Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, a new book, Your Pro-Life Bottom Line by Brett Attebery, seems of providential timing in its release. Attebery is the president and CEO of Heroic Media, which specializes in direct-response marketing ads to redirect abortion-seeking women away from Planned Parenthood ads and connect them instead to highly-skilled pregnancy centers. Attebery is enthusiastic as he addresses business professionals, philanthropists and all those passionate about pro-life matters, informing them about the pro-life business industry and teaching them how to get involved.
He begins by sharing with his readers the inspiration that led to his work in the pro-life business industry (PLBI). Seated alone in the adoration chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on April 28, 2013, tears streamed down his face as he turned to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and prayed, “Lord, please use me to help young women and men not to make the same mistake I made.” The mistake, he explained, was the terrible choice made with his girlfriend years earlier to abort their unborn child. Following his conversion to the Catholic Church in 2002, he joined the pro-life movement. However, in 2013, after experiencing what he called an “epiphany moment” at a Rachel’s Vineyard post-abortive retreat, followed by his prayer a few weeks later, he understood a new call to redirect his talent in the economics and consumer-product marketing industry, and to engage full-time on the battlefield of business against what he calls the “Goliath” of the pro-abortion industry, Planned Parenthood.
Although the book was released before the repeal of Roe v. Wade, Attebery anticipated the possibility but cautions readers, “Planned Parenthood has not been sitting still, embracing a strategy of wishful thinking, hoping that Roe v. Wade won’t be overturned.” Instead, the abortion giant anticipated the change and redirected its strategy, knowing restrictions on the sale and distribution of the abortion pill can and will be lifted. Catchy phrases, including “my body, my choice,” may display a veneer of moral advocacy on behalf of women’s rights, he says. “But consider this: Planned Parenthood regularly pushes the directors of its clinics to meet or exceed abortion quotas. As a business professional, you know what that means — Planned Parenthood clinic directors have to ‘make their numbers.’”
Fortunately, there is an industry competing against the abortion industry to shrink its devastating “numbers” to zero. And that industry is what Attebery calls the pro-life business industry, consisting of all pro-life pregnancy centers in aggregate that offer women life-giving alternatives to abortion, plus all organizations that support them. In the United States, there are between 3,000 and 4,000 pro-life pregnancy centers compared to about 1,300 abortion facilities. To which statistics, Attebery concludes, “Advantage PLBI, right? Well, no. Why not?” Because the market-share number of 99 “client wins” for the typical abortion facility for every one “client win” for the typical pro-life pregnancy center does not equal winning for the PLBI. In fact, “I can assure you,” Attebery says, “the PLBI is not winning in its battle against the abortion industry, especially against Planned Parenthood. As a matter of fact, it’s not even a contest.”
A bleak assessment, for sure. However, there is reason for hope as Attebery continues to provide business analysis, all the while goading his readers toward the center of the book. There, they learn about a pro-life pregnancy center in St. Louis, Missouri that, from 2009 to 2018, shrank the number of abortions in the city from 6,881 to nearly zero, forcing the Planned Parenthood clinic to close.
Attebery attributes the win to Bridget VanMeans, a former fashion model turned business professional who was hired as a “turnaround queen” by Nutrisystem to save the company from failure. Successful, she became the regional manager for some 25 locations in the greater Chicago area. Deciding to save the St. Louis pro-life pregnancy center from extinction, VanMeans left Nutrisystem. Attebery shares the whole of her testimony in the book, which begins as she arrived in St. Louis in 2009:
When I decided to join the center that would later become ThriVe, they were ... less than thirty days away from bankruptcy. So, when I drove into St. Louis with my daughter (I’m a single mom) and my two dogs ... the organization was living off credit on a credit card. There was no money in the bank. They had laid off people, and the donors were staying away by the thousands. Because ThriVe was spiraling down, I acted. If the organization had been doing well, I would have been tempted to adopt their existing ways of doing things. But because it was less than thirty days away from bankruptcy, I couldn’t afford to adopt their existing ways. I don’t think the Lord wanted me to think about this challenge like a religious person ... he didn’t want me to think like the other pro-life pregnancy centers think.
VanMeans knew that most pregnancy centers “think” from a moral perspective, working to save babies from abortion and to save women from post-abortive regret. But now, VanMeans understood she must develop her spreadsheets according to a business perspective and compete head-on against Planned Parenthood in order to win the market share of its target client: the pregnant woman in fear. VanMeans’ testimony explained the strategy:
We think about the young woman as a consumer. What is she buying? People think she’s buying an abortion, but she’s not. She’s buying a future. She sees her unexpected pregnancy as the end of hope and the end of a future. She’s also feeling like she’s buying a medical solution because Planned Parenthood ... brainwashed her into thinking that this is a medical choice — not an ethical choice, not even a parenting choice. I constantly remind my partners: The girl walking into our center, pregnant, is the single most pro-abortion consumer in the world at that moment. For these young women, we’ve lost the moral argument.
Does not the wisdom of her strategy confirm Jesus’ words to all of his disciples? “Behold, I am sending you like sheep among wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16) VanMeans gathered a team made up of former mentors at Nutrisystem whom she called “great Catholic men,” showed them her unconventional strategy, and they agreed the principles would honor God, faith-based or not. Her testimony includes an explanation of the “fruit” of the strategy as she described a typical day at ThriVe:
When a young woman walks in at ThriVe she is going to feel something different. She’s going to engage with wonderful people who also understand cultural relevance. We know how to wear our hair, our scrubs, our gear. ... We outfit ourselves in a way where we have the greatest opportunity to position great medical services. We have her in an environment that screams of abundance, so when we tell her that we’re going to help her, she feels, ‘Oh yeah, I guess these people really could help me. This place is awesome.’”
In the same way, would it not be truly “awesome” for all pregnant women that enter any pro-life pregnancy center to feel the same way? Absolutely. And for that reason, Your Pro-Life Bottom Line is a must-read for business professionals and philanthropists serious about getting involved and being effective against the “Goliath” of the abortion industry, Planned Parenthood, on the battlefield of business. Brett Attebery is convinced that together, we can win.
And with God’s help, we will!