Pregnancy help heroes are championing life every day across the European landscape. The venues for such life-affirming efforts vary from telephone/email/hotline/and online to actual office space.  The daily, compassionate outreach to women and men dealing with an unexpected pregnancy is affected by but far removed from the political wrangling. Those called to this work are facing great challenges in answering the call to save and defend life. We invite all pregnancy help workers, and especially leaders, to gather together to share information and understanding as well as to gain insight from others. 

Who should attend?  Anyone involved in life-affirming pregnancy help – direct service to women facing an unexpected pregnancy – is welcome. 

Along with plenary sessions that will inspire and inform, there will be breakout forums on vital topics that challenge all pregnancy help efforts – issues on leadership, fundraising, client care and the use of technology to more effectively reach clients and donors. These breakouts will be participatory in nature; as you plan which ones to attend, please come prepared to share your knowledge and experience as well. 

English will be the primary language for plenary sessions and breakout facilitation.

2018 European Pregnancy Help Summit

What: Pregnancy Help Summit for anyone involved in life-affirming pregnancy help across Europe.

When: 17-19 October 2018

• 17 October: Registration opens at 1700 with the evening introduction and plenary session at 1800, followed by dinner. 
• 18 October: All Day Summit
• 19 October: The Summit schedule finishes with lunch on Friday for ease of travel that afternoon. 

Where: The Crystal Hotel, Belgrade, Serbia 

Click here to download a printable European Pregnancy Help Conference flyer.

Heartbeat International, the largest pregnancy help network in the world with affiliates on every populated continent, is pleased to sponsor this Europe-focused conference in recognition of the importance of growing relationships among all pregnancy help leaders. Pregnancy help leaders can find out more about Heartbeat at https://www.heartbeatservices.org.

Since last year, the left-wing party (FMLN) in El Salvador led by Congresswoman Lorena Peña (currently the majority party in Congress), attempted to legalize abortion. 

Inan international campaign, they claimed that in our women’s prison there are 17 innocent girls who had spontaneous abortions with a sentence of 30 years. This is simply not true. The girls they reference were each sentenced for the homicide of a child delivered at term. The crime was discovered when these girls went to the hospital bleeding and claimed they didn’t know they had given birth. Of course, the doctors had to report them. Killing a baby is murder. Period. 

The new law supported by the FMLN would allow abortion under the following conditions: 1) when the mother is at risk, 2) when the mother is pregnant through rape or “stupor” (pregnant by a family member or someone close to the family). 3) in a case of ectopic pregnancy, 4) when the mother has a terminal illness. 

The FMLN was clearly hoping to gain a majority vote on this issue, but the March 4^th elections proved disastrous for the party as they lost 8 seats.

When they saw that the people had voted against the governing party, Lorena Peña decided it was urgent to pass the law before May 1^stwhen the right-wing party would take the majority of Congress. Not finding the other votes, Johnny Wright decided to re-write the law with only two allowable cases for abortion:1)Abortion in the first 12 weeks if the mother is a minor and she is pregnant through rape or stupor, with the consent of the parents and the doctors, and 2)when the mother is in danger and the doctor is indicating an abortion. 

When individuals raised their voices to help to approve the law, the silent pro-life people started talking. In the newspaper, you could find the doctors association speaking out saying they did not need the law to try to help the women in difficult situations like pregnancy outside the womb or when the mother is sick because it is already their duty to try to save both patients. They said they were against abortion of any kind. TheGynecologist Association spoke and the Pediatricians too, defending life. Even the Private Enterprise Association spoke up! Different Pastors of all denominations came together to make a march on April 7^th where Catholics and Evangelicals marched together. Different columnists wrote in the newspapers, college students also spoke up making a video in social media defending life. 

Two weeks before the new members of Congress would take office, outside congress we had a party! Hundreds of pro-life people got together shouting, “Life yes, death no! Life yes, death no!” That was the day that the law was going to be discussed: April 18! 

