Posted on 05/04/2005 2:49:20 PM PDT by BenLurkin
PALMDALE - While "Everybody Loves Raymond" character Debra Barone will live on in television reruns, a generous gift from actress Patricia Heaton will live on in the lives of babies born to Antelope Valley women who were considering having abortions. Heaton, who has won two Emmy awards for her role in the hit sitcom, was honored Tuesday for donating a $25,000 high-tech ultrasound machine to the AV Pregnancy Counseling Center, which was renamed Women's Clinic of the Antelope Valley.
Ultrasound machines offer pregnant women a detailed view of their unborn children, even at only a couple of months along, and have helped convince many women leaning toward abortion to change their minds, center director Marc Boileau said.
"We needed a miracle, and we got one in Patricia Heaton," Boileau said.
"Since opening with the ultrasound machine, our clients have tripled. This ultrasound machine has really, really made a difference … and is saving lives."
Heaton, who is honorary chairwoman for Feminists for Life, offered to donate money for several machines at a fund-raising dinner for the Right to Life League of Southern California.
Heaton's donation purchased four machines, and the organization Focus on the Family provided funds for a fifth, said former Right to Life League leader Bernadette Gonzalez. Besides Palmdale, pro-life medical centers in Monrovia, Santa Monica, San Gabriel and Ridgecrest received the machines.
Heaton said the pro-life perspective is perfectly compatible with feminism, saying she believes women should be able to choose to have their babies without risking their educations, their employment or their relationships.
"Women deserve better, and should be able to have children, have an education and have their jobs," Heaton said.
"This has enabled me to be in Hollywood … and challenge people if they are pro-choice to help people have a choice."
Heaton recently traveled to Washington to meet with members of Congress on pro-life issues, something the actress has more time to do now that "Raymond," in its ninth and final season, has finished filming.
Heaton said Feminists for Life is hitting college campuses with the message of changing society to become more supportive of parenting and children, so women who didn't plan to be pregnant feel supported in having their babies.
To use the ultrasound machine, the center applied for and received medical clinic status from the California Department of Health Services and began offering ultrasounds in June.
On Tuesday, the name change was celebrated with a second grand opening and a ribbon-cutting by Heaton.
Doctors Christine Cambridge and Beatrice Lauria are the center's medical directors; other medical staffers and volunteer counselors also help run the facility.
Women who decide to go through with their pregnancies are offered baby supplies, cribs, formula, maternity clothes and more, while counseling is offered to women who will give birth as well as to those who have had abortions.
Boileau said in the first four months of 2004, six women decided to give birth after leaning toward having an abortion; in the same time span this year, 36 women have made the same decision.
The center is on pace to see 130 women give birth after planning to have abortions, he said, compared to a previous high of 46 women changing their minds in one year.
If she hadn't already, she just made the Hollywood blacklist.
Kudos to Patricia Heaton. I know she is pro-life and God Bless her for it, not easy in her line of work.
God, I love this woman!!
Thanks to her on behalf of all the children who will see the color of their mothers' eyes.
May her stand become a leadership position among her cowering peers and may this bring her success instead of approbation.
God bless Patricia Heaton.
conservative and hot
The only thing that worries me is that giving cribs, etc. to these brave women and girls who will choose to let their babies live might encourage them to keep their babies, which of course is an option. Still, adoption hopefully is another choice presented to them, in which an intact family will raise the precious baby.
I hate even to mention that, because this is such a magnificent thing she is doing, saving the ONLY lives on the planet liberals do not care about.
Yep, she (and her kind) gets sexier every day.
Good for her!
There is now.
It's sad that the words "pro life actress" was enough for me to know who it was without reading her name.
"If she hadn't already, she just made the Hollywood blacklist."
I doubt she cares. Thanks to syndication, she's set for life. It's nice to see a Hollywierd-o using her powers for Good and not Evil. She's played the game well, IMHO.
What's Cameron Diaz done lately? Provided free abortion suction tubes to her local clinic for all the rapes that Republicans have caused since President Bush was elected? *Rolleyes*
I FINALLY talked my slightly left-leaning DH into watching an "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode a few weeks back. He laughed his butt off...and then I broke the news to him about what a "D@mn Republican" that Patricia is...and then "I" laughed my butt off, LOL!
Can we draft her to run for Congress? What's her district?
I LOVE this woman! She's fearless! And I ALWAYS check out Albertson's before shopping because I want to support her.
Red
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