Carly Thomsen, Carrie Baker, and Zach Levitt express concerns about an agenda behind the advertisement “Pregnant? Need Help?” in their May 12, 2022, New York Times opinion piece. They question the agenda of life-affirming pregnancy help centers located in every state and more than 50 percent of all counties in the U.S.
Curiously, the authors are worried that “crisis pregnancy centers” (to use their old 1980s term) seriously outnumber abortion clinics 3 to 1. The authors also express concerns that “C.P.C.s provide material resources to women, like diapers and baby clothes. These resources are… not enough for a baby in the long term.”
Yet these same authors do not bother explaining that the largest abortion provider in the U.S. – despite its name – does not provide any help for parents that have planned, you know, their parenthood.
But pregnancy help centers (PHCs) assist parents using funds raised overwhelmingly from local grassroots support.
Yes, some states do help the pregnant and parenting moms through programs used by pregnancy centers. That funding pales in comparison to the half-billion dollars that flows from federal tax coffers to subsidize the abortion industry.
Grassroots pregnancy centers have been steadily growing in number in the U.S. for the past 30 years, while the number of abortion centers are shrinking precipitously. In fact, every year, nearly 2 million women want and receive pregnancy help services from those grassroots centers (see the Charlotte Lozier Institute 2020 Pregnancy Center Report).
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Abortion providers would of course be free to decide to offer mothers baby clothes, diapers, and any assistance they believe would actually help pregnant mothers. Yet the authors admit that PHCs are the ones really helping moms to be moms. Ironically, here the authors only serve to highlight the fact that abortion centers fail to provide for the true needs of pregnant women.
Are they suggesting that abortion should be the only option for women?
Tweet This: Are abortion proponents like the NYT's May 12 op-ed authors suggesting that abortion should be the only option for women?
The truth about pregnancy centers is easy to uncover.
The authors mentioned 2,600 and several national organizations (I’m with Heartbeat International, the largest network of pregnancy help in the world). However, they did not bother to reach out, much less quote any of those sources for their insights.
Instead, they reached back to 1967 to a person and written material almost no one in the pregnancy help movement today would know. One or two simple phone calls, in this century, would’ve easily dispelled the antiquated narrative.
Every woman should be loved and supported in her pregnancy. That is what pregnancy help centers do. We help women choose something besides abortion.
Tweet This: Every woman should be loved & supported in her pregnancy. That's what pregnancy help centers do-help women choose something besides abortion
You see, the problem is not and never was about "access" to abortion. The "problem" is that given the option, more and more women really want to have their babies.
Tweet This: The problem was never about abortion access. It's that given the option, more & more women really want to have their babies.
Perhaps this is why the pregnancy help movement continues to grow while the abortion clinics are in decline.
Even the authors of the article acknowledge that women with children may need assistance and that "society" is not providing it adequately. That is true of the society gripped by the culture of abortion for half a century. Abortion has relieved society of the obligation to grapple with and creatively provide for the needs of pregnant women.
Pregnancy help centers, however, for those same 50 years have stood in the gap, without cost to those they serve, to help women to make a decision for life and continue to pursue their dreams. That’s an agenda worth celebrating.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News. See more information on pregnancy help resources HERE. Heartbeat International has comprehensive information on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Case HERE.
