Seventy-five leaders from 30 pregnancy centers across Wisconsin convened in Wausau, Wis., on April 5 for the 2025 Pregnancy Help Center Conference, the pregnancy help personnel set to absorb a full day of pregnancy help insights and encouragement, all distilled from national conferences by Judy Van Swol, former center director and now director of Educational Outreach with Wisconsin Right to Life.
“So many centers in Wisconsin don't get to the Heartbeat or Care Net conferences because of a lack of money or a lack of time, or just the travel considerations,” Van Swol said. “I wanted to provide the same spiritual refreshment and professional development I received” as a pregnancy center director.
After gleaning up-to-date insights from the annual conferences of Heartbeat International, Care Net, and NIFLA (National Institute of Family and Life Advocates), Van Swol secured some of the same speakers to convey that information to her state’s pregnancy help leadership.
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Topics at the Wisconsin conference included using telehealth at pregnancy centers, presented by Jor-El Godsey, President of Heartbeat International; Abortion Pill Reversal, from national speaker Rebekah Hagan; and the legal outlook for abortion laws in Wisconsin, from Luke Berg, deputy counsel with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
Other experts spoke on subjects ranging from adoption, fathers’ voices in abortion, and the power of grassroots support for pregnancy centers, to storytelling for clients, identifying ectopic pregnancies, and governing essentials for boards.
In keeping with the conference theme, Building Community for Life, Van Swol threaded the one-day event with opportunities for attendees to forge relationships.
“I tried get them to look past the differences and find their commonalities,” she said. “To bring them back to our common mission of protecting the lives of the unborn and serving women here in Wisconsin, and to bring them back to their shared faith.”
“That's what I think is so special about having conferences,” Van Swol said. “You just see the Body of Christ and you realize you're not alone.”
Telehealth, “virtual centers” hot buttons for Wisconsin pregnancy centers
Feedback from conference attendees indicated they “recognize what's happening in our culture and how these women are on their phones,” Van Swol said. “They want answers now. We have to be available 24/7 for them.”
The question is how to make that happen when few centers are even open five days a week, let alone weekends.
Some expressed concern that “virtual centers” will compromise the kind of compassionate care they are adept at providing in person. Further, opening board members’ eyes to this new development in pregnancy help is challenging, Van Swol said. So is recruiting and training a new kind of volunteer to take calls outside of office hours.
Van Swol’s leadership of two Wisconsin pregnancy centers and an Illinois center spanned the days when getting a woman to take time with her decision was key. Not so today, she said.
“She's not going to wait until next Wednesday to come in to talk to you,” Van Swol said. “She's got her finger poised on that button that will order her chemical abortion pills.”
“It took 30 years to get ultrasound,” she said. "We can't wait for Wisconsin centers to get used to the telecare idea because we won't be meeting the needs of women.”
Moving toward Wisconsin’s 2026 conference
When Van Swol spoke to Pregnancy Help News, she had already wrapped up her state’s 2025 conference and moved into gathering new input for her 2026 event by attending the 2025 Heartbeat International Annual Conference less than four weeks later.
A concern that drove her to seek help from the Heartbeat International conference, she said, was that “with the rise of the chemical abortion pill, and, I think, AI, we're seeing across the state a decrease in abortion-minded women finding our pregnancy centers. I went looking for answers to that” and found help in technology-focused sessions.
Van Swol also resonated with keynote speaker Ryan T. Anderson’s assertion “that abortion isn't necessarily a result of Roe v. Wade, it's a result of the decline in the devaluation of marriage and chastity,” she said. “And it's a spiritual issue. So, we need to partner with churches and speak the truth in love.”
Further, a presentation by Peggy Hartshorn, Board chair emeritus of Heartbeat International, challenged Van Swol to exhort Wisconsin centers to “examine where we need to be to confront the abortion industry of tomorrow, much less today.”
Van Swol is now convinced that “we have a cultural warfare on our hands. We need to address Abortion Pill Reversal. We need to promote that.”
Van Swol told Pregnancy Help News that her next statewide conference is scheduled for October of 2026. But she won’t wait until then to keep the education coming for Wisconsin centers.
“I'll do some half-day Zoom conferences,” she said. “My goal is to have them focused on board training or executive director concerns or client services.”
Meanwhile, she plans to hunt down even more help for her state’s centers.
“I’ll go to Care Net in August, NIFLA in the spring, and then Heartbeat in the spring,” she said. “Then I'll have the advantage of all of those conferences.”
Wisconsin Right to Life funds Van Swol’s conference attendance because each one provides unique value.
“Heartbeat delivers insights from a comprehensive international perspective,” she said. “Care Net (with whom she has established ties) is her familiar go-to source for training, and NIFLA provides legal and medical expertise.”
Encouraging other states to copy her work
While Van Swol admitted creating a state-wide conference for pregnancy centers is a sizeable undertaking, she had ready suggestions for anyone who might want to replicate her efforts.
“First and foremost, bathe everything in prayer,” she said. “Before you even start doing anything, start praying about that. Is this the Lord leading you to do this? Are your motives, right?”
Second, she advised planners to look for state coalitions that are already holding conferences.
“If so, could you join forces?” she asked.
Alternatively, consider regional conferences if the state’s geography makes a single conference impractical.
Third, determine your budget.
“If you're going to get in national speakers especially, there's travel, there's lodging,” Van Swol said. Venue expenses, mailings, and so forth need to be factored in.
Next, start talking to the centers.
“Start asking them, ‘If you had a state conference, what would you want to talk about? What speakers would you like to hear? What would be most helpful? What areas do you most struggle with?’” she said. “Start listening to those pregnancy center directors. Start building relationships with them.”
Then, “go to national conferences like I do,” Van Swol said.
“I love to sit at lunch with people from three other centers and hear what's troubling them, what they're most excited about, where their challenges are,” she said. “You learn so much from just listening to people and asking them questions.”
“Give yourself plenty of time,” said Van Swol. “It takes time to plan a conference, pick a theme, and come up with a list of potential speakers, topics.”
“Don't be a lone ranger,” she added. “You need people with other gifts helping you” with arranging speakers, coordinating schedules and travel and lodging, promoting the event, sending invitations, running registration, and working with the venue and its technology.
“And then just do it,” Van Swol said. “Do it. Offer it. See who comes. Listen to their needs. Get to know them. There are marvelous people out there in these pregnancy centers and they are on the forefront of the battleground.”
“The fight to protect life is in the pregnancy centers day after day, and it's a tough battle,” she said. “These workers need constant encouragement and assistance in whatever way you can provide it for them.”
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Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
