Women’s Care Center gets new ultrasound — in a hurry

By Deacon Kyle Eller 
The Northern Cross 

For pregnancy centers helping pregnant women to choose life for their unborn children, an ultrasound is a critical piece of equipment. It’s estimated that 94% of women who have an ultrasound choose life. 

So when the seven-year-old ultrasound machine at the Women’s Care Center in Duluth, located across the street from the abortion facility in the city, went down, it represented a bit of a crisis.

Bishop Felton and representatives from the Women’s Care Center and the Knights of Columbus at a check presentation with funding for a new ultrasound machine. (Photo courtesy of Margaret Slawin)

“Ultrasounds are essential tools to help support and educate women who face pregnancies they feel unprepared for,” said Betsy Kneepkens, director of the Office of Marriage, Family, and Life for the Diocese of Duluth, who was alerted to the situation at the end of April. “In the crisis pregnancy ministry, a non-working ultrasound is an emergency.” 

Debbie Ellingsen, executive director at the center, said it just stopped working one day. They reached out to the company, had estimates and field assessments, and there were attempts to repair it at a significant cost, but they failed and finally decided the best course of action was a new machine. 

Thus began “several weeks without an ultrasound,” she said. 

It’s also when the help started kicking in. 

One source of help was Jim and Diane Lee, who are recent additions to the WCC board. Jim is a member of the Knights of Columbus and had been intending to talk to the fourth degree Knights in the Brainerd area about using up some funds in a particular way. When he learned about the situation at the WCC, he switched gears and directed his attention to that immediate need, knowing that the Knights of Columbus have a program where, if a state or local council can raise half the funds, the Supreme Council will pay the rest. 

What happened when he got up to give the speech is something he describes as “a bit of a miracle.” 

As he started talking about the WCC, “this little 12-month-old baby kept throwing a ball towards me,” he said. As he gradually lost the attention of his audience, he introduced the baby and asked, “What would you pay to save one baby’s life?” 

A hand went up of someone offering a thousand, then another, then someone offering $500. “I’d say the first five minutes of the kickoff meeting, we raised $6,500,” he said. 

Support came in from elsewhere. The Lake Superior Life Care Center, another pro-life pregnancy center in the area, loaned the WCC its ultrasound machine, at no charge and no questions asked. 

Kneepkens said Duluth Bishop Daniel Felton made finding funds for a new machine a priority. “The bishop recognized that a crisis pregnancy center such as the WCC without this tool meant that the lives of the unborn were at risk,” she said. 

The bishop wrote an opening for the letter to the Supreme Council supporting the project, which went through with remarkable speed. 

Benedictine Sister Lisa Maurer, chair of the WCC board, said the immediate response is what’s remarkable to her. 

“I know that the Knights are supportive of life, so that part doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “But what surprises me is that this wasn’t a planned fundraiser, like ‘Next year could your pancake breakfast be for our new ultrasound?’ This was ‘we needed it now.’ And the fact that they came to our aid and they rallied, they got everything in order and figured it out, that’s what amazes me, and to me that’s where that miracle comes in.” 

The new ultrasound machine at the Women’s Care Center in Duluth is already being put to good use. (Submitted photo)

The cost of the new ultrasound machine was about $34,000. Counting the Supreme Council contribution and contributions from inside and outside the diocese, the Knights of Columbus program raised more than $40,000. WCC also received a check from the bishop’s mission fund and a grant from the Human Life and Development Fund. 

WCC officials said that will help ensure the costs of trying to repair the old machine will also be covered, noting that the center receives no state or federal grants but relies on donations. “Every penny in our budget counts,” Ellingsen said. 

So far this year the center has served 221 women, and in the three weeks since the new machine has been in place, there have been 26 ultrasounds, which are offered after a pregnancy test. 

“It changes lives and it saves lives,” Ellingsen said.