Liberal government announces legislation that could hurt pregnancy care centres’ ability to freely support women
In another effort to limit the work of the pro-life movement, the Liberal government is targeting pregnancy care centres. We have written in the past about the threats they have made to the charitable status of pregnancy care centres. The Liberal government has now introduced legislation that would require charities offering pregnancy counselling services to disclose whether they offer abortion and birth control or refer to those services.
Requiring charities to disclose what they do not do is ridiculous. This aggression towards pregnancy care centres is another means by which the Liberal party continues to advance its pro-abortion agenda; no other charities face this requirement. This is not about care for women. It is about using pre-born children as a political wedge issue, this time in a way that ensures both women and children lose.
Pregnancy care centres offer the tangible support women facing unexpected pregnancies need. These centres provide counselling and emotional support alongside material support through resources like diapers, formula, and baby clothes. Prenatal classes, postpartum follow-up, mom’s groups, and more make a full circle of support around a pregnant woman needing help. To suggest that Canadian women are better off with the government attacking these centres shows either shocking disregard for women’s choices or an embarrassment of ignorance.
Abortion is a choice women make when they feel they have no other choices. Writer Frederica Mathewes-Green famously said, “No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice-cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg.” She rightly points out that abortion does not indicate freedom for women, but desperation.
How can the Liberal government possibly think that targeting charities that seek to freely help pregnant women in crisis is good for women? Their single-minded focus on abortion access has blinded them to the real needs of women.
Childbearing is an awesome challenge and responsibility. To suggest taking the task away is a solution to the challenge doesn’t empower women, it minimizes and undermines them. No Canadian should support legislation that tries to limit women’s choices and options for support.
