Prolifers are actively involved in caring for women

From This is the link.





PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENT:
"Prolifers don't care about women, and they don't care about babies once they are born.
"

*A publication of the National Abortion Rights Action League states, "The 'Prolife' concerns of abortion foes are only for fetal lives, not the lives of women or unwanted babies.
"


PRO-LIFE ANSWER:
Prolifers are actively involved in caring for women in crisis pregnancies and difficult child-raising situations.


A "Dear Abby" letter, signed "Hates Hypocrites," angrily challenges people opposing abortion: "Why aren't you volunteering to baby-sit a child born to a single mother so she can work? Why haven't you opened your door to a pregnant teenager whose parents have kicked her out when she took your advice and decided not to have an abortion?" The writer rails against prolifers, calling them hypocrites. Abby responds, "I couldn't have said it better.
"

This approach has two basic flaws. First, it is possible to point out an injustice even when one does not provide the solution. People could say slavery was wrong even if they did not open their homes to a slave. A man can say it is wrong for his neighbor to beat his wife, even if he isn't in a position to give her a home.


I wholeheartedly agree, however, that people who point out injustices should seek to be part of the solution. This raises the second and most important flaw in the argument-- no evidence whatsoever is offered for the damning assumption made by the writer and by Abby.
Who says prolifers are not doing the things they are assumed not to be doing? The truth is, they are!

In virtually every part of the United States there are abortion alternative centers that provide free pregnancy tests, free counseling, and free material and human resources to pregnant women. There are more pro-life help-giving centers, well over three thousand of them, than there are prolife education and political action centers. Though their services cost them a great deal of money--as opposed to making them a great deal of money--there are more abortion alternative centers in the United States than there are abortion clinics.


Since these clinics draw business away from abortion clinics, they have come under fire from the prochoice movement and its representatives in the media. When a U.S. House committee, chaired by Oregon's Ron Wyden, investigated so-called "fake" abortion clinics, they did not allow a single prolife representative from any of the centers in question to testify. Had they done so, they would have found that the Crisis Pregnancy Centers require that their clinics advertise themselves as offering "Abortion Alternatives," and train their workers to give accurate medical information.


Having served on the board of an abortion alternative organization with two local centers, I have seen firsthand the provision of free prenatal care, free clothing, baby clothes, furnishings, and other help to needy women. Prolife families give free room and board as well as love and support to women who need it. Often prolife doctors volunteer no-cost medical help, and prolife lawyers donate legal aid to help with adoptions, when this is the woman's choice. When women choose to keep their children, single mother support groups and childcare are offered.


I believe prolifers can and should do more and more to help women in crisis pregnancies. But what they are doing already is considerable. It amounts to one of the largest and most effective volunteer efforts in our nation's history. While there are hypocrites in any group, to label prolifers in general as hypocrites is unfair and unsupported by the facts.