As of today, the Hyatt Regency is completely sold out.  We apologize for the inconvenience. 

Heartbeat has compiled a list of hotels to make your travel planning a little easier.  

Explore Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) – The DART contains stops at area hotels and should help make your travel.  The Hyatt Regency is located on the DART line and has a stop within the hotel.  

Hyatt Regency - SOLD OUT
300 Reunion Boulevard,
Dallas, TX 75207
Phone: (214) 651-1234

Hyatt Uptown - SOLD OUT
2914 Harry Hines Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75201
214-965-9990

SpringHill Suites Dallas Downtown/West End‎ - on the DART line OR 4 minute drive
1907 N Lamar St
Dallas, TX 75202
(214) 999-0500
marriott.com‎
Rates starting at $135.00 (plus tax)

Crowne Plaza Dallas Downtown‎ - on the DART line OR 4 minute drive
1015 Elm St
Dallas, TX 75202
(214) 742-5678
crowneplaza.com
Rates starting at $132.00 (plus tax)‎

Holiday Inn Dallas Market Center‎ - 1 block from the Marketplace DART OR 8 minute drive
4500 Harry Hines Blvd
Dallas, TX 75219
(214) 219-3333
holidayinn.com‎
Rates starting at $106.00 (plus tax)

by Leslie Malek, Heartbeat International Editor

Human dignity and sexual wholeness are intimately linked. Today, the dignity of women is under heavy attack worldwide, especially when it comes to children and sexuality. Unfortunately, TV, movies, and music often portray a warped view of love, romance, and sexuality that robs women of dignity.

Decades ago, Peggy Hartshorn, Heartbeat International® President with over 40 years of experience helping pregnant women choose life, recognized that our highly sexualized culture leads women into a lifestyle of life-and-death choices. That recognition drove Peggy on a search to understand the cause and find a cure.

Disinformation about fertility, overpopulation, and sexuality, combined with lack of support for pregnancy and family, are prime factors in this crisis. In fact and contrary to media and “scientific” spin promoted by “overpopulation gurus,” declining birthrates and a warped view of love are now deeply embedded in cultures everywhere. This further contributes to the decline in families and devaluation of children and women.

Says Peggy, “For a culture to value women, children and families, women have to value their gift of fertility and their nurturing natures. The roles of wife and mother are intimately linked with womanhood just as the role of husband and father are intimately linked with manhood.”

Peggy is convinced that sexual wholeness is an important part of the cure in the process of reclaiming the dignity of women. The cure has a name: Heartbeat’s Sexual Integrity™ Program (SIP), a tool that affiliates can use to help the women who come into pregnancy help centers. This program helps women find new dignity in themselves by understanding God's plan for sexuality and fertility.

The Sexual Integrity Program draws inspiration from the “Theology of the Body,” Pope John Paul II's integrated vision of the human person, body, soul, and spirit. According to John Paul II, the physical human body has a specific meaning that answers fundamental questions about us and our lives.

The Sexual Integrity Program has become one of Heartbeat's most popular offerings. For details on the Sexual Integrity program, click here.

The dignity of women and Sexual Integrity

The need has never been greater for renewed efforts to restore the dignity of women. Organizations like Planned Parenthood, the most lucrative abortion provider in the United States, target students, young adults, and even children with campaigns designed to "liberate" young people sexually. Planned Parenthood even launched a Valentine's Day campaign proclaiming "National Condom Week." The campaign encourages youths to be sexually promiscuous and use "safe sex," a blatant contradiction of terms!

The HHS (U. S. Health and Human Services) mandate is another far-reaching assault on the dignity of women through the sexploitation of "healthcare." Bureaucrats have declared that pregnancy is a treatable disease that government must combat through preventive “healthcare.” Tragically, the HHS mandate actually undermines healthcare reform by inextricably linking it to the zealotry of pro-abortion bureaucrats. This mandate further institutionalizes, at the highest level of government and alongside abortion, the cultural attack on women.

Campaigns like this degrade the dignity of women and men, young and old. Instead of liberation, the people who fall into the trap of sexploitation find themselves emotionally wounded and sexually broken.  They also become highly vulnerable to contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

Heartbeat's SIP helps women learn how to respect their own body, know the ingredients for a healthy relationship, become sexually whole, and gain deeper understanding of the value of human life.

Through SIP, Heartbeat affiliated centers empower women by sharing the truth about who God created them to be. Centers also introduce women to the dignity of sexual wholeness with its freedom and peace.

