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September 20, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Good Counsel homes, a network of pro-life maternity homes, celebrated its 1,000th birth in June, which its president said was just as miraculous as every other birth.

“It’s a milestone, [but] the reality is every child, every person is uniquely made by God,” Good Counsel President Chris Bell told LifeSiteNews.

“I think about how unique God makes everything, even every single blade of grass,” he said. “There is nothing that is a copy or that ever was before or that ever will be again. … God is creating new life all the time and that life also gives us an opportunity to serve and to grow and to know in a human way God even more.”

Good Counsel runs six maternity homes, five of which are on the East Coast. Its newest home is on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.

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“Mia Rose was the 1,000th baby born, and her mom was in … it’s unfortunate to say, a not unusual situation where she could not live at home during that period of time after she conceived,” Bell explained. “We take any pregnant mother in need and give her an opportunity to go back to school, to find a job, and we offer free day care in our home.”

What makes Good Counsel homes unique is that they accept any mother — particularly homeless mothers — and provide her with holistic care that respects her life and the life of her unborn child.

“There are some 300 maternity homes in the nation and far too few of them will take in any pregnant mother in need,” Bell said. “That’s certainly a challenge [for us to accept anyone], but that is what we’ve come to understand our mission to be.”

Good Counsel accepts those suffering from mental illness or drug addiction and even has a home in Westchester County, New York, that is designed to help such women.

When a pregnant mother comes to a Good Counsel home, she may stay for 12 to 18 months. In addition to medical care, vocational training, and spiritual counseling, mothers receive instruction on parenting, nutrition for themselves and their babies, and budgeting.

“We know that all forms of contraception are degrading to men and women,” Bell said. “Every form of hormonal contraception is introducing hormones into a woman’s body and we know that that is harmful on a physiological level.”

Because of this, and the potential of hormonal contraception causing very early abortions, Good Counsel works with doctors who don’t prescribe contraception to or sterilize their patients after they give birth.

Bell said Good Counsel helps mothers faced with uncertain prenatal diagnoses to understand that such diagnoses can often be mistaken. And, if a child with special needs is born, then “The question becomes, how much love do we have? Do we have enough love to care for a child with Down syndrome?”

He compared babies saved from abortion to the Holy Innocents, the young boys King Herod murdered after the birth of Jesus.

“We know that Jesus Christ at his birth was rejected by the government as well, and children — and we don’t know the number, but many children died in his place because the government was seeking to wipe him out and that’s exactly what we have today — the government seeking to wipe out the faces and the image of God,” he said.

“We believe that every person — every person — is made in the image and likeness of God and every person, even our enemies, has an opportunity to come to the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus Christ,” Bell said. “Mia Rose is a representative for us of the next victory, if you will, in that she, even though rejected by others, is accepted by us.”

Good Counsel runs a 24-hour national pregnancy help line, 1-800-723-8331, and a post-abortion healing program called Lumina.

“Half of the mothers who come to us have had at least one abortion … and they simply do not want to do that again,” Bell said.

Father Benedict Groeschel, one of the founders of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, was one of Good Counsel’s founders. Toward the end of his life, a Good Counsel board member asked him what he would like to see happen to Good Counsel.

“[He] said, ‘just grow,’” Bell recounted, and the board member took the famed priest’s advice to heart.

Good Counsel acquired its newest home in Alabama, near Pensacola, Florida, when the board member discovered a maternity home there with only two mothers but capacity for more. Good Counsel became involved and now the home has grown to hosting 12 mothers.

“Every baby born is certainly an awesome revelation of God’s love,” Bell. Rejecting a baby would be like rejecting God, he said.

“We are the most advanced nation in history right now, we’ve gone to the moon and back … we’re exploring the stars in every direction, and [yet] there is this overwhelming sense that we cannot begin to love every baby that God gives us,” he said. “And how sad, how deeply, deeply sad and tragic is it that with all that we have, with all that we’ve been given, the best that we can do is say, ‘this baby is a burden,’ or ‘it’s not my choice,’ to have this baby. There’s nothing more inhuman and nothing more debasing than to look at a person … and saying, ‘we don’t want you,’ you know, ‘you’re not part of us.’ For us who believe in God, you can’t even fathom how deeply that is rejecting God as well as everybody else.”

So far this year, 27 babies have been born to Good Counsel residents.