NARAL: It’s a “threat” to give free stuff to pregnant moms in need
[I]f the case were about transparency, then the City Council — and state legislators — should get busy passing legislation requiring abortion clinics to post how many abortions they have provided, how many women have been seriously injured or died in a clinic and whether the clinic has ever lost its license.
That would be useful information, because abortion is a serious medical procedure that should be performed by qualified medical professionals. And quality care is not always the norm in Maryland….
I do not expect legislators to force abortion clinics to be open with their data, however, because the crisis pregnancy center law was never about transparency — it was about pushing an agenda.
The impetus for it was a series of reports by NARAL Pro-Choice America, including one on Maryland, alleging crisis pregnancy centers were a “growing threat to women’s health.” Their crime: providing free pregnancy tests, parenting classes, diapers and baby supplies….
The verdict from the reports is that not providing abortions, or counseling women against abortions, is dangerous. Thus entered the City Council to protect women from the purveyors of baby clothes and adoption advice.
[T]he City Solicitor’s Office is busy trying the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns… in the court of public opinion… [and] investigating the center to show that its real goal is to make money and that it is not honest in how it describes its services….
On the front page of the center’s website, it says that it does “not perform or refer abortions.” … It receives no money from the government… [and] provides services free of charge.
It’s rolling in so much money, the Archdiocese of Baltimore recently sent out a request in church bulletins on its behalf: “Please consider picking up an extra pack of diapers, wipes, and baby toiletries on your next trip to Target, Walmart or the grocery store.”
I’m glad the city knows a suspect operation when it sees one.
~ Marta H. Mossburg, remarking on attempts to force pregnancy resource centers in Baltimore to post signs stating what services they do not offer, The Baltimore Sun, July 16
[Pictured above is Lindsay Rupprecht, coordinator of the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, via The Dialog]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
At some point in their lives, those Planned Parenthood supporters may find themselves in need of assistance like a little baby. It may not occur to these people who are making it difficult for people to do good works that charity sometimes needs just a little less interference from “The Law” to accomplish good works. Didn’t Jesus himself say that against charity there is no law?
The article makes excellent points.
I have one pet peeve that has obviously been noted before but I think it is worth repeating: I think the prolife movement should make a big effort to never call Pregnancy Resource Centers - Pregnancy Crisis Centres. The prolife movement should give these helpful centers a more accurate, positive and descriptive name.
Actually, Tyler, I think you have a good point.
We really are focused on total care for women, and not just for women in crisis.
The unwarranted legal restrictions are a pain, but there is a benefit: The publicity lets the public know that there is real help and other choices besides bowing to the abortion industry.
I would just add that there is no reason that abortion clinics can’t be expected to post that information mentioned in her article. Why shouldn’t abortion clinics be required to the inform the public about how many abortions they have done, and how many women they have harmed or killed, or whether they have lost their licence. In fact, the information could even be more detailed, revealing the experience of the abortionist by citing the number of abortions performed by age of the fetus aborted. For example, if the abortionist has not aborted any fetus over 12 weeks and you are at 19 weeks along would you want to that abortionist’s first patient?
A lot of this frustrates me so much it’s difficult for me to talk about it, due to my past involvement with a pregnancy center.
The claim is that the centers don’t help women with older children and so on… but the truth is that if a family has more than one child and you’re helping to provide for the youngest members, then you ARE helping that family as a whole, thereby helping the other children in the family. It’s a win FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY.
Secondly, I find it stupid that on one hand, they expect PRCs to help women and children without limit (apparently into the child’s adulthood, since we pro-lifers are so cold, and helping kids until they’re grown and have college degrees is the ONLY way to really prove we’re “pro-life”), but on the other hand, they fight the very existence of such centers and call them “a danger to women’s health.” To me, it’s kind of like going to a homeless shelter and telling them they aren’t doing enough to help stop the problem of homelessness as a whole in society, therefore that disqualifies them from offering relief services like housing and food. I just don’t get it. It’s nonsense.
Also, the claims made by many that PRCs only help women with religious strings attached are just false. PRCs will help anyone, of any or of no religion. If a person isn’t interested in responding to the Gospel message, that’s their choice. The center’s mission is what it is, but not everyone responds, yet the center will still be there to support that family in whatever way they can.
It’s sad that people talk about choice, but want to close down or hamper people who help mothers who make the choice to have their babies and raise them themselves or give them up for adoption.