As the phone center manager for Pregnancy Resource Center of Gwinnett, Georgia, Lana Duffell has very little time to call her own.

Without the persistent effort put forth by Lana and her co-laborers, the call from a local woman or girl facing the desperate circumstance of an unexpected pregnancy might fall through the cracks, and cause her to choose abortion as the only option she can see at the moment.

So most days, Lana keeps her nose to the grindstone and her ear to the phone.

But when Lana and her staff decided to take time off during this Christmas season, she had no concerns about the calls and contacts that were sure to come in. Lana and her staff had full confidence that, even if they wouldn’t be there to answer the phone, Heartbeat International’s Option Line® would.

While Lana and her staff rested and reenergized for the coming year, the staff at Option Line routed a total of 39 calls and contacts to Pregnancy Resource Center, ensuring that not one woman seeking help fell through the cracks.

“Option Line has been there for us on a 24/7 basis, when we are in meetings and also when our phone lines are overwhelming,” Lana says. “With Option Line, we are at peace, knowing that our callers will get a live person who can offer them information about abortion alternatives or set an appointment so that we can do further counseling.

“Option Line answers our calls when we are not available, making the difference between losing a life and saving it.”

Since it opened shop in 2003, Option Line has answered the call more than 1.5 million times, in addition to 2.5 million unique visitors to its website, www.OptionLine.org.

That translates to a staggering amount of birthdays, which otherwise would never have been. For now, we’ll celebrate just one: Happy 10th Birthday, Option Line!

Book by Sheila M. Luck
Review by April Ponto

At 17 years old, with no hope or help, Sheila M. Luck chose to abort her unborn child in the face of an unexpected pregnancy. She traces her story of abortion, from loss to healing, in My Baby’s Feet: Choice, Death, and the Aftermath.

For years, Luck denied the humanity and personhood of her aborted child to justify what she believed to have been the right decision for her pregnancy. However, as time passed, she came face-to-face with the truth of her situation, which led her to expose the truth of her previous abortion to her children, husband, and family members.  

This book is a beautiful and true account of the author’s journey from death to life. She opens her heart to readers so that they may walk in the light of Christ, even as she has.

Each chapter is ensconced in the truth, freedom, and restorative work of God, revealed through Scripture and woven together in a remarkable narrative of Christ’s redemptive work through His suffering, death, and resurrection.

This is not merely a book written for women who have experienced the pain and loss of abortion, but it is for men and women alike who are interested in women’s reproductive choices.

Note: Sheila M. Luck will be leading a workshop, Grapple with Guilt, Shed the Shame, at the 2013 Heartbeat International Annual Conference April 3-5 in Dallas, Texas.

by Andrea Trudden, Director of Communications & Marketing

Being a full-time working parent of toddlers does not leave a lot of downtime.

At work, I have my task list that I check through each day. At home, I have my domestic duties that I enjoy. On the weekends, we have parties, church activities, and visitations. So, when I have a few moments to myself, I find I sometimes feel bored.

I literally don't know what to do with no obligations. (Hence this article I'm writing while waiting for my flight to take off.)

I believe I have become so accustomed to having obligations that I truly have not thought of downtime.

This has forced me to acknowledge that my husband and I have fallen into exactly what our priest warned against in premarital counseling—we are living for our family and not for ourselves.

It's very hard to not live for our family, however, because we both love them so much!

Recently, we were able to take a date night, before coming home and sorting through our bookshelves to clear space in our guestroom, of course. It was so nice to know that we can still just talk about nonsensical things and laugh at each other’s jokes.

Don't get me wrong, we talk every day. But we usually tend to talk about the cute thing one of our kids said, or our conversation revolves around planning for our next event.

This made me revisit Ephesians 5:15-17

""Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity..."

Although I interpreted this initially as, “Do as much as you can,” I’m coming to find that, sometimes what I actually need is an hour to shop, play a game, or just talk.

Sometimes, it’s more “productive” for my soul to stop trying to be so… well, productive.

I encourage you to take some time and do something for you. Maybe it’s walking, reading, or praying... just make sure it’s something you want to do, and something you can do without interruption.

Okay, back to work.

Jor-El Godsey, Vice President

When you take into account all those who have been wounded by this “choice”, it becomes even harder to find something positive—let alone to allow ourselves to think we’re winning.

But, before we throw our hands up and walk away, let’s consider two things that can give us at least a hint that, yes, we are winning.

