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Working at Holy Family Services Adoption and Counseling in 1971, Sister Vandegaer, a licensed clinical social worker, met with a young pregnant woman who had been told by a Medi-Cal caseworker that she didn’t have to follow old religious traditions and should consider the new abortion option instead of placing her unborn baby up for adoption.

“I was absolutely furious,” said Sister Vandegaer. “I realized that something had to be done to protect these women.” She soon got in touch with a group in Whittier forming a pro-life hotline and agreed to train the phone counselors.

Within a year, four other local pregnancy service centers sponsored by the Right to Life League opened with volunteers trained by Sister Vandegaer. In 1972, the Sister of Social Service became part of the first national counseling group in the United States: “Alternatives to Abortion,” acting as its secretary.

“After the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, the pregnancy service centers just started [opening]  like crazy – better then two a week in the early years,” according to Sister Vandegaer. “People were just pouring out of the woodwork to do something about what the Supreme Court had done.”

Through the years, many of the new pregnancy service centers that sprang up based their volunteers’ training on the manual developed by Sister Vandegaer. Although several of the centers were founded by Catholic groups, others were ecumenical groups which adapted the manual for their needs.

“I can still see bits and pieces of what I wrote in other training manuals. It was all based on sound, scientific counseling principles: acceptance, non-judgmental attitude, individuation, listening and confidentiality,” explained Sister Vandegaer.

She notes that nationwide, there are now 2,756 pregnancy service centers in the United States – more than abortion facilities. In addition, there are 600 centers related to the pro-life movement, including adoption centers, maternity homes and post-abortion counseling centers.

“The service movement is very, very large,” said Sister Vandegaer. “There are probably 40-50,000 people who are trained plus they have a lot of supporters who are donating and helping. It’s much more difficult to attack because we are liked. Even pro-abortion people like us,” for the support services offered to women.

International Life Services

In 1985, Sister Vandegaer founded International Life Services (ILS) in Los Angeles, a non-profit, non-sectarian, educational organization dedicated to promoting Judeo-Christian values and the sanctity of human life. ILS had three divisions: an Education Division, a Counseling Division and a Bioethics Division (Scholl Institute of Bioethics).

Its goal was to educate the public on a range of life issues affecting society, including end-of-life issues such as physician assisted suicide and euthanasia. “Heartbeat Magazine,” which ILS published for many years, always included a bio-ethics topic among its articles.

“We were just going to solely provide education, but then five local LA centers came to join us,” said Sister Vandegaer, who wrote the first pro-life counselor training textbook, “Introduction to Pregnancy Counseling,” also published by ILS. Currently, ILS has 45 centers in the U.S., with 17 in California. Groups joining ILS agree to abide by a set of six principles.

“You cannot join our organization if you show pictures of aborted babies and adoptions have to be referred to a professional agency,” said Sister Vandegaer, program director for ILS. “I require that the centers act as pregnancy counseling centers, not anti-abortion centers. If a person is picketing or doing sidewalk counseling, they have to do that privately, they can’t do it as a member of the agency.”

Another rule is that centers cannot make referrals for contraceptives - either for married or unmarried – and must promote chastity. Centers are encouraged to have a professional consultant or staff person and a minimum of 15 hours training is required for each new volunteer. Sister Vandegaer makes herself available for phone consultations in the absence of a local professional.

Counselors at the centers provide free and confidential information about abortion alternatives, medical and psychiatric referrals, adoption referrals and support groups. Most centers offer women the opportunity to self-administer a free pregnancy test. Since approximately 60 percent of those pregnancy tests turn out to be negative, the client’s visit to the center becomes an opportunity to do lifestyle counseling by the pro-life volunteers.

Once a year, ILS conducts an “Advanced Training Institute” seminar for people working in leadership positions in pro-life work. Participants have the opportunity to hear talks by doctors, psychologists, social workers, pregnancy and post-abortion counselors, and pregnancy center directors, among others.

An interesting aspect of the ILS centers is that the majority of their boards are ecumenical. “I think the pro-life movement has done more for the ecumenical movement than anything, I really do,” said Sister Vandegaer. “We’re praying together and working together shoulder to shoulder.”

Increased patronage

Last year, a statistical study of clients contacting California ILS centers during the previous four years showed an annual increase in the combined total of women – and men – contacting the state’s pregnancy service centers. A preliminary tally for 2009, based on incomplete reports, shows that ILS centers in the state served 11,096 people, compared to 6,481 in 2005.

Many of the other 28 ILS centers in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin have also seen significant increases in their clientele, serving a combined total of 15,407 people last year.

With more than 2,700 pregnancy service centers of various kinds nationwide averaging 500 client visits a year, according to Sister Vandegaer, more than one million people are contacting the centers for services. “That’s a lot of people who are going through the service centers. There’s been a lot of goodwill out there,” said Sister.

She is optimistic about the fact that recent nationwide opinion polls showed that more Americans consider themselves pro-life, including many youth. “I really see the young people being very, very pro-life. It’s apparent in the increase in statistics and apparent in the young people coming into the movement,” said the nun.

Pregnancy service center clients in the 18-25 age category, the largest group experiencing crisis pregnancies, are more open to listening to the pro-life message than the previous generations since abortion was legalized, noted the ILS founder. “They’re not churched generally, but there’s a spiritual sensitivity and they’re coming in larger numbers to the centers,” said Sister Vandegaer.

Meanwhile, the abortion rate, which is the proportion of pregnancies that end in abortion, dropped by 9 percent to 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44 in 2005 (the year with the latest available statistics provided by the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute.) Just over one in five pregnancies in 2005 (22 percent) resulted in abortion, down from one in four pregnancies (25 percent) in 2000.

After an estimated 50 millions abortions in America, says Sister Vandegaer, more people are realizing that abortion “is a regrettable decision. It’s something that you don’t want to have to do.” She feels positive about the impact of the pregnancy service centers over the past nearly 40 years.

“The sheer volume of pro-life people is creating a pro-life public and I think that’s becoming more and more effective,” remarked Sister Vandegaer. “For years, we’ve been training people to counsel and speak, and they’ve been doing that. We’ve had a heck of a huge army of people doing one-on-one work. I think it’s working.”