An abortion activist website misrepresents pro-life advocacy in its aim to enlist Texans in abortion advocacy, raising the question of just who it is that has meeting the needs of women at the forefront.
Individuals behind the Texas Abortion Access Network (TAAN) accuse pro-life advocates of exploiting the coronavirus pandemic, blocking abortion access and “targeting” certain communities for “stigmatizing,” and they label pro-life supporters as “extremists.”
The negative tactics of this rhetoric and using unsubstantiated claims contrast starkly with the reality of the pregnancy help movement, which exists to empower women and families by working to meet their needs, helping them to see they are not alone, and to realize that they have a choice - they don’t have to abort their child.
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The TAAN website is the work of eight pro-abortion groups: the ACLU of Texas, AFIYA Center, Jane’s Due Process, NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Progress Texas, Texas Equal Access Fund, Texas Freedom Network, and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance. The website gives abortion news and advocacy information, a map of current local abortion laws and activism training - including an online 8-week course, taught by the website’s creator titled Texas Abortion Academy.
TAAN’s promoters also make clear their demand that abortion be classified as healthcare in the local Houston CBS affiliate’s coverage of the website launch, and that Texas teens should have “confidential access to abortion and birth control.”
Abortion as healthcare is a constant mantra of the pro-abortion movement and another contrast to the life-affirming work of pregnancy help. And promoting abortion and birth control to children is both dangerous to those young people and it undermines families.
It is also in the local news report that TAAN representatives make derogatory claims about pro-life advocates.
Texas Equal Access Fund Executive Director Kamyon Conner told the news outlet, “We have seen anti-abortion extremists limit access to abortion during a global pandemic, as well as target small communities stigmatizing already limited access to health care.”
Diana Gómez, advocacy manager at Progress Texas, proponent of TAAN, said in the same article that, “Texans refuse to accept the continued attacks and control tactics from conservative extremists, and are ready to organize, build community, and fight back.”
These audacious claims conflict plainly with the reality of the pregnancy help movement’s work, which strives each and every day to serve women and families with authentic services and assistance.
The recently released “Pregnancy Centers Stand the Test of Time” report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute showed that yet again some 2,700 pregnancy centers nationwide served almost two million people in 2019. The report revisited the decades of care provided by the pregnancy help community to women and families, culminating with the most recent figures.
In 2019 U.S. pregnancy centers provided almost 732,000 pregnancy tests, more than 486,000 free ultrasounds and 160, 000 STI/STD tests, according to the study. Most of the pregnancy centers offer numerous tangible services and support to clients, including 94% offering material items, 86% offering parenting/prenatal education, 79% offering ultrasound and 72% offering after-abortion recovery. Additionally, a growing number of centers offer sexual risk avoidance presentations to youth (36%), STI/STD testing (30%), STI/STD treatment (21%), childbirth classes (27%) and breastfeeding consultations (19%).
Most of the services offered by pregnancy help organizations are done so without cost to the client. And further, a multi-year survey involving hundreds of thousands of actual pregnancy help center clients showed a 99% satisfaction score.
Tweet This: Most of the services offered by pregnancy help organizations are done so without cost to the client.
CLI’s research has reflected this, and also that pregnancy help centers have proven themselves time and again to be a benefit to not only their clients but their communities as well.
Tweet This: Pregnancy help centers have proven themselves time and again to be a benefit to not only their clients but their communities as well.
During the virus response, much of the world was forced to shut down, including many social service agencies. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, was allowed to stay open, however, even fraudulently partaking in coronavirus relief aid intended for small businesses, applying for aid during the pandemic and taking 80 million dollars from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) even though the abortion giant did not qualify for the application in the first place. Pro-life advocates sought to have abortion classified as non-essential to preserve medical equipment for the expected pandemic and because abortion by its very nature is in opposition to life.
In actuality abortion providers were not restricted from doing business during this time, and Planned Parenthood wasn’t the only abortion business to receive PPP funding, so who exploited the virus?
In life-giving contrast, most pregnancy help centers adapted to virus restrictions as quickly as possible to remain open with little to no interruption, doing their best to maintain crucial services during lockdowns, providing women access to food, baby supplies, medical assistance and resources for their mental health, all while observing virus restrictions.
The reality regarding pregnancy help centers is also that they assist women of all races and walks of life, without discrimination. The color of a client’s skin does not preclude them from receiving life-saving pregnancy help.
Heartbeat International, the most expansive network of pregnancy help organizations worldwide, and its more than 2,800 affiliates worldwide, observe the “Commitment of Care and Competence,” which states in part that, “Clients are served without regard to age, race, income, nationality, religious affiliation, disability, or other arbitrary circumstances.”
In further life-affirming contrast, Heartbeat International and its affiliated pregnancy help locations, which also include maternity homes and non-profit adoption agencies across the world, have continually offered services and support to women and families - no matter their location.
Heartbeat explains its mission in part by stating, “From the underserved urban neighborhoods, so often targeted by Big Abortion, to the rural reaches, the mission field created by abortion calls us to impact more lives. Around the globe, from Australia to Zimbabwe, God’s people worldwide are answering the call to reach, rescue, renew.”
It is in fact pregnancy help and pro-life advocacy that serve women and families, striving to meet the needs of clients across the board with the affirmation of life as the bottom line.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
