When some women find themselves pregnant, they may feel abortion is their only option. Care Net is seeking to change this mindset.
“What we’re trying to do is offer compassion, hope, and help to anyone who’s considering abortion, as well as those who have past abortions, by providing realistic alternatives and Christ-centered support,” said Care Net CEO Roland Warren to The Dallas Express. “We’re not a pro-life organization; we are a pro-abundant life ministry.”
Care Net is a nonprofit that manages more than 1,200 affiliated pregnancy centers and 30,000 volunteers, equips pro-life volunteers, and organizes churches to support pregnant women and their families. It also hosts a pregnancy hotline based in Dallas, according to Warren, offering supportive counseling and alternatives for women considering abortion.
The term “pro-life” can mean a variety of things in the political sphere – from total abortion bans to compromises that only protect unborn children in certain stages, according to Warren. But he said Care Net takes a different approach, which he termed “pro-abundant life,” supporting the mother, father, and child, with the goal of building strong families.
“If a woman came to you and she was facing an unplanned pregnancy, and you could change everything except the fact that she was pregnant, what would you want?” he said. “You want her to have the baby, yes. You want the guy to be involved, yes – but you don’t want him to be a baby daddy that brings diapers. You want him to be a husband to her, and a father to the child.”
Warren pointed to Jesus, miraculously conceived by Mary, which, from Mary’s perspective, was an unplanned pregnancy. Despite Joseph’s initial plans to divorce her, God encouraged Joseph to be Mary’s husband.
“What did God do? He didn’t give her a baby daddy with a check, he gave a husband for her, and a father for the child growing inside of her,” Warren said. “He created a family. We’re faced with a dilemma – and what are we doing? We’re creating single-mother homes.”
Of all the women who had abortions in 2021, 87% were unmarried, as Pew Research reported. Warren expressed concern that much of the “pro-life” movement has disconnected the pregnancy issue from family and marriage. A political approach has its “proper place,” according to Warren, but the church needs to lead with a “moral perspective.”
Care Net’s ultimate goal, Warren said, is to build Christian families that will raise children in the “fear and admonition of the Lord,” who will “make disciples who live and love like Jesus.”
This is personal for Warren. He said when he was 20, his 19-year-old college girlfriend – now his wife – found herself unexpectedly pregnant.
She went to the campus health center. There, a nurse pushed her toward an abortion.
“They said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re pregnant. Of course, you’re going to have an abortion.’ My girlfriend says, ‘Well, I don’t want to have an abortion. I want to get married, I want to have my baby.’”
Still, the nurse expressed concerns about her academic and career future. Warren said she came back to the dorm room, and they decided to keep their baby.
Warren and his wife got married in college, where she had their first two children. She still became a doctor and has been practicing for more than 30 years.
“What was the difference with my wife? Well, she had a guy who said, ‘I’ll be a husband to you, and a father to the child growing inside of you,’” Warren said. “Her dreams and her aspirations for her life were not crushed, because she said, ‘He’s going to step into that role to provide that missing support.’”
Warren grew up with a single mother, who had four young children by age 23. She and his father separated when he was young.
“I didn’t grow up in a married household,” he said. “But the reason why, when I got my girlfriend pregnant, the notion of being a baby daddy or any of that was not in my mind, was because I went to church, and I saw men at church being husbands and fathers. That was aspirational for me.”
Care Net aims not to provide a simple fix for pregnant women, but to connect “fatherhood, motherhood, sex, and marriage, and God’s design for those things,” explained Warren; otherwise, mothers will likely come back in the same predicament.
“We know that kids who grew up in father-absent homes are much more likely to have sex early, much more likely to be at risk for abortion. So you basically are generating the same thing,” Warren said. “If you build a family, then you break this cycle, which is what happened in my life.”
Of all women who get abortions, 54% self-identify as Protestant or Catholic, according to Planned Parenthood’s own Guttmacher Institute. As such, Warren challenges churches to do a better job supporting pregnant women, and Care Net has several initiatives to accomplish this goal.
One mission is called Making Life Disciples, which trains small groups within churches to support pregnant women.
“It’s not just preaching from the pulpit, ‘Abortion is wrong,’” Warren said. “It’s about, ‘We have a ministry for you in this church, that if you’re ever facing a pregnancy decision, we want you to know that we are here to offer you compassion, hope, help, and discipleship.’”
Other missions for men and women who have been involved in abortion include Forgiven and Set Free, which focuses on “true and lasting healing” for women who have had abortions. Meanwhile, Reclaiming Fatherhood addresses the “emotional and spiritual fallout of abortion.”
“So many women and men sitting in pews today in churches have had abortions, and they need to be forgiven and set free,” Warren said.
He calls the church to fulfill the Great Commandment, to love the Lord with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself – and the Great Commission, to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
“The call to the church, in my view, is to see this issue like we do other good works that Christians do: water for the thirsty, food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, homes for the homeless, compassion for the pregnant,” Warren said. “The churches need to exchange leadership on this issue from the podium to the pulpit – that’s the key.”