With the Supreme Court’s anticipated ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson appearing to potentially affect Roe v. Wade negatively, the abortion lobby has become a super-spreader of the tall tale that pro-lifers will “leave women in the cold” after Roe is reversed (this claim comes from the same family of fallacies as “not caring about children after they’re born” and “not offering any help to women or children”). They say this despite knowing that as a newly released letter of pro-life powerhouses reported, “We live in a country with about 3,000 pregnancy resource centers and approximately 400 maternity homes, offering free services and tangible support to women and their families during pregnancy and motherhood.” Of course, if more people knew about those services, it could put Planned Parenthood and company out of business … which is why spreading the good news of help for those pregnant and parenting is at the top of the Pro-Life Agenda.
The pro-life movement is preparing to help women after Roe is reversed, but we’re not waiting until then to start—we’re helping them now.
A great example of our movement’s outreach is Students for Life of America’s initiative Standing with You: a website dedicated solely to helping pregnant and parenting women find the resources they need to be successful along with people standing by to talk and assist women who reach out. The national and local resources include assistance with housing, finances, food, clothing, childcare, counseling, etc. Anything that a woman might need mentally, spiritually, or physically during her pregnancy and thereafter can be found through the numerous resources listed at Standing with You—and all at no cost to her.
On Valentine’s Day this week, a revamped Standing with You website was highlighted to draw attention to an effective tool as part of our Post-Roe preparations. And in an act of solidarity, pro-life and pro-family leaders also sent an open letter to America’s women and held a ‘No Woman Stands Alone’ Valentine’s Day press conference to illustrate that being pro-life is pro-love—and love is caring for women and children in need.
Many organizations are engaged in the daily work of helping women with the practical realities of establishing home and family as well as education and career.
An alumni of the SWF outreach, Ruth Asmarzadeh, spoke to this fact at the event on a more personal note, saying: “I am living proof of the support that Standing with You has provided as they have been walking with me for the last 5 years. When I first found out that I was pregnant…I thought it was either abortion or life in a constant state of exhaustion and poverty. The Standing with You program restored my hope…and is a shining symbol of all the people who believed in me and ultimately in my son.”
Ruth is just one of the many women who have successfully navigated an unexpected pregnancy, and her story is clear evidence of the pro-life movement’s dedication to protecting and empowering women and children. It doesn’t stop with Standing with You either—the other speakers at the event were activists and representatives of organizations that serve women.
The abortion lobby might dare to suggest we won’t help women in a Post-RoeAmerica, but that's kind of our thing. We believe women don’t need abortions to succeed—they just need support.
However, I can’t say the same about the abortion lobby. The reality is that they aren’t actually that creative. Rather than trying to eliminate the suffering, Corporate Abortion just pushes an abortion sale, to end the life of someone who might suffer. They lack the courage to problem-solve or to walk with women who are working to build a life.
The abortion lobby sells women short, and then sells them an abortion. Claims that ‘women need abortion to succeed’ imply that women are too stupid and weak to succeed while parenting—they’re just silly damsels in distress who can’t be trusted to handle career AND family. In any other setting but an abortion vendor’s office, that kind of misogyny could get you canceled.
And as always, the abortion lobby skips over the fine print of possible complications from abortions including hemorrhaging, future ectopic pregnancies, fertilityproblems, maternal death, increased risk of breast cancer, etc. They ignore the emotional anguish and relationship issues that often follow an abortion. Abortion hurts women. It can never deliver the one thing it promises – an end to problems. All that’s ended is a child’s life.
Empowering women begins with believing in them to be more than one thing at a time, and it includes helping them achieve their goals. To find the truth about the vast network of people standing with pregnant and parenting women, women will need to look past the fear tactics that Corporate Abortion employs. But no woman needs to stand alone in a Post-Roe America – or today.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America & Students for Life Action, with more than 1,300 groups on middle and high school, college and university, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, Explicitly Pro-Life.