Massachusetts Is Ground Zero for Political Attacks against Pregnancy Centers

A cross the country, charitable organizations that exist to provide free resources and support to pregnant women are under intense attack. Far-left politicians who claim to champion women and choice are relentlessly leveraging their political power to discredit and destroy nonprofits that serve both. Sadly, these attacks will harm vulnerable women and families the most.

Massachusetts is ground zero for these attacks. Pro-abortion elected leaders in our state are waging war not just against the women who seek support during an unexpected pregnancy, but also against the pregnancy-resource centers that selflessly open their doors to provide them with unconditional love and resources. The same politicians who often speak about choice are intent on taking away a woman’s ability to choose life by stripping away the pregnancy-center-support network.

In 2022, United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) led the charge to “crack down” on pregnancy-resource centers and “shut them down” in Massachusetts and beyond. This open hostility served as a permission slip for others on the far left to baselessly attack our centers.

This May, Massachusetts attorney general Andrea Campbell led a group of at least 17 other Democratic attorneys general to create a “reproductive rights working group,” which, among other goals, aims to persecute pregnancy-resource centers in Massachusetts and all across the country.

Now, Massachusetts has become the first state in the nation to launch a $1 million taxpayer-funded smear campaign against pregnancy-care centers and the expectant mothers we serve. Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll designed an aggressive fear-mongering campaign to discredit every pregnancy-resource center in the Commonwealth. The Massachusetts legislature approved the use of tax dollars for the campaign when it passed a supplemental budget in 2023. As a result, calls to “avoid” our centers reach the public on social media, billboards, radio, and transit, simply because we don’t provide abortions.

We do, however, provide a support network for women in need. In 2023 alone, pregnancy-care centers in Massachusetts gave over $1.5 million in assistance to more than 4,000 women and families seeking our help. At no cost to them, expectant mothers and their families were able to obtain sonograms and pregnancy tests, diapers, food, clothing, financial assistance, education support, parenting classes, post-abortive counseling, and so much more.

Their lives were transformed, and in some cases saved, thanks to the selfless work of pregnancy-resource centers. These institutions receive no state or federal funding. We have been able to serve tens of thousands who have come through our doors in the last four decades because private donors agree: Our women deserve the options we provide.

Women who want to parent should be able to access our help. Peer-reviewed research found that 60 percent of post-abortive women would have preferred to give birth if they had received the emotional or financial support they needed. Pregnancy-resource centers are stepping in to provide that support so that no woman feels forced into the tragedy of abortion. For this, we are being unfairly attacked by those who believe abortion should be the only option.

Women will suffer the most if the governor, attorney general, and other politicians in Massachusetts are successful in weaponizing the political system to shut down pregnancy-resource centers.

We cannot become a nation where abortion is the only option we offer to pregnant women in need – women who are equally deserving of love, life, health and happiness. If we don’t stop the attacks on pregnancy resource centers in Massachusetts, extreme politicians in other states will feel emboldened to cut off a vital supply network for every woman who wants to choose life for her unborn child. Everyone would be better off if the high-quality and compassionate care offered by the pregnancy-resource-center network continues to be available for women and families in the Bay State and across the country.