Pregnancy help leaders are calling Sen. Elizabeth Warren to account for her latest canard claiming that pregnancy centers are nefarious in their engagement with women facing unplanned pregnancy.
Warren is operating on falsehoods in making the claims she does about pregnancy centers, leaders from Heartbeat International say, noting as well how Warren and others in the federal government have yet to condemn the violence, vandalism, and harassment thrust upon pregnancy centers and other pro-life entities by abortion activists over the last three months since the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade.
“Elected officials who are concerned for violence revolving around abortion should look no further than the blatant attacks against pregnancy help centers around the country,” said Heartbeat International President Jor-El Godsey.
Warren, D-Mass., and a group of other pro-abortion senators sent a defamatory letter to Heartbeat International late last month ostensibly looking for answers on Heartbeat’s data collection policies and practices.
Heartbeat is the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the world.
The letter projects onto Heartbeat and its affiliate pregnancy help centers as established fact that they are "luring pregnant people" "by using a variety of false and misleading tactics," and that "Heartbeat International promotes websites that have inaccurate claims," and conducts "misleading practices."
The senators also attempt to cast Heartbeat’s Next Level Center Management Solution and Option Line contact center as grabbing up data from unsuspecting women who come to Option Line and Heartbeat affiliate centers for assistance, and that the Heartbeat entities do so without oversight or accountability.
The lawmakers then infer in the letter that the information will be turned over to "abortion bounty hunters," an irrational reference to Texas’s heartbeat law which is enforced by citizens rather than government.
Godsey noted the federal lawmakers’ fixation on making histrionic claims about pregnancy help - as opposed to addressing the actual violence and harassment committed by abortion zealots toward those who support and provide options for women other than abortion.
“Unfortunately, there are Democrat senators more concerned with an imagined story about 'abortion bounty hunters' than the destructive outrage against those trying to help women choose parenthood," Godsey stated.
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“Every woman deserves compassionate care and support when facing an unexpected pregnancy"
Warren and her group requested answers to four questions concerning the specifics of information collected by Heartbeat entities and affiliates, whether the information was subject to HIPAA, specifics of Heartbeat’s handling of people’s personal information, and whether law enforcement had ever required that an individual’s information be turned over, and that these answers be delivered to them by Oct. 3.
Heartbeat, represented by First Liberty Institute, a legal non-profit specializing in religious liberty, responded in writing Oct. 3, advising Warren and the others that Heartbeat does not share personally identifiable information with law enforcement, that such a request has never been made, and likewise that Heartbeat has never made personally identifiable information public, nor sold such information to any third party at any time.
“Every woman deserves compassionate care and support when facing an unexpected pregnancy,” the response letter states in part. “The tools pregnancy centers use to provide this care are safe and secure, as client safety and confidentiality are of the utmost importance.”
First Liberty questioned whether Warren and the other senators had legal authorization to investigate Heartbeat as a private, religious non-profit, or to compel Heartbeat to answer their questions.
“Rather, your letter appears to be an unwarranted effort to investigate a private organization which holds to a religious and ideological opinion with which you disagree,” the legal group said. “The United States Supreme Court firmly rebuked such actions over 60 years ago.” (Citing Watkins v. United States, which ruled that the U.S. Congress does not have unlimited power to conduct investigations and further that the U.S. Constitution does not give Congress the authority to expose the private affairs of individuals.)
Pregnancy centers exist to remove hurdles for pregnant mothers and provide support
Heartbeat International’s General Counsel Danielle White underscored for Pregnancy Help News the importance with which privacy and confidentially is held by Heartbeat and the pregnancy help movement.
“Confidentiality has been a bedrock principle for pregnancy help organizations for decades,” White said.
“Pregnancy centers exist to protect women as they are making sensitive and challenging decisions about the lives of their unborn children,” she said. “They exist to remove hurdles for pregnant mothers and provide support so that women can make life-affirming choices for themselves and their unborn children.”