First, the nearly 1,400 Heartbeat affiliates worldwide directly serve 1,000,000 moms, dads and babies every year. That’s direct service, not estimated impact. Think about it: If the pregnancy help community threw in the towel, countless additional lives would be added to the toll of dead and wounded on account of abortion.

Second, and more importantly, such discussions draw us to envision a time when no abortions are happening. We long for that day. We pray for that eventuality to come about. We hope to see the realization of that dream.

Many pro-lifers give their time and attention to achieve that BIG victory over abortion, by utilizing the political and legislative resources available to us. This is a necessary and worthy goal. But, until that happens, we can—and must—win ONE victory.  

That ONE victory involves the mom and baby we will see today, in our centers, in our maternity homes. That’s what we do: We win one victory, one heart, one life at a time.

So take heart. We win every day we step into someone’s life and prevent the tragedy, the loss, and the violence of abortion they are otherwise headed for.

I deleted an app from my iPhone this afternoon.

It was a good app, and free when I got it. But, as I read through Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions, as I do every year, I became instantly convicted that this app—which I just downloaded yesterday—has already wasted too much of my time.

Edwards, regarded by many as the finest American theologian ever, jotted down 70 resolutions over the course of several months in 1723, and these have stood the test of time as some of the most brilliant, yet simple resolutions a Christian can make.

Several of them cut like a boning knife through my flabby heart, not the least of which is Resolution No. 5:

Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but to improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

Not one moment wasted. Not even when I’m waiting at the airport or stuck in traffic. Not even when I’m early to an appointment—a rare event in any case—and have 15 minutes to kill. To Edwards, a truly godly man, those 15 minutes didn’t belong to him in the first place, and therefore, were never his to kill or make alive.

I love this resolution of Edwards, not only because it sounds ambitious to the point of heroic, but because it is so squarely biblical. It’s nothing more than a simple restating of the Apostle Paul’s instructions to the church at Ephesus:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15-16)

I want to imitate men like Edwards and Paul, who understood and embraced the gospel so wholeheartedly that every moment became an opportunity to capitalize upon and make the most of, for my ultimate joy, for the good of others, and for the glory of God.

Step 1: Cut out the Fat

The first step to capitalizing on the precious opportunities that each moment represents—to really redeem the time and make the best use of it—is to prayerfully quit doing things that do waste time. There goes that iPhone app. Is Facebook next? Pinterest? Maybe.

That’s what Edwards means when he resolves to “never lose one moment of time,” and it’s what Paul is shooting for when he warns his readers to watch how they’re walking, “not as unwise, but as wise.”

Can you picture Jonathan Edwards, the third president of Princeton, frittering time away on Facebook or Twitter? Or, can you picture the Apostle Paul, commissioned by Jesus as a servant and a witness to the resurrection, burning time on his cell phone while he waits for the bus?

Step 2: Capitalize on the Moment

Following the pattern set by Paul in Ephesians 5, Edwards counters his negative goal (to not waste time) with a positive objective: “to improve (each moment) the most profitable way I possibly can.”

This “improvement” starts with the heart. Are we actively seeking Christ where he is to be found—in his Word and among his people, the Church? Are we actively seeking to embrace the gospel so that we can say with Paul, “the love of Christ controls us”? (2 Corinthians 5:14)

This is what Paul means by “making the best use of the time,” and there is no app for it.

This kind of living takes discipline, study, and Christian community. And this is the kind of living that will really make a difference in the world, including the people you interact with on an everyday basis.

One Suggestion: Heartbeat Academy

How can you improve each moment in the most profitable way you possibly can in 2013?

• Do you need further training to be best equipped to counsel the desperate woman who believes abortion to be her only option?
• Are there steps you can take to make the best use of the opportunities God gives you in the coming year?

If so, then consider the Heartbeat International Academy, which currently offers 50 courses, as well as Life Affirming Specialist training and certification.

Geared toward life-affirming leaders, staff, volunteers, and supporters within the pregnancy help movement, the Academy offers just the kind of training you may need in order to make the best use of the time you’re given in 2013.

In the meantime, be choosy about your apps.

A pregnant woman called the ARIN CARE Line one evening at 11:30pm.  She had found our website on the Internet and was calling to schedule her first abortion recovery counseling appointment.  Oddly enough, she had not yet ended her pregnancy. She was scheduled for an abortion the next day! My skin got goose bumps when she said....

