street from ours, that they have an option, that they can come and they can take a deep breath” and experience “guidance that’s wrapped in love and grace,” she told CBN.
Additionally, Jamieson stressed that her employees seek to make sure that women are “aware of the choice they are about to make.”
“We have women every single day that come to us, or that the sidewalk counselors stop and engage them, and prayerfully say to them, ‘There’s a place across the street that will see you at no cost, you have nothing to lose but to go see them.’”
Jamieson recalled that last week, a woman got out of her car crying as she was prepared to head into the Planned Parenthood across the street and officials with Prestonwood Pregnancy Center convinced her to seek assistance at Prestonwood instead. Officials there offered to “help her navigate” through the reasons that caused her to seek the abortion in the first place.