This weekend’s recommended reading is from Ardee Coolidge of Care Net, on the pro-choice case for pro-life pregnancy centers.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the vast majority of women who choose abortion do so because of financial concerns, employment concerns, or problems with the baby’s father. Frederica Mathewes-Green once famously said of abortion, “[D]o women want abortion? Not like she wants a Porsche or an ice cream cone. Like an animal caught in a trap, trying to gnaw off its own leg, a woman who seeks an abortion is trying to escape a desperate situation by an act of violence and self-loss.” Indeed, even abortion providers have used her assessment to describe the brutal “necessity” of abortion access for women who have no other apparent choice.
Pregnancy centers provide women with the material support they need to be free to make another choice—one free from the pressures of a desperate situation. At pregnancy centers, women receive job-placement counseling, baby supplies, ultrasounds, and parenting classes. For those who wish to place a child for adoption, they receive resources to assist them with that transition.
…Pregnancy centers are not a threat to choice, but are a threat to abortion.
Leaven for the Loaf 