Life: In harm’s way

RICHARD A. SOKERKA

Since the announcement of the Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court June 24, Catholic churches and their ministries, and crisis pregnancy centers that not only help women choose life instead of abortion, but also help women after their babies are born, have been the targets of unrelenting domestic terrorist attacks by pro-abortion zealots with no end in sight. None of these domestic terrorist attacks has yet to be condemned by the Biden Administration nor has the Department of Justice made a single arrest in any of these hate crimes.

In Bethesda, Md., July 16, St. Jane Frances de Chantal Church was targeted by arson and two other nearby churches were vandalized. Father Samuel Giese, pastor, spoke about the attack, saying, “People broke in. They overturned statues. They tore down the Stations of the Cross. They desecrated the tabernacle, and they tried to set the church on fire,” he said. “I believe that this is because of the Church’s stand on the issue of life — when it begins and that it should be protected — and that this is one of the manifestations of the deep divisions right now within our country, that there are those who believe that we do not have even the right to practice our faith.”

Pro-life pregnancy centers have been attacked in various ways — fire bombings, broken windows, arson, graffiti, and buildings defaced with pro-abortion messaging — in West Virginia, Washington, Virginia, Louisiana, Colorado, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Indiana.

The head of a pro-life pregnancy center in Sacramento, Calif., spoke to members of the U.S. Senate July 12 about the importance of pregnancy centers and the need to protect them. “Just last week, a man approached our care center with an armed machete,” said Heidi Matzke, the executive director of Alternatives Preg­nancy Center. “We have been forced to hire 24-hour on-site security. We’ve had to reinforce doors and bulletproof our walls. We’ve had to paint our building with anti-graffiti coating. We’ve added cameras, armed our staff with pepper spray, and stopped running our mobile clinic because of threats of violence.” However, she stressed, “What we do is worth the risk … because life is a human right and we need to protect that life in the womb.”

Yet, instead of condemning the domestic terrorist attacks against pregnancy centers and houses of worship, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leveled a vitriolic attack on pregnancy centers the same week calling for pregnancy centers to be “shut down all around the country” because they purportedly spread “disinformation” about abortion. She authored a bill that would do just that, the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act, along with Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). It would empower the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on purportedly false claims made by crisis pregnancy centers. If passed, these pro-life centers could be fined $100,000 for violating the “prohibition on [abortion] disinformation.”

“You should not be able to torture a pregnant person like that,” Warren added, referring to the work done by the pro-life pregnancy centers.

Sadly, Sen Warren is the one spreading the disinformation. By not only turning a blind eye to these domestic terrorism attacks on churches and pregnancy centers, as the entire Democrat Party has done, but also being so rabid as a voice for abortion on demand that her heart and mind cannot comprehend that pregnancy centers are not the ones that “torture pregnant woman.” It is, in reality and in truth, the very act of abortion Warren so ardently defends that inhumanely tortures (and kills) the precious life of a human being created by God in the womb of a woman. Pray that she comes to understand this.