Your gift of $401.37—just $33.45 a month—helps Morning Star reach, educate and support one woman searching for abortion.
Dear Morning Star Families,
There are times in our lives that we become more acutely aware of the spiritual battle that is taking place around us. Now is one of those times. In this post-Roe era, the reaction from our opposition has greatly intensified. We are faced with challenges that many of us never anticipated.
In April, our online business listing, Google My Business (GMB), removed Morning Star’s three clinic locations from their search engines. After weeks of our team trying to reinstate all of our locations, GMB slowly restored first our Middletown location and then our Harrisburg location. It wasn’t until September that our New Cumberland office was once again publicly listed. Even though our locations are now showing on GMB, we are still battling the description they have placed underneath Morning Star’s name—they are not allowing us to be categorized as a medical clinic.
Yelp has even resorted to labeling us as a fake clinic which may not have any licensed medical staff. Yelp has a consumer notice on pregnancy centers’ business profiles, including Morning Star’s:
Consumer Notice
This is a Crisis Pregnancy Center. Crisis Pregnancy Centers typically provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite.
You can imagine our outrage: Morning Star is a medical clinic with licensed medical professionals. Our medical director, Dr. Mary Elizabeth Higgins, OB-GYN, oversees our medical staff. Our radiologists read our ultrasound scans, our registered diagnostic medical sonographers (RDMS) provide the ultrasound exams, and our nurses counsel and provide medical services, including STI testing and treatment. Yet we have no power to set the record straight with these big internet conglomerates!
Women desperately need the medical services that Morning Star provides—services they won’t get at Planned Parenthood or any abortion clinic. In Pennsylvania, there is no legal requirement for an ultrasound prior to an abortion. Currently, an ultrasound is the prerogative of the abortion provider.
However, the medical community and the FDA acknowledge that an ultrasound is necessary to accurately date a pregnancy, to diagnose viability and to identify the risk of ectopic pregnancy.
In August, Facebook removed Heartbeat International’s Abortion Pill Reversal Network account. Women did not have access to information on this powerful social media site about abortion pill reversal (APR), although this was later restored. Morning Star is part of the Heartbeat International APR Network. Women are referred to Morning Star when they have taken the first abortion pill and want to reverse the process and save their baby.
With the current political environment and the ever-changing algorithms of search engines, the game has changed for pregnancy centers. To just maintain the status quo we have to do more. That’s why we need YOUR help to continue to reach the women searching for abortion.
DONATE NOW TO HELP REACH WOMEN SEARCHING FOR ABORTION!
Google, Planned Parenthood and even some in our government are trying to cripple pregnancy centers across the country. Morning Star does not have the multi-million-dollar budget of Planned Parenthood to reach women facing unplanned pregnancies. In this environment, it is vital to reach them through a new, ambitious digital marketing strategy.
With the expertise of an outside media agency, Morning Star’s social media initiative is reaching abortion-minded women, ages 18-24, through Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. Our advertisements are appearing on their phones based on their website and app usage, their keyword searches, as well as their geographic location. And Morning Star ads are now appearing at the top of the search engine results pages.
In July, we kicked off this advertising strategy and are already seeing an uptick in our client statistics. Comparing the month of August 2022 to pre-COVID numbers in August 2019, Morning Star saw an increase of 42 new clients come through our doors and provided 25 more pregnancy tests to women who were considering an abortion!
This year, as of mid-September, we have seen 859 new clients—clients who have never been to Morning Star. By the end of the calendar year, our goal is to reach and support 365 more new clients, bringing us to our pre-COVID statistics. The cost to reach these clients and provide them with Life-affirming services is $146,500.
YOUR gift of $401.37 will help us support one new client through our new marketing initiative and provide her with options counseling, an ultrasound, STI testing, baby supplies and educational classes.
Perhaps this fall, you can help us reach two new clients with a donation of $802.74. Or maybe you can partner with us to reach three new clients with a donation of $1,204.11.
Last year, thanks to YOUR support, 523 moms chose Life for their babies. This year, as of September 30, 451 women have chosen Life. Help us to reach, educate and support women searching for abortion—to save even more hearts and lives in 2022.
God bless you for your unwavering support of Life.
