Ultrasound in Pregnancy Centers

The introduction of ultrasound machines in pregnancy centers began slowly decades ago as research began to show the effect these images have on a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy. In 1983, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article by Drs. John Fletcher and Mark Evans who found that seeing the image of the baby "in the late first or early mid-trimester of pregnancy, before movement is felt by the mother, may also influence the resolution of any ambivalence toward the pregnancy itself in favor of the fetus. Ultrasound examination may thus result in fewer abortions and more desired pregnancies."[10]

The ultrasound image was a welcomed alternative for pregnancy centers. Showing images of life, the mother's own child, as opposed to a life destroyed, would prove to be a gentler, yet even more compelling approach to educating the client, especially the clients raised in today's more visually oriented society:

This is not a generation that has grown up on the written word. Far from it: they grew up on visual images. They are the product, in perhaps its purest form, of television, where for a generation producers have picked compelling visuals and then assigned writers to match words to the video. It is a generation that scans information quickly; information that can be graphic or text, and one that is more than adept at picking quick meaning out of pictures. It grew up 'reading' visual images rather than text.[11]

Excerpt from: Pregnancy Centers: A Practical Response to the Abortion Dilemma