Whether activists or the media care to admit it or not, pregnancy centers across the nation provide countless women invaluable care and support.
Despite these centers’ compassionate mission to support women, they suffer acts of vandalism and endure relentless political attacks by abortion activists, like the recent protest outside of a Raleigh pregnancy center that aimed to cancel their lease.
Now, pro-abortion legislators in North Carolina are further harassing centers with demands for financial records beyond the reports already submitted to the state. After objecting to funding these centers at all, due to their faith-based affiliation, they’re now attempting to intimidate centers from even applying for grants by burying them in paperwork.
The inquiry demands answers to more than 60 questions that individual legislators have no legal authority to request as only a joint legislative commission can make audit requests. Further, it asks for information on independent activity not even funded by the state grants. This bullying tactic shows how far some lawmakers will go in using intimidation to prevent pregnancy centers from providing alternatives to abortion. Sadly, their bullying will deny many women the alternatives that they often desire when faced with unplanned pregnancies.
The fact is, it’s commonsense — and perfectly legal — for pregnancy centers to receive government funding to carry out their work, as numerous other nonprofits dedicated to helping women do. And those that receive state grants already provide detailed annual reports to the North Carolina General Assembly.
During a time when 60% of women say they would not have sought abortions if their life circumstances were different, it’s common sense to support the wide range of care and resources at our local pregnancy centers. At the centers where I work as medical director, we take a root-cause approach to patient care, providing exceptional healthcare that includes addressing real socio-economic barriers that women face — transportation, education, material needs. And by doing so we have empowered families to welcome sons and daughters who may not have otherwise grown into the people God intended them to be.
Grants from the state have helped us be a lifeline for vulnerable women in some of our most-rural and poorest counties in the state. We’ve been able to hire medical staff including a doctor, ultrasonographers, nurses, and social workers to address health disparities our patients experience. With grants, we now employ a new social worker who has supported several mothers who were unsure whether they wanted to give birth because of a lack of housing, childcare, food, clothing, insurance, and transportation. By helping them address the barriers they faced, they also found the peace of mind to choose life.
This same social worker has assisted five pregnant mothers living in their cars and on the streets with finding safe housing. We take a comprehensive approach, referring patients for continuing prenatal care, connecting them with Medicaid, equipping them with parenting skills through our classes, and providing them with material needs, including diapers, wipes, clothes and car seats.
Many women who visit pregnancy centers in challenging times are in greater need of emotional and personal support than physical donations. We continue to journey with these women after their pregnancy and give them hope. One woman in our care just finished her EMT training, and we proudly provided her with all the gear she will need to begin her career. One mother who gave birth to a daughter with a serious health issue came to us for help paying her medical bills when her daughter survived, after being told she wouldn’t live.
It’s impossible to measure the cascading good effects of this support for mothers, their families, their communities, and our state. Without the sensible state funding of these centers, countless vulnerable women in North Carolina would be denied a wide range of opportunities to become their very best for themselves and their loved ones. Legislators must start to honestly support women and cease attacks in the name of abortion politics.