Sen. Lindsey Graham is forcing Democrats to either admit their abortion extremism or vote for legislation that would enact a nationwide ban at 15 weeks of pregnancy, a limit on par with most European countries. But before this week’s outcry over Graham’s proposed 15-week ban, Democratic lawmakers were already revealing just how far they will go to appease the pro-abortion groups from which they receive significant campaign contributions.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., along with Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., and Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., escalated the ghoulish attacks on pregnant women and crisis pregnancy centers with the introduction of the “Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act.” While there is certainly an abundance of abortion disinformation harming women and children in this country, it’s not coming from pro-lifers and pro-life organizations serving those women and children.
Warren and her fellow Democrat lawmakers are smearing pregnancy resource centers as “fake clinics” that “mislead women about reproductive health care.” Their bill would order the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to “crack down” on these centers by targeting and penalizing them for anything the FTC determines is “misleading advertising.”
Democrats’ attacks on pregnancy centers and clinics reveal just how wicked their motives are when you consider how millions of women facing unplanned pregnancies are served every year by these community-based, nonprofit organizations. The National Institute of Family & Life Advocates (NIFLA) estimates that U.S. pregnancy centers provide more than $267 million worth of free essential support services including medical services (pregnancy testing, ultrasound, and STI testing), parenting classes, maternity clothes, baby clothes, formula, and diapers.
“Women who have been served by pregnancy help organizations overwhelmingly give them satisfactory ratings,” Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International, told The Federalist. “Women are smart, capable beings who deserve to have all the information about their pregnancy options so they can make informed decisions about their futures,” he said.
The real deception and lying to women about their options come from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. Of course, Democrats would only be hurting their own pocketbooks to admit that or to suggest abortion facilities also be investigated by the FTC.
Planned Parenthood’s Misinformation
If the FTC wanted to seriously investigate abortion misinformation, Planned Parenthood would be a good place to start. The organization performs 1 in 3 abortions in the United States and has built its business on billions of taxpayer dollars, making it worthy of scrutiny no matter your politics.
Planned Parenthood brands itself as offering “health care,” but by admission via its own 2020-2021 annual report, the organization’s emphasized service of choice is abortion. Last year they performed 383,460 abortions. That number dwarfs the number of prenatal services, 8,775, and adoption referrals, 1,940, provided.
Another popular lie Planned Parenthood often hides behind is the claim that it provides “cancer screenings,” particularly via mammograms. Planned Parenthood may offer breast exams and pap smear tests, but it is a fabrication to say they provide mammograms, which would require a particular certification they don’t have. Yet, pro-abortion advocates like former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, top HHS officials, and even former President Barack Obama have been caught spreading the popular myth.
Finally, it has been documented through testimonies of former Planned Parenthood employees as well as surveys of post-abortive women that Planned Parenthood workers often lie to women about the developmental state of their unborn babies. According to one study, 90 percent of women said they were “not given enough information to make an informed decision” and 95 percent said Planned Parenthood counselors gave “little or no biological information about the fetus which the abortion would destroy.”
NIFLA’s Vice President of Legal Affairs Anne O’Connor told The Federalist that bills similar to Warren’s “Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act” have been introduced for decades but never gain any momentum because they are clearly political ploys that only hurt women and children.
“Pregnancy centers provide a safe, non-conflicted space for a woman to assess the information about all her choices and make an informed decision that’s right for her. These centers are there for women no matter what they choose,” O’Connor said. “They don’t provide or refer for abortions and they are clear about that.”
Democrats’ attacks on pregnancy centers are not just nefarious but misplaced. Planned Parenthood is the one lying to women about their options, not pro-lifers.
