Pro-life center opens next to Planned Parenthood in downtown Baltimore

After years of preparation, the Center for Pregnancy Concerns is opening its newest Baltimore City location with a “virtual ribbon cutting.” 

Offering health screening and counseling services, Options@328 will operate out of a restored storefront next to the city’s most prominent abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.

Concerns about the coronavirus pandemic prevented a large in-person event, however, the Center for Pregnancy Concerns is moving the festivities online at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 22. The event includes a virtual tour of Options@328 with Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori.

Archbishop Lori joined Center for Pregnancy Concerns board members and Knights of Columbus Maryland State Deputy Vince Grauso as they cut a large pink ribbon to signal the opening of the center. Archbishop Lori blessed the site and offered a prayer for the success of the venture. 

The Center for Pregnancy Concerns spent almost $1 million to convert the rundown Howard Street building into a modern health center, which includes a new sonogram machine donated by the Knights of Columbus.

Option@328, which is set to open to clients in the next few days, is primarily positioned to help change a woman’s mind about having an abortion, but Executive Director Gina Ruppert said it can – in some cases – help women who have already started the process.

Rupert said Options@328 will help women who want to stop medication-induced abortions, which may be possible if women receive treatment within 24 hours of taking the first of two drugs that induce abortion. As part of the Abortion Pill Rescue Network, Option@328 will help women obtain the necessary prescription for the drug progesterone and monitor their health afterward.

The Abortion Pill Rescue Network says the progesterone treatment has a roughly 65 percent success rate if administered properly. 

Rupert said the center will help women access social services that could help support them during and after their pregnancies. She added that as a nondenominational Christian organization, it is prepared to give women spiritual as well as physical support.

Ruppert said it was important to have a location in the heart of Baltimore. Center for Pregnancy Concerns operates four centers, including one at St. Ann in East Baltimore and another at St. Rita in Dundalk, but Options@328 is the first downtown location.

Carol Clews, the former executive director who launched the project, said being able to open a center next to Planned Parenthood was “literally a godsend.”

“I absolutely believe that these mothers who come here thinking, very definitively about wanting to have an abortion, will see this and they will have second thoughts,” Clews said.

With the nomination of federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, abortion has again become a prominent issue as Americans cast ballots for the next president. If confirmed, Barrett is expected to cement the high courts’ conservative majority. Barrett, a devout Catholic, has publicly opposed abortion. Liberal activists expect the new court with Barrett to severely weaken or overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that made abortion legal.

With political tensions running high, Ruppert said she wants the resource center to be a “good neighbor” to Planned Parenthood and avoid any disturbances. 

For more information about how to take part in the Center for Pregnancy Concerns virtual ribbon-cutting event for Options@328, event visit https://cpcforhelp.org or https://bitly.com/3ddjuwa.

Email Tim Swift at tswift@CatholicReview.org

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