In May, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (D) claimed during a visit to the Vatican that her theological roots ensure righteous leadership. 

 

“As a Catholic, I think about what we were taught about making sure that we look after those around us — that we pay particular attention to those who are the most vulnerable among us . . . It’s true that I’ve taken very strong positions when it comes to . . . supporting abortion rights in this country,” she said. “To me, it doesn’t make me any less of a Catholic or detract from my relationship to my faith.”[1]

 

I’m not exactly a perfect Catholic. Few practicing in our billion-member tribe are destined for sainthood. Yet the governor’s wildly fantastic claim of living out the gospels should nauseate the heartiest soul. Tens of thousands of unborn children have been gruesomely slaughtered in abortions during Healey’s political career and as a direct result of her policies. In the last few decades, as many Bay State girls and women, desperate for truth and comfort, have bought heinous lies that our pro-abortion administrators sell. The latest falsehoods spoken by Healey and her allies, designed to eliminate the country’s pregnancy resource centers (PRCs), are by far the most egregious.

 

First, some context: Despite providing material goods, healthcare and counseling services, the value of which exceeds tens of millions of dollars over the course of their four-decade Massachusetts history,[2] PRCs face mounting pressure from the state. The series of assaults will surely happen in other states, if they haven’t already. Like most pro-life advocates, my colleagues and I believe there is one reason why: pregnancy resource centers threaten abortion industry bottom lines. 

 

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, cut to the chase back in July 2022, saying of PRCs, “In Massachusetts right now, those crisis pregnancy centers that are there to fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help outnumber true abortion clinics by 3 to 1. We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts, and we need to shut them down all around the country.”[3]

 

Shortly after, then Attorney General Healey issued a consumer warning against pregnancy centers[4]; a version still exists online today.[5] “We want to ensure that patients can protect themselves from deceptive and coercive tactics when seeking the care they need,” Healey explained. Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL) filed a public records request with the Attorney General’s office in 2023. Results revealed that not one complaint of merit has ever been filed against a Massachusetts PRC, proving the consumer warning baseless. 

 

What Healey leaned on instead: politically-motivated city and town ordinances proposed, and in two cases passed, claiming that PRCs engage in deceptive advertising.[6] Massachusetts legislators followed suit, filing a bill aimed at PRCs at the start of the 2023 session.[7] My colleagues and I testified against the First Amendment violations within the text.[8] The bill’s sponsors didn’t bother to attend the hearing, one acknowledging the bill’s true purpose. “It’s a bit of a statement bill,” she told a local reporter.[9]

 

Lies and games – just what women in crisis pregnancies need.

 

The legislative route seemingly impassable due to that pesky Constitution, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) made the next attempt. In a January 2024 memo to licensed medical pregnancy centers, the DPH warned not just centers but their physicians. Among other veiled threats, Commissioner Robbie Goldstein, MD, PhD cautioned providers against prescribing abortion pill reversal (APR), writing, “. . .medication abortion reversal is unproven, unethical, and unsafe to provide to patients such that a physician or APRN who offers or provides this treatment could be found to be practicing inconsistently with accepted practice and subject to discipline.”[10]

 

We learned through MCFL’s next public records request that no complaints filed against PRCs warranted the DPH threat. Further, APRScience.org, an educational project MCFL launched in January, provides overwhelming evidence for the safety and effectiveness of APR. Featuring data from the world’s leading APR researchers, the site also includes research results favorable to APR by APR critic Dr. Mitchel Creinin, one of the sources cited in Goldstein’s memo.[11]

 

The state’s latest assault on PRCs is also its most far-reaching. In what’s been touted as a “first-in-the-nation” undertaking, the Healey administration speaks directly to women, trying to convince them to “avoid” PRCs. 

 

In March 2023, Governor Healey signed a supplemental budget, which included $1 million for a “public awareness campaign focused on the dangers of crisis pregnancy centers and pregnancy resource centers.“[12] On June 10, 2024, her team held a press conference outside an abortion clinic to announce the statewide, taxpayer-funded, multi-platform effort. 

