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.
You took the words right out of my mouth. How sad that there isn't another one in all of Holywood, as far as I know. Maybe Dixie Carter, but she doesn't speak on abortion as far as I know.
Is District 35 Waters' district?
I'm guessing Patricia Heaton lives in Hollywood/Brentwood...whatever district that might be.
I don't live in SoCal, so I'm not sure. (My home is in Redding in NorCal and I'm working in Alaska)
Trivia
====
Went to St. Raphael's Catholic grade School, Bay Village, Ohio.
Daughter of Chuck Heaton, sportswriter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Her brother, Michael Heaton, who writes for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is getting involved in show business as a writer.
She has four sons: Sam Hunt (b. 1994), John Basil Hunt (b. 1996), Joseph Charles 'Joe' Hunt (b. 1997) and Daniel Patrick 'Dan' Hunt (b. January 20th, 1999).
Graduate of Bay High School class of 1976.
While at Bay High School she sang in the choir, performed in the Stage Band, and was a member of the Rockettes Drill Team with the Bay Rockets' Marching Band.
Told "Entertainment Tonight" (1981) she was considering adopting a child. She already has four sons (none adopted). All four of her sons appear with her in the latest Jewel commercial when she's at home going over details of a party and her sons are all watching TV and checking off items she lists. [November 2001]
Graduated from Ohio State University in 1980 with a BA in Theater.
Honorary Chair of Feminists for Life — a nonsectarian, nonpartisan, grassroots organization established 30 years ago which opposes all forms of cruelty directed at women including domestic violence, child abuse, infanticide, and abortion —the cause to which Patricia Heaton was most passionately drawn.
She is a sister of the Delta Gamma sorority.
Spokeswoman for Jewel Food Stores in Chicago, Illinois (an Albertson's Company).
Irish-American.
Spokeswoman for supermarkets owned by Alberstons, Inc., including Albertsons (West Coast, Rocky Mountain, Great Plains and Gulf Coast States), Acme Markets (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), and Jewel-Osco (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin).
Auditioned for the role as Elaine on "Seinfeld" (1990).
All of her children were born by Caesarian section. The damage to her body was repaired with plastic surgery.
Yes it is, that much I got correct.
Jennifer O'Neill
Just joshin'.
Awesome.
Yeah, better not give them cribs. A mother might choose to keep her own baby, not realizing her family would not be intact.
Wonderful! We should have more actresses like her.
Bravo Patricia!
Isn't Brooke Shields pro-life? I thought I read that somewhere...maybe not.
Yes, that's right.
whoa.
I don't want Raymond and don't know her from Eve but from now on I'll keep an eye out for her projects. God bless you, Ms. Heaton!
Finally an actress in Hollywood who is taking an pro-life stand and putting her money into trying to save lives of the unborn.
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