Thousands of people were praying that the law would not be discussed. 

That day, a miracle happened. There was no discussion because the congressmen and women who were in doubt if they would give the vote to pass the law, talked and decided they were pro-life.

Every life is important and as our constitution says, we recognize life since the moment of conception. 

April 25^thwas their last day in Congress and last opportunity. The pro-life party did not want to take any chances, so, again hundreds of people went to Congress to rally against abortion. Pro-life congressman (and women) congratulated all the crowd for coming and the law was not discussed.

So for now, abortion is not legal in El Salvador and life prevails!

A Gathering of World Changers

This past week at our 2018 Heartbeat Annual Conference, 21 countries were represented! Attendees included pregnancy help leaders from the following countries: Armenia, Australia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, El Salvador, Israel, Italy, Macedonia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, South Africa, St. Lucia, Togo, Uganda, Ukraine, United States, and Zambia. 

The Conference included 65 workshops, 13 In-Depth Day trainings, 7 Keynote speakers, prayer and spiritual refreshment. On Monday night, our international guests had the opportunity to share about their organizations at our International Meet and Greet. On Tuesday night, the Conference opening dinner included the traditional Parade of Nations where each person was able to carry and represent their country's flag. Click here to watch the video footage from the Parade on our Facebook page. The Parade was an incredible glimpse at the wide expanse of the pregnancy help movement -- Heartbeat now has affiliates in over 60 countries!

We had the privilege to educate, encourage and empower World Changers at this year's Conference. Being able to connect with and hear from others from around the globe, our international attendees left rejuvenated and ready to get back to their life-saving work!

"Estoy indignada" (I'm Outraged)

For our Spanish speaking friends, here is an article that Ana Lilian Munguía, Heartbeat El Salvador, wrote regarding the life issue in El Salvador.

Click here to read the article.

Romanian Pro-Life Group Rolls Out First-Ever "Babies Go to Parliament"

Click here to read the article on Pregnancy Help News.

 Below is an update from CAPSS, one of Heartbeat International's Joint Affiliation Partners:

Click here to read an update from the Elpis Centre in the Caribbean!

Heartbeat International recently heard from our friends in Slovenia, and it is amazing to see what God has done in their ministry within the last year! As 2017 comes to a close, here’s an update from Zavod Biser (Institute Pearl):

"Zavod Biser (Institute Pearl) is a new organization founded in February this year. Our ministry is counseling women in need in cases of unexpected and unwanted pregnancy, based on the concept of an excellent German organization from Munich, Profemina. We adopted their approach and customized it to our Slovenian reality. We have our seat in Maribor, the second largest town in Slovenia.

A lot of things have happened in our Institute Biser/Pearl this year.  We opened our website at the end of May: http://www.zenskaodlocitev.si/ . This is the first website with a wide breadth of information for pregnant women in need in Slovenia. During the summer, we contacted many hospitals throughout the country to allow us to deliver our materials. Reactions were mainly positive, which seems to us as a very positive sign. In September, we organized our office in the center of Maribor and started with advertising on Google.

In the middle of October, the first pregnant woman contacted us. Since then, we have counseled 32 women by phone, online or by personal contact. Two pregnant women chose life, and we are looking forward to the birth of their children in June 2018! 

At the same time, we are working on fundraising. Just before Christmas, we will open our fundraising website, Slovenija 1000plus, following the model of Kristijan Aufiero’s 1000plus.

It is unbelievable that so many women in Slovenia live under such pressure because of unexpected pregnancy. We have incredibly liberal abortion legislation, contraception is free of charge, and gynecologists are free of charge. First feedbacks are encouraging in the way that we have a lot to do. We see many challenges for the coming year.”

While there will always be challenges ahead, Heartbeat International is overwhelmed with joy when we hear that our international friends of the movement are thriving and growing, and we give thanks to God for His many good gifts. As we close out this year, we are excited to see what He has in store for 2018!