 

“We are committed to protecting and expanding access to safe and legal abortion,” Healey said. “This campaign is an important way to provide accurate information so residents can make informed decisions about reproductive care that are right for them.” 

 

“Pregnant people who want to understand their options deserve accurate information,” said Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell. “. . . I, along with our newly-formed Reproductive Justice Unit, look forward to working in partnership with them to ensure residents have access to reproductive healthcare.” 

 

Goldstein said, “As a physician, I find this kind of deception and misrepresentation unconscionable, and as Commissioner, I feel compelled to push back as hard as possible. . .” 

 

And from U.S. Senator Ed Markey, “I am proud that Massachusetts is leading the nation in ensuring pregnant people and their families have access to medically accurate information and comprehensive reproductive health care.”[13]

 

Despite marching to a constant drumbeat of “choice,” which, of course, PRCs provide, our politicians are partnering with the non-profit Reproductive Equity Now, formerly a NARAL chapter, to do all they can to drive PRCs into extinction; after all, eliminating choice ensures higher profits for those who remain.[14]

 

Because the writing has been on the wall for two years here (quite literally, with spray paint and other forms of vandalism defacing our PRCs), we were prepared for this current battle. In late 2022, MCFL initiated the Pregnancy Care Alliance of Massachusetts (PCAll). The state’s first-ever PRC network provides a foundation on which PRCs stand together, inform residents, garner support and respond to attacks.[15]

 

Pro-life advocates often reflexively respond with “volatile” when asked to describe the post-Roe landscape. Yet, as we step back and survey what we have accomplished in two years here, it wouldn’t be an accurate word choice. “Metamorphic” is better. Miriam Webster defines this as something “changed into a more compact form by the action of pressure, heat, and water.”[16] Throughout the past 24 months, what had been a disparate, siloed set of allies evolved into one of the strongest and most effective pro-life coalitions our state has ever known. 

 

Unyielding to pressure and the state’s heated rhetoric, an organization led by women, for women, emerged as a precious gem. We built a PCAll website, lobbied at the State House, developed followings on social media, erected a Boston-area billboard, published client-generated video testimonials and welcomed the public at PRC open houses. (Many invitations to tour PRCs have been extended to our elected officials; few have accepted.) 

 

Providentially, just prior to the state’s taxpayer-funded campaign launch, PCAll introduced its biggest effort thus far: a petition that calls on Governor Healey to end her unjust, years-long assault on PRCs.[17] After only a couple months and with little promotion, 5,000 supporters have signed it. On June 25, PRC clients, those served inside these charitable community organizations, delivered petitions collected thus far to Governor Healey’s State House office.[18] Supporters cheered women on as they ascended the marble staircase to Healey’s executive wing.[19] The governor has not responded.

 

The governor’s million-dollar, anti-woman effort is outlandish enough to have caught widespread attention from the local and national media, who eagerly sought interviews with our PCAll spokeswomen.[20]

 

What’s happening in Massachusetts is likely to unfold in other states. Familiarize yourself with what our state is doing with the money our residents work so hard to earn.[21] See the headshaking content the state has produced for social media.[22] And be prepared to fight back. By the grace of God, we were ready to do just that. Today, we are confident that the doors of our PRCs will remain open, well-trained and compassionate staff available to truthfully serve women who want to parent. Our opponents seem to know it, too, with one Reproductive Equity Now employee admitting as much to a local paper shortly after PCAll launched, saying, “We know that they’re organized. We know that they’re a serious threat here in Massachusetts.”[23]

 

Indeed. May Truth triumph.