The crisis pregnancy center in my community is run by the Baptists, but other Protestants and the Catholics all donate to it and refer women in need of help to it. And the help continues after the babies are born, with supplies, counseling, parenting classes, etc.
Ironically, all the help crisis pregnancy centers offer is free, supplied by donations. Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers are clearly for profit.
Ironically, all the help crisis pregnancy centers offer is free, supplied by donations.
Exactly. I don’t know where they’re getting the idea that PRCs are “in it for the money.”
There were a few times when I had to decide between my own small paycheck for running the center or paying the rent to keep the doors open. Keeping those doors open was paramount. I left a secure job with a steady paycheck and benefits to run a center that survived solely on donations, so don’t tell me PRCs are in it to get rich. That’s an absolute lie.
I don’t get it either. When I did research on Pregnancy Resource Centers, I found they actually did have things for free. BTW, I am strongly prolife.
It’s like that Jezebel blogger who was so, so upset that a pastor offered a couple some choices of adoptive families as an alternative to aborting their child. Coercion! Coercion! How dare anyone offer any choices other than abortion, ever. I wonder if they consider social welfare for single moms dangerous, then, because maybe some women choose to carry to term because of these programs. The horror!
If they wanted to make an attack at least based somewhat in fact they could mention that a lot of PRCs are big on the evangelizing, which isn’t really a bad thing, but some women might be uncomfortable with it. But no, they make stuff up out of thin air and just end up looking like bullies.
Here’s the only sign a CPC needs: “Sorry, we cannot help you kill your unborn baby. As a result, we do not offer abortions and we will not tell you where to get one.”
I think what makes me so annoyed is they basically contradict themselves a million times with stuff like this. They complain non-stop that pro-lifers don’t help women in tough spots when they are pregnant, and that we don’t help born babies, and when we DO and point that out, it’s all “oh no that’s dangerous how dare you not offer abortion too”. It’s just stupidity.
It boggles the mind that some people think it’s reasonable that a business/non-profit/office should advertise with signage the services they don’t offer. I guess PP needs to start posting signs at most of their clinics that say “We do not perform mammograms, provide obstetric care, or purposefully deliver live babies”.
It is clear to me that the abortion industry wants to shut down Crisis Pregnancy Centers for the same reason that they want to eliminate adoption. Both adoption and CPC’s provide competition for the abortion industry. Every baby born, whether he or she goes up for adoption or gets raised by their mother or other relatives, is looked upon as a financial loss in the eyes of the abortion industry. While they have to admit, some babies must be born to keep the species going, anybody who has a less than ideal situation for raising a child, the abortion industry feels they should have first dibs on that pregnant mother, with an eye to enriching their bank accounts. Anybody offering mothers an alternative to abortion is viewed as a threat to their profits, taking away customers that could be pressured into thinking they had no choice (how ironic, since “choice” is such a selling point) but to have an abortion.
They are also projecting a lot of their own vices and sins onto the CPC’s. Lying to women, threatening their health, only caring about profits, these are what the abortion clinics do, not the CPC’s.
They’re just a bunch of money hungry creeps, who want most pregnant women to have NO CHOICES, except the one that will enrich the abortion industry.
Of course the free stuff is a threat – to the abortionists’ bank accounts!
Jack: Evil doesn’t need to be coherent. Lies and deception don’t need to be consistent. They don’t require their victims to be thoughtful and skeptical of claims — in fact, it’s better if they’re credulous and think in terms of tribal loyalty.
What’s rationally frustrating about the incoherence you cite (pro-lifers don’t help so they suck — oh, now they’re helping? well then, they suck…) is the signal that you’re dealing with evil — evil in the sense of an absence of a good that ought to be present — namely, a concern for truthfulness and integrity.
I think it’s unrealistic to expect people like that to restrain themselves from killing the unborn, when they can’t handle the much simpler moral challenge of merely being honest.
What needs restatement? natal and pp have a political agenda that abortion is at the center of. They do not care about the women, they care about the agenda that keeps them as a powerful lobbying organization. The NRA is exactly the same. They could care less that guns are widely abused, misused and unsafe. But they don’t care about people, just the gun makers that keep them in a position to have money and power. These groups are cut from the same cloth. They are all deadly to our society and deadly to those in it. Don’t for a minute think you need any of them.