“I know I’m going to need some help. After the procedure tomorrow, I’ll be one of ‘those people!’”

I lovingly explained to her, that I too was one of those people! That actually there were quite a few of us! It seemed to bring her comfort when I summarized just who we ALL were....

Those People Are...

Those people, I explained, are the women, men, siblings, grandparents, and extended family who have chosen an abortion in the past, or been associated with someone who has. Those people are your neighbors down the street, your pastor or his wife, your nephew's teacher, or your son's coach. Those people are your daughter's best friend, your work-out buddy at the gym, your grandmother or friend from school. You're eating lunch with those people at work, studying the Bible with them at church, watching them on TV, listening to them on a CD, or seeing them run for public office. They are those whom you’d never predict would make a choice like abortion.

Those people are individuals who chose abortion when it was legal, or when it was illegal. Either way, those people were deceived into thinking it was the ONLY way out of an unplanned or medically challenged pregnancy. Then realizing, it was too late! Those people ARE EVERYWHERE!  And they are suffering in silence around the world!  WHY?  Because they are too ashamed and too frightened that they will be classified as "those people" when they ask or search for help. I thanked her for calling and for reaching out.

Looking Within...

When people, affected by abortion, have physical or spiritual complication we often don't know how to reach out to them as a pregnancy center, society, church or even as a family member. Unfortunately, those who made a "poor choice," don't often know what to do themselves when their world seems to be crashing down around them. ONE abortion, through a rippling effect, can touch as many as 40 people throughout a lifetime.

Some of those affected may choose to do nothing, stuck in denial for years!  Others may take a courageous step and seek outside help!  

What do we do when approached by the post-abortion client?  How do we treat them?  Do we grant them complete compassion or quietly scold them with contempt?  So we lash out in passive aggressive anger?  Or reach out in Christ-centered love? Do we grieve with them differently than a family who mourns a child lost to miscarriage or stillbirth?

Hmm… something we should think about...

Do our volunteers know how to speak to the client who has an abortion in their past? Are our websites friendly to those clients? Or does our web presence create additional triggers and sensitivities that would further push those hurting away? Have all of our staff, who have experienced an abortion, completed an abortion recovery program? Do we promote a "recovery first" position? 

Let’s work together to make it easier and more acceptable for people to get the healing they need. Let’s make it safe to talk with them at school, at church, at home and even within our families. Okay... but HOW Stacy?

We can start by making sure our physical buildings and web presence is a gift to those who ache from a past choice. WE can be the one person who opens our arms, our hearts and our centers to welcoming those people who just might need our unconditional acceptance. We, at ARIN, wish to help! Our goal for 2013 is to have every pregnancy center reaching out to individuals and families impacted by a previous choice.

Abortion Recovery InterNational (ARIN) has been honored to partner with Heartbeat for the past 10 years. Our affiliates, many Heartbeat affiliated themselves, minister to approximately 40,000 post-abortion clients each year through our CARE Directory and CARE Line. Many of those hurting found our CARE Directory through the Option Line web-link. Many journey through a recovery program and then go on to receive further healing through our Recovery Encore brochure and website.

With the passing of certain legislature and the upcoming 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we expect the number of those affected by abortion will greatly increase. We need your help to care for those wounded. If your center provides after abortion support, we'd appreciate sending clients your way. Please drop us an email here: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Whether you have an active abortion recovery program, need some help bringing yours up-to-speed or are prayerfully considering starting one; we are more than happy to help get YOUR program and center ready for ready for the individuals and families impacted by abortion. Phone consultations, center walkthrough, literature and web reviews are all something we enjoy doing to help pregnancy centers, medical clinics and other counseling agencies open their doors, and hearts, to the client who’s abortion affected.

"Abortion Recovering International, Inc. has been a HUGE help in getting our abortion recovery program and website up and running. We were really having a hard time trying to decide if we should renew our membership with ARIN because we felt like we were not getting any response from people needing help. However, ARIN helped us see that there were women seeking help but our approach and website was not "welcoming" to them. ARIN offered a lot of valuable information as well as their time to help us know what direction to go. I am so glad we decided to renew our membership!" 

       ~ Melissa Howard, Sound Recovery, GA

Our goal is for those people impacted by abortion is to find personal peace for their heart, mind, soul and spirit. We’d love to help YOU reach those hurting in your community!

Just One of Those People, Who is Divinely Forgiven...

