BILL INTRODUCED TO PROTECT PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTRES

National Review

 

Protect Pregnancy Resource Centers

By Jack Butler

March 26, 2025 3:34 PM

 

One of the many calumnies flung at pro-lifers is that we are not, in fact, “pro-life,” but just “pro-birth.” That is, we just want babies to be born and don’t care what happens to them or to their mothers once they are.

 

Ohio pro-lifers I spoke to for the magazine are aware of this caricature and acknowledge that it presents difficulties for them. Will Kuehnle, associate director of social concerns at the Catholic Conference of Ohio (CCO), told me that “the average person in the United States” does not believe “the pro-life movement cared about the new life or what we can do for a woman who’s in need.”

 

It’s frustrating enough that people believe this, even though it’s not true. Pro-lifers dedicate immense time and resources to helping mothers and babies. Pregnancy resource centers do incredible work in this area. Yet the same people who accuse pro-lifers of only being pro-birth often try to harass these invaluable institutions out of existence. The governments of Massachusetts and New Jersey are antagonizing them. Massachusetts has devoted taxpayer money to a messaging campaign against them. And Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (D.) has called for the government to “crack down” on them.

 

To help babies and mothers in the face of such attacks, pro-life House members Chris Smith (R., N.J.), Claudia Tenney (R., N.Y.), and Michelle Fischbach (R., Minn.) have introduced the Let Pregnancy Centers Serve Act. The bill seeks to protect pregnancy resource centers from the political depredations of abortion enthusiasts. It stipulates that “the federal government and any individual or entity that receives federal financial assistance . . . may not penalize or retaliate against an entity because the entity offers life-affirming support and resources to women facing unexpected pregnancy, offers life-affirming alternatives to abortion, or refrains from abortion action.” Smith argued the bill is necessary to safeguard the essential and compassionate services pregnancy centers provide, because “state governments like my own state of New Jersey and some lawmakers seek to discriminate against pregnancy care centers by violating fundamental conscience rights to compel complicity in abortion.”

 

If radically pro-abortion politicians were honest, they would simply allow pro-lifers to demonstrate the reality of their sincere commitment to helping babies and mothers. But they reveal their true malice and their unwillingness to tolerate dissenting views when they try to prevent pro-lifers from helping the same people they accuse pro-lifers of ignoring. That they advance their pro-abortion agenda with malevolent use of political power makes this bill all the more necessary.