{"id":167085,"date":"2017-06-04T16:09:18","date_gmt":"2017-06-04T20:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=167085"},"modified":"2017-06-04T16:09:12","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T20:09:12","slug":"israels-modern-day-midwives-offer-solutions-not-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/israels-modern-day-midwives-offer-solutions-not-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s modern-day midwives offer solutions, not abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Pregnancy Help News<\/a>) — Enslaved in a foreign land for 430 years, Israel\u2019s mothers were once confronted with a gut-wrenching choice: either put their newborn sons to death or face the wrath of a powerful king.<\/p>\n

Rather than give into the demands of the Egyptian Pharoah, however, two heroic midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, led Israel in a resistance that led to the birth of Moses, who would grow up to lead his people out of captivity and into the Promised Land.<\/p>\n

Today, several thousand years after that deliverance, a pro-life ministry in Israel is picking up where Shiphrah and Puah left off. Only this time, the threat to Israel\u2019s sons and daughters is coming from within, robbing a reported 20,000 unborn children of their lives every year.<\/p>\n

The problem is actually twice as bad, says Sandy Shoshani, national director of a pro-life group called Be\u2019ad Chaim. Even as taxpayers fund 20,000 legal abortions<\/a> each year\u2014an official number that has stayed the same since the mid-1980s\u2014private clinics abort another 20-30,000 children on an annual basis.<\/p>\n

Many of the non-reported abortions take place while young women are serving a compulsory term in the military. Rather than going through the shame of accessing an abortion through the state, young women in the military routinely opt for private abortions\u2014a trend Shoshani\u2019s daughter saw firsthand while she was in the armed service.<\/p>\n

Since 1948, Shoshani estimates over 2 million babies have been aborted. Currently, Israel\u2019s population of just 8.4 million aborts as many as one in four preborn babies\u2014a ratio just below that of China.<\/p>\n

It was numbers and anecdotes like these that shocked Shoshani into action back in 2005 when she was asked to take the reins of Be\u2019ad Chaim, an organization serving Israeli women since 1988.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lord spoke to my heart Proverbs 24:10-12,\u201d Shoshani said. \u201cThe Lord showed me a picture of myself like an ostrich and said, \u2018You can stick your head in the sand and pretend you don\u2019t know about the abortions in Israel, or you can do something amazing. So, I took up the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Picking Up Where Shiphrah and Puah Left Off<\/strong><\/p>\n

Installed as Be\u2019ad Chaim\u2019s director, Shoshani almost immediately drew upon her background as a preschool teacher, community volunteer and mother of seven to address one of the most common reasons women resort to abortion<\/a>: poverty.<\/p>\n

The government will pay for abortions, but many young women\u2014including those fresh out of the military\u2014feel they don\u2019t have the resources to raise a child when they become pregnant.<\/p>\n

Under Shoshani\u2019s leadership, Be\u2019ad Chaim started a project called Operation Moses, which provides free maternity help and baby items throughout the first year after a child is born. Since starting Operation Moses, Shoshani and her volunteer team have paid the first year\u2019s expenses for well over 1,500 mothers\u2014helping as many as 450 women at a time.<\/p>\n

In addition to Operation Moses, Be\u2019ad Chaim is helping the women and men heal from past abortions with a project called \u201cThe Gardens of Life<\/strong>,\u201d which has helped over 2,000 women and men from all over the world grieve a child they lost through abortion.<\/p>\n

The drive to reach post-abortive women\u2014who are more likely to choose abortion in a subsequent pregnancy\u2014has also spurred Be\u2019ad Chaim to produce a video, \u201cLife After<\/strong>,\u201d which tells the stories of three Israeli women who resorted to abortion, following them through the difficult aftermath of abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we have, we give,\u201d Shoshani said. \u201cWe\u2019re very open-handed with helping people. We don\u2019t reject anybody. We accept them no matter who they are and what they do. We\u2019ve even had people who\u2019ve had abortions and come back to us. A lot of girls come back here and say, \u2018I just want to hang out here because it\u2019s like a family to me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n