Just a few days before the only abortion facility in the state of Missouri sent its 60th patient since 2009 to the hospital via ambulance, paid pro-abortion protesters gathered at a pro-life pregnancy center chain in St. Louis, displaying signs which ironically stated, “Show me accountability.”
Operation Rescue reports that on Saturday, July 2, 2016, pro-life sidewalk counselors from Defenders of the Unborn witnessed and documented yet another ambulance call to Planned Parenthood of St. Louis. The previous ambulance call for a patient occurred less than two months prior, on May 13th. As a result of the St. Louis Fire Department’s refusal to release 911 information regarding ambulance calls to Planned Parenthood of St. Louis, Operation Rescue filed a recent lawsuit, after which it was revealed that 58 medical emergencies took place between January 1, 2009, and April 6, 2016 — a far higher number than was expected. OR’s Troy Newman remarked:
In the current rush to abandon safety regulations in response to the Supreme Court decision, we should remember that abortion facilities in America remain under-regulated with little or no accountability, even to regulators, legislators, and law enforcement.
When abortion businesses operate without regulatory oversight, women suffer, women die, and babies die.
Accountability. Something sorely lacking in the abortion industry. And yet, 23 pro-abortion protesters — employees and interns of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri, the ACLU, and Reproaction — seem indifferent to the injuries inflicted on women by the rarely accountable abortion industry, instead choosing to attack pregnancy centers which offer alternatives to abortion, along with material help and resources for women and their families.
The center they chose to protest, according to Jay Hobbs of Pregnancy Help News, is Thrive St. Louis, a group of pro-life medical pregnancy centers with 30 paid staff and 200+ volunteers. Thrive, says Hobbs, offers “free ultrasound testing, pregnancy testing, STD/STI testing, parenting classes and help with making an adoption plan.” Not only that…
Recent recipients of an ultrasound machine through the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberties Committee that now bumps its fleet of mobile ultrasound units to four, plus three brick-and-mortar locations, Thrive provided 8,445 points of free service for community members in 2015.
Thrive’s president, Bridget Van Means, says the centers’ active stand for life and efforts to reach the community have resulted in being targeted by the Satanic Temple in St. Louis, which has 300 members and considers abortion a “sacrament.”
Regarding the most recent protest against Thrive, Means told Pregnancy Help News that the pro-abortion movement is finally beginning to realize that pregnancy centers are not “just ridiculous old ladies with Bibles,” but are the “spiritual epicenter” of a battle for hearts, minds, and human lives.
Means believes that the recent Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Texas’s HB 2, which would have required abortion facilities to meet the same health and safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers and which also required admitting privileges for abortionists, has emboldened pro-abortion activists. They are upset about pro-life legislation in the state, along with Missouri’s “F” rating from NARAL, she said. Pregnancy Help News reports:
One of 10 states to re-route funding away from Planned Parenthood in the past year, Missouri’s legislators are also responsible for passing laws regulating health and safety for abortion. Missouri lawmakers have also established and expanded the Alternatives to Abortion Program while providing a tax credit for donors who support qualifying pregnancy centers throughout the state.
The Alternatives to Abortion Program “makes $4.3 million of the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding available for pregnancy help organizations—including Thrive—that goes directly to life-saving services like newborn and infant care and parenting skills education,” according to Pregnancy Help News. These are services that Planned Parenthood and its cohorts in the abortion industry do not offer.
Meanwhile, the abortion industry and its friends are all about access instead of women’s safety, while protesting centers that are perfectly safe — and life-saving. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision, Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and other facilities like it could very well put even more women at greater risk.
