The Lazy Slander of the Pro-Life Cause « Public Discourse
Mexican actor pledges to build largest pro-life women’s clinic in US « Catholic News Agency
A recent essay from Public Discourse, and a recent news article from Catholic News Agency highlight the good, the bad and the great in the pro-life movement. The bad is the ongoing, persistent, and false, meme that pro-lifers do not really care about women and children, that they do not care about “life after birth” This lie, advanced by media figures and pro-abortion groups is used to smear and discredit pro-lifers. The truth is that the Church and pro-lifers of all denominations provide considerable help to vulnerable women and children, usually without a single government penny:
In the United States there are some 2,300 affiliates of the three largest pregnancy resource center umbrella groups, Heartbeat International, CareNet, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA). Over 1.9 million American women take advantage of these services each year. Many stay at one of the 350 residential facilities for women and children operated by pro-life groups. In New York City alone, there are twenty-two centers serving 12,000 women a year. These centers provide services including pre-natal care, STI testing, STI treatment, ultrasound, childbirth classes, labor coaching, midwife services, lactation consultation, nutrition consulting, social work, abstinence education, parenting classes, material assistance, and post-abortion counseling.
Religious groups also provide crucial services to needy mothers and infants. John Cardinal O’Connor, the late Archbishop of New York, famously pledged to assist any woman from anywhere experiencing a crisis pregnancy, and the current Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, recently renewed Cardinal O’Connor’s pledge. The Catholic Church—perhaps the single most influential pro-life institution in the United States—makes the largest financial, institutional and personnel commitments to charitable causes of any private source in the United States. These include AIDS ministry, health care, education, housing services, and care for the elderly, disabled, and immigrants. In 2004 alone, 562 Catholic hospitals treated over 85 million patients; Catholic elementary and high schools educated over 2 million students; Catholic colleges educated nearly 800,000 students; Catholic Charities served over eight-and-a-half million different individuals. In 2007, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development awarded nine million dollars in grants to reduce poverty. And in 2009, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network spent nearly five million dollars in services for impoverished immigrants.
The sad irony is the hypocrisy of the pro-abortion groups who provide very little to help the women and children they claim to care about:
No major pro-abortion group or institution has taken on a comparable commitment to vulnerable Americans. Pregnancy resource centers devote significant resources to supporting women who have already decided to have an abortion, but abortion advocates offer no similar support to women who wish to continue their pregnancies. Indeed, they often devote their resources to shutting down the services provided by pro-lifers. NARAL Pro-Choice America reports spending twenty thousand dollars on “crisis pregnancy centers” in Maryland in order to “investigate” and publicly smear such centers for demonstrating a bias for life.
From the Catholic News Agency comes the ‘great’ news. Mexican producer and actor Eduardo Verastegui, star of the movie, “Bella”, and founder of Mantle of Guadalupe, along with Philip Rivers from the San Diego Chargers, Mexican actor Karyme Lozano, actor Sean Astin from “The Lord of the Rings,” violinist Roddy Chong and motivational speaker Nick Vujicic, held a fund-raising gala in Los Angeles to fund the pro-life medical center opened by Mantle of Guadalupe in east Los Angeles. At the gala, Verastegui announced the Mantle of Guadalupe’s new goal was to build “the largest women’s clinic in the United States.”
During the gala, Verastegui, who is the founder of Mantle of Guadalupe, reiterated his commitment to defend life and announced that the organization’s new goal is the construction of “the largest women’s clinic in the United States.”
“I will not use my talents except to elevate my Christian, pro-life and Hispanic values,” Verastegui promised the guests.
At the conclusion of his remarks, the Mexican actor introduced several young Hispanic mothers and their babies who were saved thanks to the work of Mantle of Guadalupe. They were greeted with a prolonged standing ovation. “These babies are the fruits of Mantle of Guadalupe, they are the result of your generosity. If only just one of them were here, everything I have done in my life recently since filming ‘Bella’ would have been worth it,” he said.
The Public Discourse essay is well written and should encourage everyone in the pro-life movement that we are doing right by women and children, and that the Catholic Church continues to lead in the effort to serve the weak and vulnerable in our society. It is likewise encouraging to know there are celebrities and sports figures who are using their gifts and time to advance the cause of life.
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