She hates that they help expectant mothers. She’s coming to shut them down.
You’d think Maura Healey and the rest of Team Universal Healthcare would be all about it— pregnancy tests for all, no-cost ultrasounds, free formula, diaper drives.
But no. These aren’t wonderful ways to empower women with the care they need. They’re warning signs!
According to Attorney General Maura Healey and her radical allies, any clinic, maternity home, or non-profit that offers any of the above services will “pressure” you through deceptive methods to carry your baby to term.
And for Healey, it’s time to do away with them once and for all.
Anti-options Healey heads a crusade in Massachusetts to defame, bankrupt, and close permanently any entity that does not commit abortions or provide abortion referrals. She isn’t subtle about it—last July her office released a statement defining and describing her scheme to delegitimize so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
“We want pregnant people”—note, it’s never women with them—“to know…the information presented to you at these facilities is often misleading and inaccurate.”
Other warning signs listed include a physical model of a baby in utero or baby clothes on-site. The horror!
You’d think the fearmongering would end there. Wrong. Last week the state legislature passed a bill containing $1 million to fund what amounts to a coercive, dishonest campaign to redirect women from researching or entering a pregnancy center. The taxpayer funds will likely pay for PSAs and billboards, like what Governor Gavin Newsom has done with the tax dollars of Californians.
With Healey headed to victory in the governor’s race, I sat down with First Concern Pregnancy Resource Center Executive Director Megan Paradis and Your Options Medical Executive Director Teresa Larkin.
Paradis and Larkin are on the frontlines for Bay Staters facing crisis pregnancies. Defamation like what spewed from the AG’s office directly affects how First Concern and Your Options Medical can care for women. This new line-item in the state budget will, in effect, target their establishments, employees, and the mothers and fathers they assist.
First Concern has for 30 years offered new mothers and fathers support groups, parenting classes, even resources for adoption. Soon, First Concern will be partnering with medical professionals to offer ultrasounds as well.
“The consumer warnings put up on the government website,” Paradis said, “are completely, egregiously misrepresentations of what we are.”
The anti-options ideology extends beyond simply a page on the Internet. Healey’s July statement mirrors an ordinance passed by the City of Somerville last March. The law makes opening an abortion-absent pregnancy center in the city virtually impossible. In Somerville, any pregnancy center engaging in these so-called “deceptive practices” will be fined $300 per offense.
The ordinance is vaguely written. A “deceptive practice” may be within a statement or hidden in the omission thereof. Thus, nearly any advertisement by the center that does not overtly and sufficiently state that it does not perform abortions or provide abortion referrals across all forms of marketing and literature may render the group liable to the fine.
If you call yourself a pregnancy center, but don’t provide the ability for a woman to terminate her pregnancy—you are engaging in “deceptive practices.” You’re perpetually accruing $300 fines.
“And that seems to be buzz-word enough for the general public not to look further into what it is that they’re accusing,” Paradis explained.
Teresa Larkin, who leads a clinic licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, pointed out the irony of the “deceptive practice” falsity.
“We are penalized for not providing a full range of reproductive care.” Larkin refers to the categorization of life-affirming centers by state and local governments as limited-services pregnancy centers. “Well, neither do abortion clinics. They call Planned Parenthood a full range of reproductive health services.”
She adds, “They don’t do prenatal care. They don’t deliver babies.”
Larkin’s centers are plagued by online and in-person trolls vilifying the organization through reviews, statements, and signs claiming the site is illegitimate.
“So we actually put our license in our window. And still, every weekend, they’re putting signs up on our front door. “Don’t go here; this is a fake clinic” and “No nurses working here” literally right next to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health license that says we are a clinic.
The Healey propaganda warns against workers wearing white coats as an illusion to women who enter the premises.
“Our head nurse—who has her Masters in nursing—has a white coat there for when she does administrative work. Nurses have always been allowed to wear white coats. A Masters degree in nursing and thirty years of experience? She’s earned a right to wear a white coat if she wants!”
There’s another accusation that unqualified personnel are operating ultrasound machines.
“There’s no way you could just walk into a clinic and just start waving a wand around,” chuckled Larkin, explaining that only a certified registered nurse or sonographer may operate an ultrasound machine. “The accusations are laughable—if they weren’t so dangerous. We could dispute them in a second, but nobody’s letting us.”
But by far the most ridiculous concept by the abortion extremists is that the ultrasound machine companies are in cahoots with the Pro-Life movement.
“Just like any medical procedure,” Larkin said, “it takes a measurement. It’s computerized. They’re talking about how the ultrasound machine companies are in on this system because they manipulate the machines to lie about how far along a woman is. It’s insanity!”
And yet, they call conservatives conspiracy theorists.
“We’re not masquerading as anything but what we are,” Larkin said.
“I can see why they’re so up-in-arms about ultrasounds. They know the stats.”
Larkin is referring to the majority of undecided pregnant women who, after witnessing their ultrasound, choose to carry their pregnancy to term. “That hits [the abortion industry] in the pocketbook. But why be so angry about the other stuff we do? Parenting classes. Toys for Tots at Christmas. A maternity home.”
Paradis provided additional state-wide milestones for the movement.
“We’ve served over 3,000 women. We’ve performed over 1,500 pregnancy tests. 1,200 ultrasounds. Everything free. 20,000 packages of diapers. Provided 250 families with formula. We’ve paid utility bills. We’ve helped with rent.”
And Maura Healey hates that. She, like the rest of the ultra-progressive pols, want women far away from private charities, tax-exempt non-profits, and especially churches. They want women in crisis entirely dependent on government.
“[Elected officials] are not talking to the women that we serve,” added Paradis. “They don’t want anything to do with those women. They want the talking points—the machine of the abortion industry.”
She continued, “It is a machine, what we’re dealing with. It may have just been a government warning. But then that government warning got linked to all recipients of a Mass Health email that went out, which, we know provides and pays for abortions in Massachusetts.”
Similar proposals to that of Somerville’s have popped up in Cambridge, Amherst, Easthampton, and, most recently, Framingham. So far, these plans have been pushed to the side or punted at municipal meetings. With a Governor Healey in office, however, the now-local threats will evolve into a statewide reality.
Larkin deduces the local officials know they’ll face legal consequences—likely at a federal level—if they bark up the wrong tree. With action from Healey now on the horizon, Your Options Medical has assembled a legal team. But Larkin rests assured of her First Amendment protections.
“They’re going to lose. They don’t have the right to do that.”
If you consider yourself Pro-Life, you must vote against Maura Healey for governor today. She actively undercuts charities and clinics practicing life-affirming reproductive care.
Likewise, if you consider yourself Pro-Choice, you should vote against Maura Healey for governor today. She’s only pro-one-choice: hers. And with the chokehold Big Abortion has on Healey, the choice for any woman facing a crisis pregnancy will always be abortion.
Unless we stop her today—and that will require a miracle at the polls—Maura Healey will be the most powerful woman in Massachusetts. These pregnancy centers and the women they serve won’t stand a chance.