Pregnancy from rape: how do abortion businesses and PRCs respond?

The blog “The Abortioneers” is a place where abortion workers write about different aspects of their jobs. In one post, an abortion worker describes the conversations she frequently has with women who come to the abortion facility after being raped:

I was raped … 4 weeks ago, 2 months ago, in August or July, it was a while back and now I’m pregnant … 

[After offering a hotline number for rape victims]
Are there any family members you have told about your situation? 

No … 

Can you lie to anyone to get money? 

No. 

I want to help you figure this out, but you will have to find a way to scrape together the money if you want to get an abortion … 

… Even when a woman shares the most difficult of stories with me I have to be the stern yet supportive voice on the other end of the phone saying, “You have got to get this money in order to get an abortion.”

Aside from giving the woman the phone number to a hotline, which she could have easily found in any phone book or online, the abortion facility offers her no help. If she doesn’t have the money for an abortion, they will do nothing for her. She is told to try and get the money, and if she can’t, she is on her own.

Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

Pro-choicers say they support women, but abortion businesses, in general, offer no support to pregnant women and no services to them except abortion. And they only offer abortion if the woman has the money to pay for it.

Contrast this to what pro-life activists do for women.

In an article in Live Action News, a woman named Michelle told her story. Michelle lost her job due to health problems and found herself living on the street. All the homeless shelters were full. While sleeping on the street, she was raped and became pregnant. She wanted to keep the baby but had nowhere to go. A friend said Michelle could move in with her, but only if she aborted her baby. Eventually, Michelle found another friend to stay with, but she had no money to care for a baby.

That’s when Michelle went to a pro-life pregnancy resource center.
The center helped her with everything she needed for the baby. Michelle writes:

All of the programs to help women were really awesome. I went to several of their classes and the lady that counseled me volunteered to go with me when I gave birth. I didn’t have anyone else to go with me. She was there by my side. After I gave birth, they gave me baby clothes, diapers, and a basket of goodies like blankets. After you’ve had your baby you can keep going back to them for support. 

The center made sure that Michelle had everything she needed for the baby. They continued to help her after the baby was born. Now Michelle is back on her feet and runs a Facebook group for mothers who conceived in rape. She has no regrets about having her daughter.

Had Michelle gone to an abortion business, she would have been sent on her way with no support. But the pregnancy resource center workers rallied around her and gave her all the support she needed. Pro-choice activists sometimes call pro-lifers misogynists and claim we don’t care about women. But pregnancy resource centers do far more for women than abortion facilities do.

Kristin Monahan, who volunteers at a pregnancy resource center, writes:

[W]e provide all services for free. They are for low-income pregnant and parenting women. We have free baby clothes, toddler clothes, shoes, maternity clothes, pregnancy tests, breast pumps, nursing bras, diapers, baby wipes, bottles, baby/toddler dishes, formula, food, toys, books, car seats, strollers, cribs, cradles, jumpers, and any other pieces of furniture or big toys when we get them. I have seen pretty much anything you can think of that deals with pregnancy or parenting, come into the clinic. We also give referrals to various social services, such as WIC. … We don’t make them pay a single cent, unlike places like Planned Parenthood. So we truly offer purely free items for struggling families.

Pro-life volunteers throughout the country staff pregnancy resource centers where they give women countless baby items and maternity clothes at no cost. Whereas no abortion facility I have ever heard of has ever given a woman anything for free. They collect her money, do her abortion, and send her home. Sometimes, they do a two week follow up check-up. All for about $450 in the first trimester and more in the second and third. And if the woman has no money, they give her nothing. Which group of people cares about women?

[Today’s guest post by Sarah Terzo is part of our paid blogging program.]