Freedom

By WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The Left really needs to make up its mind about which lie it wants to stick with on abortion .

On the one hand, leftists accuse anti-abortion activists of not caring about children once they’ve been born. On the other, they demonize them for doing precisely that.

Both are calumnies, but the first is the more sickening. Not only are many pro-lifers loving parents, but they have founded and continue to fund thousands of organizations that provide such resources as free healthcare, childcare, toys, diapers, job training, adoption referrals, and even a place to stay for mothers facing unexpected or crisis pregnancies.

In turn, these crisis pregnancy centers are the subject of the Left’s second lie — that they somehow “fool” or “torture” the women who take advantage of their services. Those are the exact words that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) used last week to describe what these lifesaving organizations do. She also said Congress should “shut them down all around the country.”

But women are not stupid. Yes, there are stories of fraudulent abortionists so unscrupulous that they take money and pretend to perform abortions on nonpregnant women. But nobody who walks into a crisis pregnancy center is “fooled” out of an abortion. Abortion is a last resort for most women. Most of the women who visit these centers walk in hoping to be persuaded. Often, they will not abort if someone only offers them help and hope.

It is one thing to disagree on abortion as a political issue. It is quite another to try to frame the debate so dishonestly as to make pro-lifers damned if they do care for babies after they are born and also damned if they don’t. If anything evinces a lack of concern for babies after they are born, it is the pro-choice attitude toward pregnancy help centers that give women what abortion campaigners such as Warren apparently do not want them to have — an actual choice of something other than abortion.

Ever since Roe, abusive and irresponsible male partners have taken advantage of the legal situation to pressure women into having abortions. In addition, many pregnant women lack only the resources to keep and raise a baby they would prefer to have. Finally, about 10% of mothers who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant would prefer adoption, but this can be difficult without a support system to navigate the process.

Pregnancy help centers provide a ready answer to all of these problems, usually at no cost to the mother or taxpayer. They disproportionately assist low-income and minority women. And they do so despite having to put up with not only violence by pro-abortion vandals but also legal harassment — including one case they had to take all the way to the Supreme Court just to get the state of California off their backs.

Abortion is violence. Although the law can and should help reduce its incidence, the far more powerful means is to destroy the false perception in individuals that they are so desperate they cannot do without it.

When pro-lifers put their money where their mouths are and care for babies after they are born, they are rewarded with violence, lawsuits, and lies from the likes of Warren. The pro-lifers, to their credit, will keep caring for those babies anyway.