History

The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) was founded in 1993 by attorney Thomas A. Glessner with the support of major leaders in the pro-life movement. NIFLA’s mission is to provide legal advice, counsel, education and training to pro-life pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) across the nation. Currently, NIFLA has nearly 1,200 PRC members across the country. Of these, more than 700 operate as licensed medical clinics.

At the time of NIFLA’s founding serious political and legal attacks were being mounted by the abortion industry against PRCs across the nation. In order to protect the work of PRCs NIFLA has developed legal guidelines to help PRCs understand legal requirements that need to be met for them to operate. In addition, NIFLA has developed legal guidelines to enable PRCs to convert their operations into licensed medical clinics and provide to their clientele medical services, such as ultrasound. By converting to medical clinic status, PRCs utilize the powerful use of ultrasound to confirm pregnancy for abortion-mined and abortion-vulnerable patients and to educate them about options.

NIFLA has led resistance to politically motivated legislation in Oregon, Maryland, Washington, New York and Virginia that would have been extremely harmful to the operations of the PRCs. The legal guidelines developed and promoted by NIFLA have served to provide guidance to PRCs to enable them to avoid the legal pitfalls and issues that would arise from such enacted legislation.

NIFLA has developed medical training protocols for nurses to provide limited obstetric ultrasound in the PRC setting. Since 1998, more than 2,000 nurses have been trained to provide limited ultrasound at NIFLA’s Institute in Limited Obstetric Ultrasound — a professional course taught nine times a year. In addition, NIFLA provides online training in ultrasound imaging through its Physicians Online Ultrasound Training Course.

In 2001, NIFLA established The Life Choice Project (TLC) where a PRC desiring to covert to medical clinic status is given all of the tools to do so. Through TLC, NIFLA has directly presided over the conversion of hundreds of PRCs into licensed medical clinics. Currently, over 700 NIFLA members have converted to medical clinics with the help of NIFLA and The Life Choice Project (TLC).