The milestone achieved recently by the Option Line pregnancy help contact center underscored the helpline’s impact in delivering 24/7 assistance to people in need. But the numbers, which have jumped much higher than when initially reported, also confirm that Option Line is a crucial round-the-clock real human connection for women seeking support during a pregnancy decision.
While virtual contact and artificial intelligence-driven assistance continue to expand across industries, Option Line’s numbers and anecdotal experience demonstrate that when the need is urgent, people prefer to connect with another person as opposed to digital or other virtual service. This human connection is at the heart of Option Line’s service and key in affecting decisions for life.
“Option Line offers compassionate support through real human beings who care deeply about the women we serve,” Option Line Director Nafisa Kennedy said. “We empower our callers with hope for a future and knowledge that they don't have to face it alone.”
Late in 2025 Option Line had surpassed 1.3 million connections in a single year, more than triple the previous year’s total. However, the bi-lingual international contact center finished 2025 with a stunning 2,059,795 connections, more than five times last year’s total.
Option Line is the only fully staffed, bilingual pro-life contact center in the U.S. It receives inquiries via call, text, chat, its center locator, and its website. Initially a joint venture with Care Net beginning in 2003, Option Line has been managed by Heartbeat International, the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the U.S. and globally, since 2012. The helpline has connected more than 9 million to pregnancy help since opening in 2003.
Option Line connections or contacts are broken down into direct connects - calls, chat, texts, and emails received by Option Line specifically related to pregnancy help, and digital connects - self-service connects to pregnancy help via the center locator, and more recently, the online pregnancy quiz, through the Option Line website.
In its first 10 years under Heartbeat’s management Option Line saw over 1.5 million contacts through phone, text, email, and chat, over 700,00 hours worked by Option Line staff, over 131,000 minutes logged into the phones, over 2.5 million hits and over 7.5 million pageviews to OptionLine.org, as well as over 750,000 contacts referred to a pregnancy help center.
Today Option Line connects more than 5,600 people to more than 3,000 pregnancy help organizations worldwide each day. This equates to connecting women and families in need to pregnancy help every 15 seconds around the clock.
Heartbeat and Option Line have observed through their operations that many women report feeling pressured toward abortion but change course once they are offered support. Demand is rising across all services and women are actively seeking life-affirming support.
Further, when a woman has access to counseling, resources, and medical care, outcomes improve for both her and her child. And connecting expectant moms with a wide range of local resources helps in avoiding the long-term harms of abortion, along with strengthening families and communities.
Kennedy knows both the human and statistical sides of Option Line well, having begun her career with Option Line in 2006 as a consultant while attending college before taking on the role of Director in 2017.
“We're finding, more often than not, that women feel pressured to have an abortion based on the opinions of others,” Kennedy said, “which really comes down to a lack of genuine support.”
“Every day, our Option Line staff speak with callers who say they told their partner, parent, or friend about their pregnancy, only to be met with a recommendation that they abort their baby,” she said. “To these women, this translates to, ‘You're not good enough to be a mom,’ regardless of how they felt when they saw their pregnancy test results.”
Option Line consultants give women the freedom to sit with their own thoughts and feelings, Kennedy explained, allowing them to process how they feel about their baby, and about motherhood. Consultants acknowledged whatever difficulties the women they serve may be facing.
“But we don't leave her to face them alone,” Kennedy said. “We connect her with a safety net through her local pregnancy help organization.”
Tweet This: Option Line consultants connect women facing unexpected pregnancy with a safety net through their local pregnancy help organization.
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Option Line also performs a critical service with connections in educating on the specifics of chemical abortion, which has fast risen to be the most common form of abortion in the U.S., and the hazards of which abortion supporters will often downplay.
“Our consultants also find that women are under informed regarding abortion procedures and they often reach out to us to find out how it works - sometimes with the pills in hand,” Kennedy said. “We provide factual information about what to expect from chemical abortion, and they often respond by sharing they had no idea, that they had been told it would be just like taking Tylenol, similar to a period, that it was no big deal.”
“After learning about the procedure, some will ask about the baby's development, an area of curiosity they may have been hesitant to indulge up to this point,” Kennedy continued. “Some of our hotline contacts feel really upset about the lack of information available through abortion providers - which they see as deceptive and misleading.”
Through the years Option Line consultants have continually provided a tangible human connection overnight and during holidays when traditional businesses are closed, providing a crucial lifeline at all times, through serious weather events and challenging periods such as during the 2020 covid health emergency.
Kennedy said the work of developing strategic partnerships and effectively promoting the Option Line website has fostered Option Line’s steady growth in direct connects.
But aside from the remarkable growth in overall connections, another Option Line stat is also telling in terms of the desire people feel for human connection.
While the percentages of digital methods of connection through Option Line have been mostly consistent stable, there has been a 50% increase in call volume in recent years at Option Line.
Kennedy references a 2025 contact center consumer survey from Five9 and Zogby Analytics finding that all generations preferred a phone call when the need is urgent. Two examples are that 67% of Gen Z and 70% of millennials prefer voice calls for urgent and/or sensitive issues.
What elements feed the demand for a voice connection? Individuals feeling more pressed to make a decision, lack of trust in quick response through other methods, and questions that might take more time to discuss through chat or text all contribute to the bottom line that when the need is urgent, consumers across age groups tend to prefer speaking with another human being.
Kennedy remarked on the current abortion climate in the U.S. as factoring in.
“Individuals may view their abortion decision as more urgent now than in the past due to change in abortion laws and fear mongering by certain media outlets,” she said. “When a need is perceived as urgent, there tends to be a greater preference across generations for a voice connection versus online or through text.”
The more than 2 million connections to Option Line in 2025 represent countless lives, born and unborn, supported and preserved.
And every so often the Option Line staff get to learn about how their service had a positive impact.
“Sometimes we hear back from hotline contacts months or years later who still remember their conversation with a consultant and just want to thank us for being here,” Kennedy said. “Evidence that a few moments of human connection can make an impact for a lifetime.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
