A Texas court once again shuffled the deck last week for women in the state as it dealt with various decisions that have effectively left them in legal limbo.
Amid the uncertainty, pro-life charities and abortion clinics have attempted to adapt while taking on markedly different levels of clients. The heartbeat law, which effectively serves as a six-week abortion ban, is expected to dramatically reduce the number of abortions in the state — leaving community organizations with a likely spike in crisis pregnancies.
Loveline, a Houston-based charity started by former Planned Parenthood director-turned-pro-life-advocate Abby Johnson, told Fox News it saw a 50% nationwide increase in calls in the month after Texas’ law was enacted on Sept. 1. Thirty-three percent of those came from Texas.
Houston Pregnancy Help Center (HPHC) provided data on Thursday showing that it saw increases across multiple categories from September 2020 to the same month this year. For example, ultrasounds increased 50% (244 to 365). It also saw a 42% increase in client visits (1,026 to 1,466) and over 20% increases in pregnancy tests performed, in “abortion-minded” or “abortion-vulnerable” clients, and in women who chose not to have abortions.
Houston Pregnancy Help Center Sylvia Johnson says the movement has work to do before it can fully respond to “post-Roe” challenges.
First and foremost, she said the movement should focus on adoption education for minority women, as well as greater willingness to adopt their children. “These are women that have been targeted by the abortion industry … we have to somehow remove that stigma,” she said.
She added that the movement needed easier access to prenatal care, support for education through scholarships and infrastructure like child care.
Full story at Fox News.
Dare I hope that the Texas law will give rise to greater sexual restraint by otherwise promiscuous individuals?
If our population in just one area were relatively small, one might be able to create a value paradigm that keeps people from having sex, willfully, willingly or otherwise. However, since having sex is more enjoyable and enduring than dying, it’s pretty popular. It’s easy for some to simply say “Just stop” when perhaps they themselves did so, but to place that paradigm and restraint on another just doesn’t work. Banning abortion in an area leads to hiding the abortion in an area, no matter the penalties. Shame, social disgust, and ostracism from religious and community activities only leads to worse outcomes. It’s a matter of balance – either allow effective age-appropriate birth control (that’s free) and limited abortions for incest and rape, and you might get the rest of a given population to comply, or even agree as a value. However, you cannot have it both ways – unplanned births, the forced inability to control the amount of children one has, leads only to back-alley abortions or “let’s fly to Country X on vacation” (but really go there so that teenaged daughter can have a quick abortion so that no one but God, the parents, etc. know… Yep, God can be fooled, right? Better to have it safe, open and available than hidden and possibly rendering one incapable of having future children or worse, dying as a result of a botched abortion.
Or…and hear me out now….You can have the baby and love it. Radical? Extreme? Progressive? Too much?
People didn’t start having sex in 1964. or 1973.
Michael, the question asked, and to which you responded, was answered in the negative: “Banning abortion in an area leads to hiding the abortion in an area, no matter the penalties.” Knowing that abortion is greatly restricted would this not give promiscuous individuals (and the label “promiscuous” I would give to those engaging in casual sex with no intention of bring a child into the world) good cause to think twice about hooking up, especially if the law is front and center in people’s minds? Are humans so animalistic that they cannot and will not control themselves? Yes in our sex-saturated culture it would seem not, but note this: after abortion was legalized in Ireland, their number shot up 150% . So laws due have a controlling effect. Again, this is a question to you more than a comment.
I saw the movie. That doesn’t look like her. Are you sure you have the right person?
An actress played Abby Johnson in the movie. The real Abby is pictured here.
We’re linking to Fox News stories here now?
Crisis pregnancy centers are staffed by the best volunteers anywhere. They will step up their services as much as needed.
Send a donation to your local center, they will use it wisely.
We need to focus on telling women not to give in to unwanted sex or even wanted sex if they are not at a place where they can raise a child.