Help for pregnancy centers is a great idea

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee this week proposed directing $100 million in taxpayer money to support the work of pregnancy centers in the state, showcasing how pro-life legislators are serious about helping vulnerable women. 

Lee called the move “a moral obligation,” one that goes beyond just “defending the lives of the unborn” and centers on the human dignity of mother and child. 

Secular reports characterize pregnancy centers as organizations “known for dissuading people from getting an abortion.” More accurately, however, these centers are sanctuaries of hope where women can receive resources, connections, and support when they want to choose life. 

And most women do want to choose life, despite what pro-choice voices would have you believe. As the Human Coalition reports, 75 percent of abortion-minded women say they would “choose to parent if circumstances were different.”

Changing those circumstances might include child-care assistance, material needs, government grants, access to education, monthly financial aid, and more. These are things that pregnancy centers empower women to receive and achieve every step of the way. 

If these women were equipped with emotional, material, and financial help, they would be more likely to choose life. As it stands, their decisions to abort often aren’t about freedom of choice. Rather, they “choose” inside a tyranny and context of fear and even panic. Is this what pro-choice advocates want for women? 

When Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren made a concerted effort to shut down the very entities that offer desperately needed resources, it became impossible to take seriously any claim she made to care about women. The same goes for those like Vice President Kamala Harris, who echoed the same points. 

To truly care about a woman, let’s first ensure she’s not choosing to kill her child because she’s terrified of the alternative. In reality, most people have no idea about the wealth of resources available at pregnancy centers and churches. The left has worked so hard to scare women away from pregnancy centers, never acknowledging the vast amount of real help they could get there.

At my local center, an entire wall is stacked with pamphlets, brochures, and applications for grants, parenting classes, financial assistance, and more. The back room is piled floor to ceiling with clean, age-separated clothing, toys, cribs, strollers, and diapers. Maternity clothes, pacifiers, bottles, snacks, and swaddles await the next woman who walks in and needs them—and items are available to her and her children for up to five years.

Imagine what we could do if pregnancy centers received even more funding. Consider how many women would no longer feel forced into abortion because of their circumstances. Roe v. Wade may be overturned, but the work of pregnancy centers remains the same: Help women choose life and restore their hope for the future.

More proposals like Gov. Lee’s across the nation will create a new kind of freedom for women, one where we can dispense with the lie that a woman’s fertility is in opposition to her freedom. We’re seeing more actions like it in states like Texas and Ohio, which have recently increased funding toward pregnancy centers, post-natal care, and lowering maternal mortality rates. 

Sadly, it’s the pro-choice states that will leave women behind, obsessively focusing more on their right to kill their babies than empowering them to bring them into the world. 

We often tell our kids: “If you say you can, you can. If you say you can’t, you can’t.” So, why are progressives telling women they can’t do it and then leaving them with nothing to even try? This is as disempowering and anti-woman as it gets. 

Sure, people can disagree on the particular questions of policy and how to factor policy goals into the reality of limited budgets. But enabling the government to support conditions that stewards resources for uplifting life, family, and maternal and fetal health align with God’s vision for government and human dignity.

If anything is worth government funding, it is the pregnancy centers. They offer so much hope and possibility to women bringing new life into the world. In a world where death has become nothing more than a personal choice, whether by abortion or euthanasia, pregnancy centers are truly salt and light, doing good work. They are also doing God’s work. State leaders should follow Gov. Lee’s lead and begin directing state assistance funds toward such life-affirming endeavors.