The Continued Assault on Pregnancy Help Centers

Details: 27 May 2011

One of the great myths in the abortion debate is that pro-life people only care about the "fetus" and do nothing for pregnant women or their children once born. The fact is pro-life people and organizations expend enormous amounts of time and money to address the social and economic needs of pregnant women and their children, before and after birth.

Nationally, more than 3,000 pregnancy-help centers are operated, staffed and funded by pro-life people. There are 31 such centers in 22 communities in or near Nebraska. A list of the centers is available online at www.nebcathcon.org or by contacting my office.

Pregnancy-help centers are the heart of the pro-life movement. They focus solely on helping pregnant women overcome the inadequacies and injustices that drive them to the tragedy of abortion. Pregnancy-help centers embody the ultimate mission of the pro-life movement: to make abortion unthinkable.

Many of these centers are staffed solely by pro-life volunteers. Some of the centers have full-time, paid staff with dozens of volunteers. Pregnancy-help centers provide an impressive number of services, and in most cases are funded entirely with private donations.

The services provided or facilitated include housing, instructional programs, maternity and baby clothes, furniture and other necessities, adoption through licensed agencies, parenting classes, abstinence education, job training, medical care including pregnancy testing, prenatal and obstetrical care, social services, including counseling, arrangement for transportation, child health care, and assistance in applying for financial help before and after birth.

Several of the larger centers are adopting more of a medical model that utilizes a physician medical director (in some cases an obstetrician/gynecologist) or nurse to provide a wider range of healthcare services such as screening and treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases. Some of these centers also offer mothers an ultrasound image of their unborn child, which can make the difference between life and death for the child.

The abortion industry and its apologists apparently don’t like the fact that these centers help many pregnant women to reject abortion as a response to the challenges presented by the pregnancy. They have made numerous attempts to attack and discredit pregnancy-help centers.

The latest national effort launched by NARAL Pro-Choice New York was exposed in pro-life news sources (LifeSiteNews.com and LifeNews.com). In a video that was posted on YouTube, city council members from New York City and Austin, TX disparage all pregnancy centers as "an institution with an agenda" that engage in "emotional bullying" and even "brainwashing" of pregnant women.

According to Melinda Delahoyde, president of Care Net (a national network of pregnancy-help centers), the video "reveals for the first time that these… attacks will be focused on urban areas, the very areas where abortion providers are prevalent, support for abortion alternatives is lacking, and abortion rates are skyrocketing."

Care Net pointed out in the LifeNews.com story that "many [abortion mills] are in predominantly minority-populated communities, thereby contributing greatly to the disproportionate impact of abortion on minorities. Statistics show that African American and Latina women account for only 27% of the female population in the U.S., yet they undergo 59% of all abortions," Care Net stated.

I am regularly contacted by individuals asking me what they can do to help advance the pro-life cause. One very concrete and powerful way we can help make abortion unthinkable is to donate time and money to pregnancy-help centers. Your contribution can literally make the difference between life and death.

You can contact Greg at The Nebraska Catholic Conference, 215 Centennial Mall South Suite 310, Lincoln, NE 68508; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.