Stacy Massey

President / Founding Partner Abortion Recovery InterNational, Inc. - arininc.org
CARE Directory and CARE Line - abortionrecovery.org
Recovery Encore - recoveryencore.org

“What is this book, G,” my oldest granddaughter asked from her seat behind me in the car.

My heart dropped. I’d forgotten I’d left some of my Surrendering the Secret books in a basket on the floorboard of my car. As a brand new reader, she grabbed everything with writing on it to test out her newfound skill.

“It has your name on it. Did you write this, G?”

“Yes, I did, it’s a Bible Study.”

“Can we read it?”

“Yes, someday I’ll read it to you, beautiful girl”

Oh my. Someday, I will have to talk to my precious, adorable granddaughter about my abortion. Someday, I will have to tell her about my sin, my loss, and my restoration through Jesus. Someday, but not today.

She is only 8 years old.

It has been 40 years since abortion on-demand became the law of the land in the United States, after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade. In those 40 years, 55 million unborn American babies have become fatalities of abortion.

The Bible places particular significance on the number 40. The pages of Scripture are filled with events and people whose stories are marked off by that number, which represents a generation.

Consider Moses and the Israelites, who wandered 40 years in the wilderness just outside of the Promise Land, until the old, rebellious generation was gone and a new generation arose to take its place.

What a humbling concept, as we consider the shedding of innocent blood—which God hates (Proverbs 6:17)—that has been legally endorsed over the past 40 years. America has lost nothing less than a generation.

For my part, I am missing a daughter, along with nieces and nephews, precious children of friends and friends I’ll never know because they were never allowed to take a breath on this earth.

Little did I know the devastation and loss of innocent life that would be the result of my articles, petitions, and politics. Little did I know that my own ignorance and selfishness would lead me to opt for abortion.

Little did I know that my own precious firstborn daughter would be one of those lost lives. Little did I know that someday, I would have to share that story with my own granddaughter.

As we pass this life-changing 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 22, 2013, I am still passionate, vocal, and pro-choice. However, this time, my Pro-Choice message declares the words of Deut 30:19:

I have set before you life and death—choose life so that you and your children may live.

I am now counting on a new promise, found in Revelation 12:11, which assures me that we Christians conquer even our worst enemies—even Satan himself—by “the blood of the Lamb and by the word of (our) testimony.”

It has become my life’s passion and calling to do all I can to protect and defend the next generation. To hear more of my story, please check out my new book, A Surrendered Life, releasing January 22, 2013.

Maybe I will read it to my granddaughter. Someday.

Pat Layton,
Author Surrendering the Secret
SurrenderingTheSecret.com

Over 330 homes exist in the US!  Our goal is to unify the work of homes across the country so that we can strengthen our programs and better communicate the important role that maternity housing programs play in supporting pregnant women.

Key activities:

• Develop collective tools for people hoping to start a maternity housing programs;
• Support the conferences of Heartbeat and the National Christian Housing Coalition;
• Provide emotional and spiritual support to leaders of maternity housing programs;
• Promote the work of maternity housing programs broadly, within the life.

NMHC’s Mission Statement:  We inspire excellence among maternity housing providers and articulate a collective voice to advance the culture of life and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We do this by providing training and tools, facilitating an exchange of knowledge and experience, and fostering fellowship among members.

“The power of the Coalition is in providing a unified voice to amplify our message of hope to pregnant women who are in need of support,” said Chris Bell, long-time Executive Director of Good Counsel Homes and founding member of the National Maternity Housing Coalition.  “In our work of building a culture of life, we need to leverage our voices.”

When asked about the goal of the Coalition, Mary Peterson, founder of Maggie’s Pace notes, “The work of maternity homes has been around for a long time, but the challenges of women now are quite complicated involving addiction, abuse, trauma, and lack of support.  In order to be more effective in our work, we need to learn from another.”

“What a great win-win situation to be partnering with Heartbeat,” affirmed Gloria Lee.  As a long-term director of Our Lady’s Inn, Gloria has been involved with Heartbeat for many years.  “Heartbeat’s mission of building up the capacity of life-affirming ministries is a perfect fit with the direction of the National Maternity Housing Coalition.”

For additional information, contact:

• Chris Bell, Good Counsel Homes, (201) 795-0637
• Gloria Lee, Our Lady’s Inn, (314) 351-4590
• Mary Peterson, Maggie’s Place, (602) 262-5555
• Jor-El Godsey, Heartbeat, (614) 885-7577