This week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) began a crusade against pregnancy resource centers. In doing so, she made it clear that her goal is not to help women in trouble. Instead, she intends to control them by ensuring that abortion clinics are the only option for women in crisis pregnancy situations.
Let’s look at what pregnancy resource centers actually do. Save the Storks, a mobile resource center for pregnant women works non-stop to inform women about alternatives to abortion. They provide safe, free, and accessible healthcare to women who are in need, including ultra-sounds, counseling, STI screenings, and pregnancy tests. Organizations like these are working towards promoting life by providing alternatives to abortion. And it is organizations like these that Senator Warren wants to shut down. Warren authored a bill with Senator Menendez (D-NJ) that would financially penalize centers that she says “mislead and deceive patients seeking abortion care.” According to a NARAL undercover investigation, misleading patients means referring to the child in the womb as a “baby” and telling a pregnant woman that she is now a mother.
Warren’s plan includes using the Federal Trade Commission to act as an “abortion disinformation board” that will shut down any organization that violates its standards, according to the National Review. This Orwellian bill gives the FTC the power to press penalties up to $100,000 dollars, a huge sum for non-profit organizations.
NARAL and Senator Warren are going in the wrong direction. Instead of penalizing these life-giving organizations, we should prosecute those who blatantly attack and vandalize pro-life work. Since before the monumental Dobbs v. Jackson decision, over fifty pro-life organizations (including pregnancy resource centers) have been attacked by pro-abortion extremists.
In Minnesota, the need for these centers has never been greater. Just this week, we saw the overturn of many pro-life bills in Minnesota, including a 24-hour waiting period, counseling requirements, and the need for parental notification. As some in Minnesota seek to create an abortion destination for out-of-state women, there is reason to fear for the safety and stability of pregnancy resource centers around the state. Right now, PRCs can get funding from the state of Minnesota for providing alternatives to women under the 2005 Positive Alternatives Act. If we do not defend the right of pregnancy resource to continue providing care for women and babies, these clinics may lose their funding and have to shut down.
We are the pro-life generation, and we stay true to what we stand for. A mother should never have the choice to kill her child, but she should have options like adoption and financial support to take away the fear and uncertainty that a crisis pregnancy may cause. As pro-lifers, we support a woman’s right to find alternatives to abortion. Senator Warren has made it clear that she does not support such a right.
