The abortion industry doesn’t really like “choice.” It likes monopolies. It wants to be one. It wants to have, as Merriam-Webster defines monopoly, “exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action.”
Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and other life-terminators want abortion to be the only option for women with unexpected pregnancies. The more abortions there are, the more money they make.
That’s why abortionists want to wipe out anyone who offers alternatives to ending the life of an “unwanted” child. Aspiring monopolies don’t like competition, and the abortion industry considers pro-life pregnancy resource centers to be “competition.” They want them gone.
To this end, the abortion lobby has convinced abortion-loving legislators and governors in California, Hawaii, and Illinois to grant it “legal privilege” to shut down pregnancy resource centers. These charitable centers, you see, consist of women offering women options other than abortion. They provide free pregnancy tests, ultrasound images of unborn children, counseling, medical and legal services, job and education opportunities, housing, parenting classes, adoption services, diapers, vitamins, and other assistance. They offer women hope.
When women hear that they have options and that there are people to help and share with them, they often choose life for their babies — in 2015, 300,000 women did. With early abortions costing, on average, $600, that’s at least $180 million in potential fees lost. A lot of abortionists didn’t get their luxury vacations.
So, abortionists are trying to fix that. They’ve had their political minions enact laws that require pro-life pregnancy centers to inform women that abortions are readily available to them, possibly for free. And, depending on the state law involved, they’ve made it practically impossible for pregnancy resource centers to advertise and, if they are religiously based, to practice their faith.
Sound familiar? It should.
Previously, the abortion industry tried to force religious organizations (including the one I lead, Priests for Life) to promote abortion, an action that violated not only our fundamental beliefs and religious liberty, but also in our case, our very reason for existence. Abortion proponents used the heavy hand of the federal government to try to coerce us into making abortion more available (through our insurance plans). After a long legal battle and a change of administrations in the White House, the abortion lobby failed.
Now, they’ve turned their attention to the states in more attempts to mandate that religious groups promote the taking of innocent human lives. As previously mentioned, one of the places they’ve turned to is Hawaii.
Hawaii recently adopted a law that requires pro-life pregnancy centers “to disclose the availability of and enrollment information for reproductive health services” — services that include abortion — to women who enter their premises. While this is similar to the laws in California and Illinois, in Hawaii a pregnancy resource center happens to be located in a church building. The statute, then, would force Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor to promote on its church grounds a practice that directly contradicts its teaching.
Not only is free speech at stake here, so is the right of churches to be free from the government forcing them to violate their beliefs. If these laws are upheld, pregnancy resource centers would face two options — promote the activity that they are working to help women avoid (abortion) or be fined out of existence.
Under California’s law, which is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, pro-life centers that assist women will be fined $500 the first time they fail to post an abortion referral notice; $1,000 per violation thereafter. While compliance with the law is unthinkable, noncompliance would make these nonprofit organizations unsustainable. Either way, the abortion industry would be that much closer to its goal of monopolizing the messages pregnant women hear.
Last year, according to its own annual report, Planned Parenthood performed 321,384 abortions. During that same period, it performed 7,762 “prenatal services” and made 3,889 adoption referrals. While Planned Parenthood won’t reveal how many pregnant women actually received its “prenatal services,” we can safely conclude that too many women who enter a Planned Parenthood clinic pregnant leave that facility not pregnant.
We can also safely deduce that the guidance received at abortion clinics is about as nondirective as that received in the manager’s office of a car dealership. Abortionists sell abortion. It’s their livelihood.
And as far as they’re concerned, the fewer viable options pregnant women think they have, the better.
Father Frank Pavone (@frfrankpavone) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the national director of Priests for Life.
