By: Mary Hodges
Recently, I was asked what type of nurse chooses to work for a Pro-Life Pregnancy Center and how would such a center go about finding pro-life nurses?
Personally, I heard an impassioned plea for help by a Pro-Life Pregnancy Director at Church. Her center needed more nurses to assist with ultrasounds and client counseling. As a nurse with decades of experience in medical surgical nursing, I wondered if I could be trained for such a position. I waited for years to pick up the phone and make the call. The first time I did call, I was informed that the Center was fully staffed. More years went by…I was informed that the Center needed help again, and unfortunately for them, I was working elsewhere. Finally, after more years went by, I was directly asked to help out by an employee of the Center who attended the same Church. I applied, as did four other nurses. All of us were hired this time, three of us completed the ultrasound training, and only I stayed there for a year, working one day a week. I chose to volunteer my time—zero pay—as I saw this work as a way to give back for all the blessings in my life. I also knew that would help the bottom line of the Center as they are a non-profit. Plus, as a “volunteer” I could set my own schedule. I had a nurse manager who was phenomenal. She worked the other three to four days a week that ultrasounds were offered. This Center has a Medical Director that is off-site. He is a Board Certified OB/GYN and only wanted nurses performing ultrasounds. He fully appreciates the ability of nurses to educate and advocate for clients. In addition to ultrasound training, I also participated in client counseling training. All training was completed onsite. I worked for five years before I needed to take a break to pursue other opportunities as a nurse. About the same time, the nurse manager retired.
The Center struggled to hire a replacement nurse(s). Nearly a year went by before a nurse agreed to be trained in ultrasounds and work one day a week. This nurse is motivated by her desire to stay involved with the Pro-Life movement she encountered while in college. While the Center has lost a significant amount of “tribal knowledge” with the retirement of the manager, and my own expertise in Natural Family Planning education, ultrasounds are occurring again, though not near the amount as in the past.
Upon reflection and conversations with the retired nurse manager, here is a list of what could have been reasons for the Center’s struggle to successfully fill the position for nurses based on our own observations.
Inadequate advertising for the position.
The Director posted the job on a master church website; and we were asked to spread the job opportunity via word of mouth among our nursing colleagues. The Director wanted to filter out those that were not pro-life.
The one sonographer that applied did not have any experience counseling women as traditionally, sonographers are not allowed to talk about what they see on the screen with their clients in our state. Her lack of client empathy and lack of knowledge of anatomy/physiology related to pregnancy and childbirth ended her possibility of hire.
Pay that is not competitive with specialty rates.
This is endemic to all non-profit agencies I believe. In this economy, a nurse would be hard pressed to give up nearly 25-45% of their salary for this work, even if was day shift, with weekends and holidays off. This is the reason the current nurse at the Center above only works one day a week—which is her day off from her fulltime hospital bedside job.
Benefits may or may not be offered.
If offered, healthcare benefits, a retirement plan, or paid time off/vacation time could be viewed as a tradeoff for lower pay. Other nurses I know at other Centers offering similar pro-life services, seem to be of retirement age, where healthcare benefits are most enticing.
Diminished sense of fellowship among nursing peers.
My center had one nurse present per day most of the time. If a bedside nurse is used to strength in numbers, these agencies will not fulfill that aspect of the job. Sometimes, I needed to talk with someone during or after an ultrasound, for my own sake—counselors are fantastic listeners, yet only nurses can fully appreciate our commitment to our standards of care. We have our own language and I really appreciated the days when my Nurse Manager was present performing scans too, and we could commiserate together equally over difficult cases and joyful ones.
Belief that maternal care nurses are the only ones eligible.
I never worked in maternal health and yet had a wonderful experience at the center. I was cross trained to perform ultrasounds. The group of nurses that started ultrasound training with me all came from a variety of specialty backgrounds. What we had in common was that we all were pro-life.
Concern that a pro-life nurse might be black-listed.
We have been silenced.When I told a colleague about the pro-life work I do, and organizations I belong to, she slipped me a note with her email for more information. She was not comfortable talking audibly about pro-life nursing in the presence of other nurses in the room where we were at, who are ardently pro-choice. I informed another nurse about the job opportunity at the Center and immediately was told, “I could not do that.” Apparently, she is ardently pro-choice. Her professionalism towards me changed after that encounter.
High emotional labor intensive job.
It can be difficult to personally dis-associate at this job at the end of the day. Clients are from all walks of life, and from all over the world. Many have zero resources and others are victims of their geographical/familial/societal/economic situation in life. Most are completely ignorant of basic physiology and have believed all the culture of death language, as that is the loudest voice out there currently. The men or fathers of the babies are non-existent or take the cop-out attitude of "she can do whatever she wants with her body..." stance. It can be hard to get into a nice vehicle, travel a few minutes to the highway to drive home, and leave these lives behind, knowing that you as the nurse can live in relative security.
Directors that put the needs of all staff first will most likely experience low staff turnover. When I started, the emphasis was on getting as many clients seen every day as possible. The Center had volunteer counselors to assist with the always full waiting room.
Counselors at that time lasted about a year. Myself and the Nurse Manager were used to having our lunch hour erased to scan “emergency, abortion minded” clients. We never had time to chart during the day. So we all stayed late, charting. The most recent Director has a staff first focus. Thanks to the pandemic, walk-in’s were limited and everyone needed to have an appointment. Counselors were scheduled for lunch breaks, with coverage if needed. These changes remain in place, and the Center is not as busy, but everyone is fulfilled in their work and charts are completed after each client encounter.
8. No contingency plan for hiring.
Life happens. Centers should constantly advertise, boldly, on LinkedIn, on Indeed, any website/blog where nurses gather. The Center I discussed still does not have a contingency plan and when this new nurse moves on/quits, they will search again in the same limited way.
I discovered the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses in 2019. I was advised to join a professional organization at the time, and was pleasantly surprised to discover this wonderful group of nurses that advocate for life from conception until natural death. New members are always welcome! https://nursesforlife.org/ Check out the job board here https://nursesforlife.org/job-board
Mary Hodges DNP RN, CNE has been a nurse for 36 years. Currently, Vice President of the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses. She is an Instructor at Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State University. Mary and her husband are certified Natural Family Planning instructors, Sympto Thermal Method, teaching couple fertility/cycle tracking through the Diocese of Phoenix.
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