Los Angeles Times Profiles Antiabortion Pastor Who Travels Southern Calif. In Mobile Pregnancy Clinic

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Article Date: 10 Mar 2010 - 5:00 PST

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The Los Angeles Times on Monday profiled Dave Wilkinson, an evangelical pastor who runs three Ventura County, Calif., pregnancy clinics that try to urge women not to have abortions. Once weekly, Wilkinson and other antiabortion-rights advocates drive to Los Angeles in a donated motor home to offer ultrasounds to pregnant women and urge them not to have abortions through "prayer-filled counseling sessions," according to the Times.

Wilkinson said that many of the women promise to carry their fetuses to term. For those who leave still planning an abortion, Wilkinson and his colleagues pray for the women and the fetus and provide a phone number for post-abortion counseling. The workers in the traveling pregnancy clinic all believe that life begins at conception.

Wilkinson and his colleagues typically drive through Watts, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, because research has shown that poor areas tend to have higher abortion rates. In January 2009, the operation expanded to include regular visits to Los Angeles' MacArthur Park and the cities of Oxnard, Ventura and Mission Hills (Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, 3/8).

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