 

____________________

[1]  Kelly Garrity and Lisa Kashinsky, “When Healey Met the Pope,” Politico, May 16, 2024, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/massachusetts-playbook/2024/05/16/when-healey-met-the-pope-00158298

[2] 2023 Impact Report, Pregnancy Care Alliance of Massachusetts, June 15, 2024, https://pregnancycarealliance.com/resources/2023-impact-report

[3] Lindsay Kornick, “Sen. Elizabeth Warren blasted for attacking crisis pregnancy centers,” FoxNews, July 12, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/media/elizabeth-warren-blasted-attacking-crisis-pregnancy-centers

[4] Office of MA Attorney General Maura Healey, July 6, 2022, https://www.mass.gov/news/ag-healey-warns-patients-about-crisis-pregnancy-centers

[5] Office of MA Attorney General Andrea Campbell, July 20, 2024, https://www.mass.gov/doc/consumer-advisory-anti-abortion-center-english/download

[6] Valerie Richardson, “Crackdown on pro-life pregnancy centers spurs free-speech uproar,” The Washington Times, July 25, 2022, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jul/25/lawmakers-accused-free-speech-breach-crackdown-pro/

[7] Representative Tram T. Nguyen and Representative Lindsay N. Sabadosa, Legislative Action Center, Massachusetts Citizens for Life, January 2023,   https://www.masscitizensforlife.org/bill_h_377_pregnancy_resource_center_gag_rule

[8] Myrna Maloney Flynn, “Oral Testimony Opposing H.377 / S.174,” Massachusetts Citizens for Life, July 24, 2023,  https://www.masscitizensforlife.org/myrna_maloney_flynn_s_oral_testimony_opposing_h_377_s_174

[9] Maddie Fabian, “Abortion foes pan Sabadosa-backed bill to curb deceptive advertising of ‘pregnancy resource centers,’” Daily Hampshire Gazette, July 27, 2023, https://www.gazettenet.com/Pregnancy-crisis-centers-bill-gets-public-hearing-in-Boston-Easthampton-s-ordinance-ongoing-51752064

[10] Robert Goldstein, MD, PhD, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, Department of Public Health, January 3, 2024, https://www.masscitizensforlife.org/massachusetts_department_of_public_health_memo_regarding_abortion_pill_reversal

[11] Paul DeBeasi, Data_Set_2, APRScience.org, January 2024, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CkCw_VHDGysqN-nuCBnGfFehYt3nyZQEdMKD8A25qAc/edit?gid=1213292534#gid=1213292534

[12] Executive Office for Administration and Finance, Press Release, “Governor Healey Signs $389 Million Supplemental Budget,” March 29, 2023, https://www.mass.gov/news/governor-healey-signs-389-million-supplemental-budget

[13] Executive Office of Health and Human Services, Press Release, “Healey-Driscoll Administration Launches First-in-the-Nation Public Education Campaign on the Dangers of Anti-Abortion Centers,” June 10, 2024, https://www.mass.gov/news/healey-driscoll-administration-launches-first-in-the-nation-public-education-campaign-on-the-dangers-of-anti-abortion-centers

[14] “What Are Anti-Abortion Centers?”  https://reproequitynow.org/about-antiabortion-centers

[15] Pregnancy Care Alliance, July 2024, https://pregnancycarealliance.com/

[16] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metamorphic

[17] Pregnancy Care Alliance, The petition to Protect Massachusetts PRCs, March 30, 2024,  https://pregnancycarealliance.com/protect-prcs/#start

[18] Juan Perfetti, “Celebration of Life Day,” YouTube, July 5, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJUfXfgdUio

[19] Joe Bukuras, “Besieged Massachusetts pro-life pregnancy centers rally at state capitol,” Catholic News Agency, June 27, 2024, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/258123/besieged-massachusetts-pro-life-pregnancy-centers-rally-at-state-capitol

[20] “In the News,” Pregnancy Care Alliance of Massachusetts, June 2024, https://pregnancycarealliance.com/resources/in-the-news/

[21] “About anti-abortion centers,” Executive Office of Health and Human Services, June 2024 https://www.mass.gov/info-details/about-anti-abortion-centers

[22] “Avoid anti-abortion centers. Get care you can trust.” MA Department of Public Health, June 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCIQG7eesi8

[23] Marissa Walker, “Massachusetts anti-abortion centers push back against lawmakers, abortion rights advocates,” Greenfield Recorder, May 21, 2023, https://www.recorder.com/Anti-abortion-centers-51035813

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