Sen. Warren doubles down, demands all pro-life pregnancy centers be shut down
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who was earlier calling for a crackdown on crisis pregnancy centers, now says they should be shut down around the country because they “fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help” and outnumber “true abortion clinics.”
“In Massachusetts right now, those crisis pregnancy centers that are there to fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help outnumber true abortion clinics by three to one,” Warren told NBC 10 Boston.
“We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts, and we need to shut them down all around the country. You should not be able to torture a pregnant person like that,” added Warren, whose war on crisis pregnancy centers started after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last month.
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Elizabeth Warren believes each and every pregnancy resource center across the country should be shut down.
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) July 14, 2022
What does the left have against those working to support mother and child? pic.twitter.com/vjNX21WAZ3
Heidi Matzke, who heads one such facility in Sacramento, California, told Fox & Friends First that her center has faced violence ever since Warren called on Congress to shut down pro-life pregnancy centers,
“We have had to stop operations of our mobile clinic. We’ve had to hire 24-hour onsite security. We’ve had to add cameras. We’ve had to arm our staff with pepper spray,” she said, narrating an incident where a man with a machete came to attack her center but was thankfully prevented from causing harm.
“Pregnancy centers give away $266 million of free medical services and resources to communities all over this incredible country. And her words are just incredibly hurtful,” she continued.
Matzke, who testified before U.S. Congress last week, added that most of the women who work at her center have had an abortion before and many believe their lives would be “so much different” if they had gone to a pregnancy center.
Megan McArdle, a Washington Post columnist, called Warren’s suggestion “unconstitutional.”
Liz Wolfe, an associate editor at The Reason, wrote, “It’s unclear what legal authority Elizabeth Warren would use to enact her will."
"In fact, a sitting U.S. senator trying to shut down charitable organizations, like crisis pregnancy centers, for no violation of laws but rather due to the fact that they further the pro-life cause, would be quite blatantly unconstitutional," Wolfe wrote.
Casey Mattox, a First Amendment attorney, wrote on Twitter, wrote: “Not gonna sugar coat this. It’s evil. If I knew nothing about Elizabeth Warren but the lies she tells about pregnancy centers I’d know enough.”
“Now THIS is harmful disinformation,” The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon tweeted, alluding to the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act, or H.R. 8210, that Warren introduced last month, which would “direct the Federal Trade Commission to prescribe rules prohibiting disinformation in the advertising of abortion services, and for other purposes.”
“This is, at its most basic foundation, simply none of the government’s business,” remarked conservative writer Chad Felix Greene.
According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, as of 2019, as many as 2,132 pregnancy centers performed 486,213 free ultrasounds and 731,884 free pregnancy tests; offered 967,251 free consultations to new clients; among other services.
Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International, an affiliation group with a worldwide network of more than 3,000 pro-life pregnancy centers, all of which assist pregnant women by offering free services, told The Christian Post in an earlier interview that while the care each center provides might differ, most offer material services and connect women with community resources.
“We provide connection services through things like Option Line,” Godsey said. “But it’s the local pregnancy centers that are really defining their own services.”
“That’s one of the beauties of being local, the idea that the community knows best what the community needs,” he continued. “So we firmly believe that the local pregnancy centers are positioned very well to serve the very type of woman in their community who needs that help.”
In the conclusion of her op-ed, Wolfe wrote: “Pro-choicers frequently criticize pro-lifers for abandoning women once they’ve made the decision not to abort or for being insufficiently charitable toward mothers in need. But crisis pregnancy centers are attempts, however imperfect, at precisely that. Whatever you think of their tactics, calling for them to be shut down by the federal government would be a gross misuse of state power.”
