Pregnancy resource centers offer a great deal of help to women experiencing unplanned pregnancies. In addition to free pregnancy tests and counseling, most provide baby items, maternity clothes, help applying for benefits, parenting classes, and even housing resources – all for free. In addition, pregnancy centers allow women to see ultrasounds of their babies and give women information about fetal development and the risks of abortion.
Most abortion facilities do not give this information to women. Groups like Planned Parenthood fight tooth and nail against informed consent laws requiring women to be told about their preborn babies’ development and abortion’s potential physical and psychological risks. The pro-choice movement also bitterly opposes laws that require abortion workers to offer women a chance to see their ultrasounds or hear their babies’ heartbeats. Even giving a woman this option is unacceptable to them. The pro-abortion movement is largely driven by Planned Parenthood and other organizations that profit from abortion, so it’s not surprising that they oppose these regulations. Instead of empowering women with knowledge, abortion facilities keep women in the dark, because unlike pregnancy resource centers, they are out to make a profit. They do everything they can to prevent women from going to pregnancy resource centers.
Former Planned Parenthood administrator Ramona Trevino used to refer poor women to a nearby pregnancy resource center for free pregnancy tests — and she was reprimanded for it:
The administrator, who had been going through materials in preparation for an audit, summoned me with, “Uh, Ramona, can you come here for a second?”
Holding a card from our Rolodex with the Pregnancy Care Center’s handwritten name and number on it, she said, “We need to get rid of this. We don’t really refer people here.”
“Okay,” I said, “but do you mind if I ask why?”
“Well,” she said, “this place isn’t exactly what we’d call pro–Planned Parenthood. Have you referred people there?”
“Yes, if it seemed necessary.”
“Okay, well, you’ll need to stop.”
When I worked for Planned Parenthood, our clinic charged $25 for a simple pregnancy test, whereas the Pregnancy Care Center offered it for free. For many low-income women, the difference was crucial. Because it seemed only right to refer them to a place that could save them some money, I did not understand my administrator’s reaction.1
Planned Parenthood didn’t care about what was best for the women. Going to a pregnancy resource center might lead them to decide against abortion. Not only that, Planned Parenthood would lose the $25 in profit per woman.
WATCH: Women tell the truth about pregnancy centers — and it’s not what the media says
As Live Action News reported earlier, abortion supporters are now even attempting to push Google to remove pregnancy center online ads from searches including pregnancy-related terms like “free pregnancy testing” — which pregnancy centers provide. This desperate and ridiculous plea comes after pro-abortion activists successfully persuaded Google to require “certification” for groups advertising pregnancy-related services, noting on pregnancy center ads that they do not provide abortion.
Mary Mintz is a social worker who counsels women experiencing unplanned pregnancies. She was responsible for setting up an abortion facility in Fargo, North Dakota. She admits to tearing down posters advertising Birthright, which offers free help to pregnant women:
I saw this Birthright poster and I tore it down immediately. And two weeks later there was another one. This time, I crumpled it up and put it in my drawer. My boss didn’t understand, and I had to explain. I said, “Gary, it’s like advertising Chevrolet at a Ford dealer. It’s another agency.2
It is appropriate that Mintz characterizes her services as being a business, in competition with another business. It is unlikely that people from Birthright, selflessly giving of their time to help women in crisis, view themselves as running a business. Mintz, however, characterizes her work as equivalent to a profit-seeking entity. It is hard to believe her goal is to help women.
The Feminist Women’s Health Center, a group that operates abortion facilities, warned pregnant women:
If you discover you are seeking help from an antiabortion facility, protect yourself from further harassment. Leave the premises immediately and do not return. When you do locate a professional clinic that offers information about all options, be sure to share your experience with your new counselor so that whatever distortions and misinformation you may have can be corrected.3
It is easy to understand why a chain of for-profit abortion facilities would tell women not to listen to counselors at pregnancy resource centers. Under the guise of “correcting” alleged “misinformation” and “distortions,” workers at these abortion facilities lie to women. By claiming that the pregnancy resource centers are the liars, abortion facilities can undermine their work. The abortion facilities can counter every truthful thing the women was told about her baby and her options. By deceiving women, they can sell more abortions and make more money.
Ultimately, it is the woman who suffers– there are countless stories of women who were told their babies were just cells, only to later discover that their children were fully formed, with beating hearts and brainwaves. These women can suffer tremendous regret. Who will be there for them if they struggle with this grief? Pro-life pregnancy centers.
- Ramona Trevino Redeemed by Grace (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2015) 106 – 107
- Faye D Ginsburg Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1998) 103
- Quoted in R Albert Mohler, “Who’s Afraid of the Fetus?” Southern Baptist Press February 14, 2005
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