The Arizona attorney general wants consumers to “understand the difference” between what she determines to be “licensed facilities that provide reproductive health care” (abortion) and pregnancy centers.
There is indeed a difference.
Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes issued a consumer alert for the state’s pregnancy centers on her official website March 15, prompting pro-life state lawmakers and pregnancy help advocates to cry foul.
The alert calls the centers an “obstacle hiding in plain sight.” It goes on to cast aspersions on pregnancy centers with falsehoods such as that they “may not be required to comply with HIPAA, may not protect your identity, and may sell your data to third parties.”
In a press release on the consumer alert Mayes repeated claims abortion advocates often make without substantiation, that pregnancy help organizations misrepresent themselves and take advantage of clients.
Pregnancy centers “represent themselves as legitimate healthcare clinics providing reproductive healthcare but actually aim to persuade these patients not to have abortions,” she said.
“Arizonans should be aware that CPCs may make misleading statements about the services they provide, or otherwise attempt to deceive patients in medically vulnerable situations,” Mayes stated.
Abortion proponents have attempted to disparage pregnancy help centers and medical clinics for years with false claims that centers deceive women and are “fake clinics,” when the real grievance they have is that these organizations neither refer for nor provide abortion. Additionally, abortion apologists likely don’t care for the fact that pregnancy help organizations provide the antidote to abortion, as this demonstrates that women desire alternatives to abortion and dispels the pro-abortion myth that women are empowered by abortion.
Heartbeat International created the website PregnancyCenterTruth.com to provide the facts about pregnancy centers in contrast to the pro-abortion falsehoods. Heartbeat is the largest network of pregnancy help in the U.S. and globally.
Heartbeat International President Jor-EL Godsey remarked that Mayes was like many pro-abortion elected officials in paying homage to the abortion industry, and suggested Mayes take a look instead at the tactics used by abortion providers to attract women into their facilities.
“This is another example of a Democrat Attorney General using their office in obeisance to the profiteering demands of Big Abortion,” Godsey said.
“She pretends that abortion providers are not actively selling abortions to those who don't really want them,” said Godsey. “Instead of attacking the good work of pregnancy help centers she should be investigating the abortion industry for their predatory practices on women who deserve better from their elected representatives."
Tweet This: This is another example of a Democrat Attorney General using their office in obeisance to the profiteering demands of Big Abortion.
The most recent report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, which conducts exhaustive research in the area of pregnancy help, found that pregnancy centers in the United States provided more than $350 million in services and material goods via more than 16 million client visits in 2022, and of those 16 million-plus client interactions 97% self-reported a positive experience.
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National Right to Life President Carol Tobias discussed the reality of pregnancy centers, which is the exact opposite of Mayes’s portrayal, specifically, that the difference between pregnancy centers and abortion providers like Planned Parenthood is compassion.
“Pregnancy centers are the loving arms of the pro-life movement,” Tobias told Pregnancy Help News.
“The several thousand centers around the country offer compassionate help and support to women during a difficult time in their lives,” she said. “It is shameful for any government official to try to shut down the centers or harm their reputation in an attempt to scare pregnant women away from the people who will help them most."
Arizona Republican Representative Neal Carter spoke against Mayes’s consumer alert, a report from Prescott Enews said, warning that it could spur frivolous complaints, saying as well that that Mayes is “abusing her statutory authority.”
Citing the landmark 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a 2015 California law forcing pregnancy centers to promote or refer for abortion Carter said, “Pregnancy centers have First Amendment rights, which the Supreme Court upheld in 2018 in NIFLA v. Becerra.”
“Her publication does not cite a single example of any pregnancy center that has engaged in unlawful conduct,” Carter said. “Her publication unjustly targets businesses operating well within the bounds of the law for no other reason but to advance a political agenda.”
This is not the first attempt by a leftist state administration to degrade pregnancy resource centers via its official website.
Pennsylvania Democrat Attorney General Michelle Henry implemented a complaint form titled, “Report Reproductive Health Deceptive Activity” on her state website in December 2023, the form intended to harvest anonymous accusations against pregnancy centers.
Since Mayes issued her dubious consumer alert on pregnancy centers last month the Arizona Supreme Court has upheld a longtime state law protecting unborn children with an exception for abortions to save the mother’s life. Mayes said the ruling was “unconscionable and an affront to freedom,” calling the law “draconian” and pledging refusal to enforce it.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
