Highlights
When I first started working part time for a local pregnancy center in my area, it was my job to design and implement services for new and expectant fathers. This part-time job quickly increased to full time as we began seeing hundreds of men from our community who needed compassionate care amid unplanned pregnancies and the complicated life circumstances that often surround them. The work was hard but rewarding. I’ll never forget hearing from my first client, who shared looking back that without our support during his partner’s pregnancy, he could have easily walked away from her and the son they now treasure.
Offering expectant fathers, often the boyfriends of our pregnant patients, a confidential space to open up often results in tears of gratitude and the recognition that they have the freedom and ability to speak into a decision they had assumed was off-limits. In surveys conducted by Care Net of women who had an abortion (2015) and men whose partners had abortions (2021), men proved to be the greatest single influence in the decision, even though 31% of the fathers reported giving no advice when asked. Whenever a couple makes the decision to carry their baby to term, I walk alongside the father, offering resources and classes on how to support a healthy pregnancy and prepare for the birth of his child.
My experience serving fathers locally led to my current position as Director of our Fatherhood & Family Ministry at Care Net, a national network of more than 1,300 pregnancy centers. Over the past five years, my growing team and I have led successful, groundbreaking projects for engaging more fathers, creating a library of needed training programs and client resources along the way. In 2023, 56% of Care Net’s affiliated centers had services for fathers, increasing to 78% in 2024. You can learn more about the initiative and resources here.
While some in the broader pro-life movement have been skeptical of these efforts, worried that they will overextend an already weary movement, we have seen just the opposite: centers seeking to build thriving fatherhood programs gain new volunteers, pastoral support, community partnerships, and funding from both individuals and foundations. The work becomes a whole family affair, rather than just a specialized outreach for women only.
The pregnancy help movement has too often specialized in a positive way forward for mother and child, but we have not always been so charitable to the men left out in the lobby or parking lot.
Serving men is a key part of our pro-life efforts. It helps to achieve the prevention of abortions through STI services and healthy relationship education, as well as more successful intervention into ongoing pregnancy decisions through confidential decision coaching, and the inclusion of fathers in ultrasound appointments. And it provides much-needed education that helps men provide for the ongoing needs of mother and child better than any ministry or social services organization could without the father in the picture.
Things really come full circle when you consider that children who grow up without an involved father in the home are significantly more likely to have a teen pregnancy of their own. By helping fathers at this crucial point in a family’s journey, pregnancy centers are less likely to see the mother return with another unplanned pregnancy in 18 months, or to see her children as clients in 18 years.
As outreach to fathers in the pregnancy center ministry world is exploding nationwide, my team is also focusing on next steps. The majority of our centers have long-standing programs to help mothers learn about pregnancy and parenting, but these were designed with single mothers in mind and have little-to-no emphasis on how to incorporate dad. So, while more dads are now being served in the building, the whole family may struggle to come together until there is a family-formational mindset in the parallel motherhood programs.
In addition to building new motherhood courses that recognize the importance of involved dads, we are also working toward marriage programs that will help these couples facing unplanned pregnancies—who may know very little about marriage—understand the benefits of the institution and how they can pursue it. Here, again, we are met with hesitancy. The pregnancy help movement has spent decades assuming we were dealing with young women who just got mixed up with the wrong guys. Whatever behaviors she brought to the center, we have too often specialized in only seeing a positive way forward for her and the child, but we have not always been so charitable to the men left out in the lobby or parking lot.
Perhaps the assumption in previous generations that couples with unplanned pregnancies should automatically get married has also caused us to overcorrect; even as we see couples make significant progress in their co-parenting and relationships, we are too often shy of even mentioning how marriage could help them flourish more as a family.
Pregnancy Centers can provide emergency care and support but cannot walk with families long-term in the same way a faith community can.
From my work with men and women in Pittsburgh and close collaboration with pregnancy center leaders around the country, I am a firm believer that many more healthy marriages can grow if men, and not just women, are given the care, education, and mentorship they need to succeed. The young men in our fatherhood programs, even those with rough edges, are eager for meaning and purpose. The growth we are seeing among these men—and the difference that immediately makes for their partner and child—is beautiful to witness.
With this in mind, some centers are helping their client couples get past the barriers to marriage. With many fatherhood staff being bi-vocational pastors, centers provide pre-marital counseling, free marriage officiating, and even a support package of photography, cakes, and more through partnerships with vendors in their communities.
This initiative is just getting going, and I believe its success will depend largely on local churches. Pregnancy centers can provide emergency care for individuals and pregnant couples facing sexual and relational brokenness and help them begin making healthy choices. But we cannot walk with families long-term in the same way a faith community can. So we need more churches to partner with us and welcome couples from wider backgrounds, to help them thrive in marriage and family life.
Alexander Hettinga is the Director of Fatherhood & Family Ministry at Care Net.
