As the pro-life movement turns it efforts to the state level, so too is the far left ramping up its efforts to expand their radical abortion agenda and punish those who support life in their states. All in all, 16 states have taken action to limit or ban abortion, resulting in a total of more than 32,000 lives saved in the first six months after Dobbs alone.
But recently, blue states have renewing their efforts to expand their radical abortion agendas at the state level, too. One of the most pernicious examples today can be found in Democrat states’ treatment of pregnancy resource centers, or PRCs. Today, California, Vermont, Illinois, Colorado, and New Jersey are all weaponizing their state rules and regulations to punish pro-life organizations by increasing regulatory barriers, manipulating false advertising laws, making them subject to excessive fines, and more.
However, PRCs offer important services to women in need across the country. As of 2021, there are about 3,000 PRCs located throughout the United States, all of which provide essential medical and professional care to vulnerable women for little to no cost. According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, some of these services include:
Pregnancy testing; options consultation (including education on parenting and adoption, parenting and child raising, and abortion); medical services (early obstetrical ultrasounds, medical exams, STD testing and treatment, and increasingly other health services); prenatal parenting and education; material assistance; sexual risk avoidance and education; after-abortion recovery support; referrals for medical care; and linkages to vital community and public health resources.
Data from a 2020 Charlotte Lozier Institute report also shows that these PRCs—staffed by over 10,000 medical professionals and 54,000 total volunteers—served close to 2 million people in that year alone, and the services and material assistance they offered had a total value of over $266 million.
These centers stand as a bold response to the common refrain that the pro-life movement only cares about human beings until they are born. As their work across the country shows, this is simply untrue. Tens of thousands of volunteers, millions of volunteer hours, and hundreds of millions of dollars in care testify to the fact that the pro-life movement is one driven by compassion for all of God’s children, at every stage of life.
The unfortunate truth is that it is the left who are the extremists in the abortion debate, and they aren’t afraid to turn to violence in pursuit of their extreme pro-choice agenda. For example, in the first six months after the leaked Dobbs draft alone, there were over 100 documented attacks on PRCs, pro-life organizations, and faith-based groups across the country. Despite the federal law that protects these facilities, of those 100+ attacks, there have only been four reported arrests. Yet this very same law has been used to prosecute anti-abortion demonstrators like Mark Houck, who was eventually acquitted by a jury, which tells you just where the Department of Justice stands on the issue.
The left’s pro-abortion radicalism has also been put on full display at the state level. From states like Colorado adding an unconditional “right” to an abortion to their state constitution and allowing abortion up to the point of birth, to saying they will keep a baby “comfortable” after birth before making a decision on whether or not he or she should live, their radical agenda has only increased. All of this has culminated in real world violence, too, from the attacks on pregnancy centers and even the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
As a pro-life movement, we know that the truth is on our side and we will not be intimidated by violence or extremism. Together, we must stand firm in our efforts to help vulnerable women and defend the lives of unborn children, as well as continue our work at the state level to defend the sanctity of life in all its stages.
