Pregnancy Resource Center

A pregnancy resource center (sometimes referred to as a "crisis pregnancy center", though this term is now disfavored) is a center, operated by a pro-life group (either an individual church, or more often an independent organization supported by an interdenominational group of churches and individuals) seeking to assist women who are or may be pregnant. The purpose of the center is to counsel the woman into not having an abortion and either keeping the child or giving it up for adoption.

Generally, the center will provide free pregnancy tests along with materials and counseling. Larger centers may also have a sonogram machine, to assist in showing the pregnant woman how far along in the pregnancy she is, and to show that she is carrying a baby and not "fetal tissue". Some centers work in connection with adoption agencies, and may have more than one location. Miraculously, these centers have been able to obtain facilities that were formally abortion clinics, or within sight of them, thus allowing them to reach clients who may have been pressured into an abortion.^[1]

Care Net and Heartbeat International are two major organizations supporting pregnancy resource centers; both groups maintain a list of affiliated centers and it is common for a center to be a member of both groups in order to reach the most clients.

A pro-choice article posted by the ultra-liberal magazine Mother Jones admits the effectiveness of these centers: at the time of the article^[2], there were nearly twice as many pregnancy resource centers as abortion facilities.^[3]

California's left-wing government passed a law which mandated that such centers provide information on abortion, including nearby clinics (the law, of course, did not require abortion clinics to provide information on pro-life pregnancy resource centers). The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in 2018 in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra that the law was unconstitutional in that it targeted the speakers and not the content of such speech.

References[edit]