Abortion proponents insist upon creating false storylines about pregnancy help, White explained, noting again how Heartbeat protects women’s personal information the same way it protects them and their families by providing life-affirming options in unplanned pregnancy.
“Pro-abortion activists have contrived an absurd narrative about pregnancy centers that finds no basis in reality,” said White. “Our letter is very clear that Heartbeat has worked hard to protect women's personally identifiable information, and we will continue to protect those we are serving.”
The Warren letter to Heartbeat follows the Massachusetts senator’s controversial statements from July, when she said that pregnancy centers need to be shut down in her state, claiming they “are there to fool people” and also that pregnancy center personnel “torture” pregnant women.
“Time and again we hear from women who commend the great work and encourage others to receive support from pregnancy centers where they had been served”
Pregnancy help organizations, consisting of pregnancy medical clinics, pregnancy centers, non-profit adoption agencies, and maternity homes, offer women and families information, material and spiritual support, and hope.
They served roughly two million people per year in the U.S. as of the latest national pregnancy help survey, saving communities millions of dollars and countless lives.
“Pregnancy help organizations have been around since before the Roe v. Wade decision even came down and each one has served countless women and families by providing positive support and care in very difficult times,” said Heartbeat’s Vice President of Communications and Marketing Andrea Trudden.
In addition to the crucial services and support pregnancy help organizations provide to women and families, Trudden noted how pregnancy help clients consistently rate pregnancy centers remarkably high on satisfaction.
“Time and again we hear from women who commend the great work and encourage others to receive support from pregnancy centers where they had been served,” Trudden said. “We know the effectiveness of pregnancy help because clients continuously give our organizations a satisfactory rating.”
Abortion proponents angered that Roe was overturned by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision have since come for pregnancy help organizations, pro-life and family groups, and churches with threats and attacks since the May 2 leak of draft majority opinion in the Dobbs case.
While pro-abortion terrorism against pro-life entities in the U.S. has continued, pro-life advocates still wait for it to be addressed.
And lawmakers like Warren and her pro-abortion colleagues have set their sights on pregnancy help with false rhetoric, proposed legislation, and other overtures – such as the letter to Heartbeat - that cast contrived negative aspersions on pregnancy help organizations while taking a decided tone and approach of intimidation.
Warren and another senator have proposed legislation permitting the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to levy fines of up to $100,000 or half of the parent organizations’ yearly revenues if the FTC deems the pregnancy help centers’ advertising is in any way misleading or deceptive.
Illustrating the lack of basis in reality afflicting Warren’s anti-pregnancy help campaign, Warren and her colleagues falsely claim in their letter to Heartbeat that Dobbs "stripped women of their right to an abortion," when the ruling sent the issue of abortion back to the states where it once was.
“Since the very beginning, women’s confidentiality and privacy have been the highest priority for pregnancy help organizations”
Trudden remarked on the dichotomy between Warren and her group’s claims of concern for women and the apparent pass they have given to those conducting physical and other attacks on pregnancy help.
“It is quite frustrating, though not surprising, that after a summer of physical attacks against pregnancy centers, then online attacks through censorship and suppression, that now politicians have made it a priority to smear the good work of pregnancy help,” Trudden said. “Sadly, not one of the senators who signed onto the letter to Heartbeat International condemned any of the violence against pregnancy centers this summer.”
She also said that assertions of confidentiality breaches on the part of pregnancy help organizations are not rooted in fact.
“Since the very beginning, women’s confidentiality and privacy have been the highest priority for pregnancy help organizations,” said Trudden. “Anyone claiming otherwise does not know our work.”
Godsey pointed out that were Warren and the rest authentic in their concern for women they would seek to genuinely assist them in life rather than push abortion only and go after those with a history of providing options that honor and preserve life.
"Instead of stirring up imagined fears about privacy, Senator Warren et al should be looking to help the real problems that force women toward abortion,” Godsey said. “Pregnancy help centers have more than a half century of experience helping women stand up and make the choice of a life-affirming decision."
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
