Sixteen years later, the small band of volunteers has grown to nearly 40 women who staff the pregnancy center in two shifts a day, two to a shift.

The number of women who come there for help averages 100 a month, or 1,200 a year.

The center offers free pregnancy tests, counseling, referrals for medical and social assistance, and material help in the form of maternity clothes, layettes and other items.

Dee, the director, says her initiation into the pro-life movment came in 1976, when a neighbor invited her to a luncheon. The neighbor mentioned, almost apologetically, that the luncheon was sponsored by the North Baltimore Pro-Life Study Group.

As a stay-at-home mom with two young sons, Dee had never heard the term 'pro-life.' She didn't even know abortion was legal. But she liked going to luncheons.

The speaker at the affair talked about various pro-life candidates in the upcoming election. The revelation that there was such an issue as abortion and a need to fight it came as a shock. 'I nearly fell off my seat!' says Dee.

She got involved with the study group and joined in picketings and in lobbying in Annapolis.

She also worked with Birthright, sitting on the board of directors of that agency with Marilyn Szewczyk, whom Dee calls 'the grande dame of the pro-life movement in Maryland.'

Working at Birthright with women with crisis pregnancies, Dee came to see that that was her 'niche'; that was where she should concentrate her efforts. 'I remember one year in Annapolis, they were trying to slip abortion coverage into a state employee budget. One legislator--one of ours--said it would only cost each taxpayer a nickel. 'I thought, I can't take this! They're talking about a nickel; I'm talking about a baby's life. I realized then that I wanted to deal one-on-one with women. I didn't go back to Annapolis.'

Birthright of Baltimore was centered primarily in Catonsville, though it had offices in other areas. Dee and others worked with Marilyn, helping to open Pregnancy Center, Inc., in Columbia, which evolved into the Howard County Pregnancy Center.

In January, 1982, they opened the Baltimore Pregnancy Center on Belair Road, as well as a pregnancy 'hot line.'

And three months later, the Cockeysville center opened. 'Loretta Hoffman of Catholic Women United gave me $200 of this little estate that her mother had left, which almost paid the first month's rent; I figured that was a sign,' says Dee.

The volunteers shared an office with a trucking company. The logistics were not good; the girls who came for pregnancy tests had to use the same bathroom as the truckers.

In addition, in Cockeysville they were serving only a moderate middle-class population; Dee felt they should be located where they could reach less affluent women as well.

So after only a year they moved to Anneslie, just blocks north of the city line. In 1986 they made a two-block move to their present location at 6805 York Road.

Pregnancy Center North is a completely independent operation. Its board of directors is made up of active volunteers, who choose the board's officers by vote from their ranks.

The center receives no money from Catholic Charities, from the Catholic Archdiocese, or from any foundation. 'We're truly a grass-roots operation,' says Dee.

Staffed completely by volunteers, the center operates on a budget of approximately $20,000 a year, their primary expenses being rent, phone service, and pregnancy tests and other supplies.

Their financial support comes from regular donations from St. Joseph's in Texas (Dee's parish), Immaculate Conception in Towson, and other area Catholic churches; Dee also writes a monthly newsletter that keeps her in touch with individual donors, some of whom have been with her since the center's inception. 'People have been very good to us, and the Lord has been good to us,' says Dee. She notes, however, that in the last few years there has been a severe erosion of financial support due to the retirement or death of some of their regular donors.

Although the center is volunteer and nonprofit, it is run in an efficient and professional manner. New volunteers attend training classes and receive a comprehensive manual that spells out office procedures, counseling practices, and the principles by which the center abides.

Counselors keep careful records on each client that are confidential to protect her privacy, but at the same time provide an overall picture of the number and kind of persons the center is serving.

The records show that the majority, though by no means all, of Pregnancy Center North's clients are single African-American women, aged 18-25. 'By and large, people are generally very grateful for the service we provide,' says Dee. 'There are rare instances where people are rude, overbearing, even threatening, but I could count those on one hand.'

Dee has noticed a growing number of 'NOW-type' women coming in whose attitude is, 'It's my body--I can do what I want with it.' 'I think [our clients] are becoming a little more hard-nosed--more difficult. When we first started in '82, abortion had only been legal nine years. But now we have a whole generation who have grown up thinking abortion is a God-given right. They don't think of it as evil--if the government approves it, it must be all right! They've become desensitized to it.'

Dee is sometimes asked by potential volunteers or contributors, 'How many babies do you save?' 'My stock answer is, 'I have to believe that heaven rejoices if one baby is truly saved,' she says. Often, of course, they never know what a woman's final decision is. 'We've had women who we've written off on their sheets as probably having had an abortion, and they come back a year later with a baby! They say, 'Something you said really made me think.''

Most disappointing, however, are the women 'who have it all going for them--they come from a good family who would help them--yet you know they're not going to carry the baby.'

Some of the volunteers, such as Barbara Mendel, Catherine Connelly, Jane Comber and Betty Fahey, have been with the center since it opened. But Dee welcomes new volunteers. 'We feel rejuvenated by people who bring in new ideas and enthusiasm, and help get us out of a rut in the way we do things.'

There is no typical volunteer. They run the gamut from young women with babies to older, retired women. 'All we ask is a willing heart,' she says.

Anyone who would like to volunteer should call the office at

The rewards are great, says Dee: you will be working with volunteers who are 'some of the finest people there are.'

And, she points out, in helping girls and women in crisis pregnancies, you are doing important work--God's work. 'A woman who worked at a pregnancy center once said, 'When anyone comes to us, after picking our small ad out of all the larger ads for Planned Parenthood and the other abortion clinics, you know that they are keeping a Divine appointment.''