Editor’s note: Rachel Wiles is director of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s Psalm 139 Project.
What is the value of an image? What if that image showed what was previously unimaginable: human life growing inside the womb?
The advent of ultrasound technology and its advances over the years have changed the way the public views life. It’s nearly impossible to contend that a pregnancy is just a clump of cells when confronted with a beating heart and images of fingers and toes.
This is precisely why the Psalm 139 Project began. Through Southern Baptist support of this initiative over the last two decades, many families have experienced a window into the womb firsthand. Just this week, we are holding a dedication service in Elizabethtown, N.C., to celebrate God’s faithfulness as we place the 100th ultrasound machine in the program’s history. NC Baptists and ERLC staff, along with local staff and volunteers, will gather and pray for the ministry that occurs there. This type of ministry is happening all over the country as pregnancy centers minister to those in need.
The ERLC’s Psalm 139 Project has been saving lives since the program started in the early 2000s, with the first two placements occurring in 2004. Over the years, the program has since placed machines throughout the country for centers that needed support and ultrasound technology.
From the beginning, 100 percent of donations made to the Psalm 139 Project went to ultrasound machine placements and the training centers needed to operate the machines. The same is true today.
Prayers answered through cooperation
For the past few years, I have been honored to direct the Psalm 139 Project, and this work has been the joy of my career. I get to connect with the staff of pregnancy centers, who I quickly learned are the heroes of the pro-life movement. These clinic staff show up day in and day out to do ministry where life is messy. They boldly share about the physical life growing within the womb and the eternal life Christ offers. They often meet a woman in crisis afterhours to provide necessary material needs or to offer abortion-pill reversal, knowing that every moment matters.
In doing this work, there were days when I would find out about an urgent need from a center and then the next day, a donor would reach out saying they wanted to fund a machine in a specific location. The Lord saw and answered these specific needs and requests.
Many times those prayers were answered through Southern Baptists, proving that we can do more together than individually. State conventions caught a vision for this work and stepped in to joyfully help fund placements in their own states and, later, beyond their own borders.
Some of my favorite placements may be those in smaller towns where the local hospital has shuttered labor and delivery and where there are no practicing OBGYNs. These centers are stepping into the gap.
Combatting a culture of death
As I have traveled to pregnancy centers, some individuals I spoke with said, “I’m Southern Baptist and I had no idea we placed ultrasound machines!” I started to joke that the Psalm 139 Project was the best-kept secret in Southern Baptist life, but that quickly changed between 2021-2023, when we set a huge goal: to place 50 ultrasound machines by the 50-year mark of the disastrousRoe v. Wade decision. Word got out as we placed more machines and invited local pastors, associations and state partners to join us when we dedicated these machines and prayed over the clinic staff.
What better way was there to combat a culture of death than to place dozens of life-saving machines in the hands of trained staff who could show women the life they were carrying?
Two miraculous things happened in those two years. One, we placed more than 50 machines before the 50-year mark in January of 2023 and two, Roe went to the trash heap of history through the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
Saving lives across state lines
But as we would soon find out, abortion remained, and numbers actually increased in some states. As we talked to centers across the country, we heard different realities from centers in pro-life states than those that served in pro-choice states. Both were meeting families where they were and providing incredible services as well as gospel hope, but those in pro-choice states were doing so under increasing restrictions and with less financial and church support.
Knowing that Southern Baptists are not just a pro-life people, but a missionally minded people, we launched Across State Lines, an emphasis of the Psalm 139 Project that specifically funds ultrasound machines in states where few, if any, protections exist for the vulnerable preborn and where many travel to receive abortions.
Looking back over the arc of the Psalm 139 Project, what’s the legacy of 100 machines? We will never truly know this side of heaven, but I am confident that, because of this project, there are people walking around today who would not have been born. Beyond that, families have come to Christ and generations beyond them will be forever changed through the power of the Gospel.
To God be the glory, great things He has done!
To learn more about the life-saving work of the Psalm 139 Project and partner with us to place more life-saving ultrasound machines, visit psalm139project.org.
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‘Unapologetically pro-life’: Southern Baptists’ rocky road to Roe’s reversal 
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ERLC head: State conventions can be ‘pivotal’ in pro-life policies 
Pro-life leaders honored 
Fathers carry pivotal sway in abortion, experts contend ERLC resources ready on gay marriage 
The history of the March for Life
