Alliance Profile: Peggy Hartshorn

Peggy Hartshorn was a young wife and aspiring English professor when an NPR news report changed her life.

It was January 22, 1973. And while Peggy had encountered the issue of abortion during her undergraduate studies on the West Coast, the idea that one Supreme Court decision could obliterate state-level protections for unborn life came as a genuine shock.

But shortly after confirming the Roe v. Wade decision, Peggy sensed an irresistible calling to get involved.

“I knew I had to do something,” Peggy writes in her book Foot Soldiers Armed with Love. “For me, this was a never-to-be-forgotten day, seared into memory, like other days in history when the United States suffered surprise attacks.”

Peggy was soon involved with a local Right to Life chapter, delivering presentations on abortion and the sanctity of life in living rooms and church basements to anyone who would listen.

Two years later, Peggy and her husband, Mike, met a young woman named Anne. Facing an unexpected pregnancy, Anne had been abandoned by the baby’s father but was unwilling to abort her unborn child. Unless she could keep her pregnancy a secret, she was convinced she would bring shame to herself and her family. The Hartshorns took her in, and in the process discovered what would become their lifelong passion: combating abortion by helping one woman at a time.

“The best alternative to abortion is another person,” Peggy says. “I’ve never met a woman who really, deep down, wanted to have an abortion. When we eliminate the perceived 'demand' for abortion one woman at a time, we impact the community and culture for life.”

Much has changed in the 45 years since the Hartshorns first took in Anne. In 1981, they helped establish Pregnancy Decision Health Centers, a multi-location pregnancy center throughout Central Ohio. In 1993, Peggy became the first full-time president of Heartbeat International, which was founded in 1971 to support a burgeoning movement of pro-life individuals and groups who were serving pregnant women with practical help.

Today, Heartbeat International’s network, made up of 2,800 affiliates in over 60 countries, includes pregnancy resource centers, ultrasound-equipped medical clinics, maternity homes, non-profit adoption agencies, and abortion recovery programs. In the U.S. alone, the Heartbeat network serves 1.5 million clients each year.

Peggy shifted roles in 2016 to lead Heartbeat’s board, and she remains active in the pregnancy help movement. She recently released The L.O.V.E. Approach, a book that introduces a broader audience to the principles from her 1994 volunteer training manual that is used in pregnancy centers throughout the world.

“No barrier will stop pregnancy-help people,” Peggy says. “They’re constantly coming up with new ways to reach women and serve them in the most excellent way possible, and all with God’s love to motivate their every move.”

“It’s so clear that God is working,” she says, “and we take great inspiration from that.”