A recent New York Times op-ed characterizes pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) as “religious nonprofit organizations that obstruct women’s access to abortion,” echoing creative fear-mongering first proffered by the abortion lobby, and going so far as to suggest that the provision of abortion alternatives is tantamount to robbing a poor woman of “sovereignty over her body.”
By adopting over-the-top negative imagery of PRCs into their diatribes and underscoring the fact that many PRCs are “religious” (i.e., they operate on a firm commitment to Christian charity), abortion advocates attempt to breed fear and contempt for the life-saving work of PRCs. For a movement proudly self-described as “pro-choice,” abortion advocates sure are perturbed by the provision of life-affirming choices. And the vitriol has repeatedly bled into sympathetic media. Enter last week’s NYT op-ed by anti-Life activist Meaghan Winter.
In her propaganda piece, The Stealth Attack on Abortion Access, Winter’s alarmist approach perpetuates the mind-boggling fiction that Pro-Life advocates are out to mow down women’s health care, and that our fight has nothing whatsoever to do with abortion (or, evidently, the fact that Planned Parenthood is committing human rights atrocities on a daily basis). Instead, Winter tells readers that our objective is “to prevent Planned Parenthood from providing cancer screenings, ultrasounds, contraception and other services.” Lest there be any doubt that the hero of her story is abortion, Winter exchanges the concise term “abortion business” for the warm and fuzzy “comprehensive health care provider” throughout the piece.
The unrestrained fear-mongering continues as Winter bemoans the federal Hyde amendment – an appropriations rider that bars Medicaid from covering elective abortions—positing that the amendment has had “dire implications for millions of poor women in urgent situations, often delaying abortion or forcing them to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.” Translation: the fact that taxpayers do not fund the direct medical costs of elective abortions has created a veritable state of emergency for American women. Winter even whipped out an old standby which has been so discredited as to be laughable: that Planned Parenthood is crucial to the health of low-income women with no other organizations able to meet the healthcare need if PP continues to be defunded by states. Yawn. Come on Winter; is that really the best you’ve got?
Until very recently, the abortion industry operated on the assertion that they wanted abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare” – with that last bit clearly suggesting that alternatives to abortion were better than actual abortions. The resources offered by PRCs foster what was ostensibly the same goal as the abortion industry until now: reducing the abortion rate. But now that abortion activists have dropped the farce of wanting abortion to be “rare” – adopting the curtailed mantra of “safe and legal” – they are suddenly outraged by PRCs offering alternatives to abortion.
PRCs have succeeded in saving countless Lives, to the consternation of those who prefer death, and their work proves more efficacious as abortion rates rapidly decline across the country. Abortion lovers like Winter fear and attack PRCs because their mission is realized every day. And that will not change any time soon.
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