Pro-Choice Senators Have No Tolerance for Compassionate Legislation

This week, pro-abortion Senate Democrats revealed what many women have long known to be true: When it comes to the debate over abortion, their party’s legislative actions and messaging tactics are more focused on fearmongering than on helping pregnant women in need.

Pro-abortion Senators block compassionate legislation

On Tuesday on the Senate floor, they went on record opposing several compassionate bills that would offer true support to American women and their families.

As leaders of two of the nation’s most prominent organizations standing “with every woman, for every child,” we applaud the efforts of pro-life members of Congress who have boldly proposed life-affirming bills that exemplify the core mission of the pro-life movement: protecting, affirming, and respecting mothers and their unborn children. These commonsense proposals are exactly the kind of measures women deserve and what all elected officials should support without question.

Sen. Katie Britt’s MOMS Act would emphasize resources for mothers who seek alternatives to abortion, including licensed child placement agencies and other organizations that provide life-affirming support. Her bill would also establish grant programs to give women access to pregnancy care at pregnancy resource centers while expanding child support to expecting mothers. Pro-abortion Democrats opposed.

Likewise, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s RESTORE Act would address the root causes of infertility, promoting research to help women and couples by treating the underlying conditions. Sen. Lankford’s Conscience Protection Act protects Americans from being forced to participate in abortions against their will. Again, pro-abortion Democrats opposed these bills.

Extreme talking points

While blocking these commonsense bills on the Senate floor, the pro-abortion senators continued to parrot extreme talking points and refused to acknowledge the actual substance of these critical pieces of legislation.

It’s a terrible tragedy that the Democrats’ playbook ignores the true needs of women and the trauma, heartbreak, and suffering abortion causes them. Women like Elizabeth, pressured by her boyfriend and Planned Parenthood to take DIY abortion drugs resulting in long-lasting trauma from delivering her baby alone in the toilet, too often suffer in silence. By blocking bills to offer hopeful alternatives to abortion, they ensure that women continue to feel helpless and pressured into abortions – proving that so-called “pro-choice” advocates are not pro-choice at all.

The politicians blocking these bills have no answers for the majority of women – 60% – who say they would’ve preferred to keep their babies if they’d had more emotional and financial security. The proposals listed above would empower women with the knowledge that alternatives to abortion exist. The proposals also recognize the medical reality that women who have abortions are more likely to experience debilitating mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, and substance abuse. There’s no evidence that abortion helps our country’s mental health crisis.

Pro-abortion activists want to see no abortion unperformed

The pro-life movement is dedicated to supporting both mothers and their children during pregnancy and beyond. Pro-abortion Democrats, on the other hand, continue to push for abortion on demand even in the second and third trimesters when babies can feel pain, paid for with tax dollars, even going so far as objecting to Sen. John Thune’s legislation that would protect babies born alive after failed abortions.

While the United States today is one of just eight countries in the world that allows late-term abortions with no minimum protections for the unborn, the so-called “Women’s Health Protection Act” would go even further and overturn pro-life protections in every state – forcing the entire country to have the human rights standards of China.

Making matters worse, abortion scare tactics perpetuate widespread misinformation about pro-life policies and the availability of life-saving medical care. The truth is that not a single state with pro-life protections forbids doctors to save the lives of expectant mothers; every pro-life law has an exception for the life of the mother, and every pro-life law allows doctors to act during an emergency.

And what do real-world Americans think of this?

These lawmakers’ extreme abortion agenda is at complete odds with Americans’ views. Even after Dobbs, poll after poll shows at least seven in 10 Americans support significant limits on abortion, with two-thirds in an NPR poll backing limits after the first three months of pregnancy at the latest. Moreover, 83% of Americans see pregnancy resource centers as a compassionate alternative to abortion, supporting mothers during and after pregnancy with medical care, parenting classes, financial assistance, and more, as well as practical items like baby clothes and supplies.

The life-affirming legislative proposals put forward Tuesday – and many more – address root issues that frequently make mothers feel that abortion is their best or only option, while offering concrete solutions to the struggles of pregnant women and their families. They give women options and support in a time of immense vulnerability and need. Importantly, they ensure that all expectant mothers know they are not alone because the pro-life movement and safety-net policies stand ready to walk with them every step of the way.

The senators who blocked these reasonable consensus bills should ditch their partisanship and instead engage meaningfully with their pro-life colleagues on the Hill who seek to give hope and healing to women of all backgrounds.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.