A New Approach to Pregnancy Medical Clinics Leads to Abortion Clinc Shutdown in Yakima

In February 2010, Lenette Lindemann asked God how to pray against the late-term abortion chain that had been started in Yakima 30 years earlier. Mrs. Lindemann was running the Life Choices Pregnancy Medical Clinic in the same city. "God told me to pray for 'the whirlwind'," she told AIW in a recent interview.

Lenette Lindemann, Yakima

Mrs. Lindemann did a study of the Bible for references to 'whirlwind' and prayed Proverbs 10:25 daily around Cedar River Clinic, run by Beverly Whipple. Cedar River had 3 locations then: Yakima, Tacoma, and Renton. Now they have two. The Yakima clinic closed 9 months to the day after Lindemann had that conversation with God. November 15, 2010, was the last day babies were killed at Cedar River Yakima.

But prayer wasn't the only ingredient in the closing of Yakima's most infamous and oldest abortion mill. Ms. Lindemann also went on a mission to save babies from death at Ms. Whipple's hand with more earthly (though not secular) measures. One of the biggest single changes she made was to take the fledgling ultrasound capabilities and expand them aggressively. Research has shown that up to 75-85% of pregnant mothers, even those who are intent on abortion, end up choosing life for their babies after seeing them on an ultrasound. This has prompted many pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) to upgrade themselves into Pregnancy Medical Clinics (PMCs). This requires a medical director, a nurse trained in ultrasound, and of course ultrasound equipment.

Mrs Lindemann told us that Life Choices was doing just 50 ultrasounds a year, and the volunteer nurse was 'working from home', waiting to be called in if she was needed. This wasn't acceptable to Mrs. Lindemann. She was on a mission. First, she led a move to hire nurses to perform the ultrasounds.  She found that retired nurses made excellent candidates, wanting to work part-time to supplement their retirement and were willing to work for less than the standard hourly nursing rate.  She eventually developed a staff of four nurses with three of them certified in ultrasonography.  "Volunteers are wonderful resources, serving in so many capacities ... but when life is on the line I wanted to know that my staff was going to be there when that abortion vulnerable woman came through our doors."

She actually served as a volunteer executive director and used her salary to pay the nurses. And she trusted God to provide the rest.

Having more trained staff and having them on site during work hours meant ultrasounds could be offered to more pregnant clients immediately, more days a week. Even then they were not open full time, but the number of ultrasounds went up to 250 a year from 50. She thinks this was a critical factor in putting Cedar River out of business.

When it was reported by the local newspaper that the Cedar River Yakima clinic was closing, their CEO Bev Whipple implied that she felt it was because of competition from the local Planned Parenthood. She failed to mention a large lawsuit that had been filed against her organization seeking millions of dollars in damages over a botched abortion. She also made no mention of the additional pressure from a faithful group of individuals who prayed outside the clinic weekly for years. "The fact is that Cedar River Yakima is one of the few abortion clinic closings in the state, and shows what God can do," noted Mrs. Lindemann.

She's not resting. She believes just as God shut down Cedar River, He can shut down the Planned Parenthood abortion giant also. "God wants to show us he can do big things." Mrs. Lindemann has now moved onto mobile ultrasounds and has started up a dedicated company, ImagePoint Mobile Medical Services, to go right where women are. She knows that the abortion industry is doing everything it can to fasttrack women from pregnancy test to dead baby as quickly as possible so they don't have the time to research, breathe, and consider what they're doing. Mobile ultrasound units will let her reach more women with life-saving, scientifically accurate and factual information that Planned Parenthood doesn't want them to have.