Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called on crisis pregnancy centers to be “shut down” across the country Tuesday as pro-abortion groups vandalize and commit arson on centers throughout the nation.
The senator claimed the centers “fool” and “torture” women into carrying their pregnancies to term as they seek abortion access. She lamented that the centers outnumber abortion clinics in Massachusetts by three to one.
“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 three-one,” she said. “We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts and we need to shut them down all around the country,” she told NBC 10 Boston. “You should not be able to torture a pregnant person like that.”
Warren’s criticisms of crisis pregnancy centers follow multiple attacks on the centers facilitated by pro-abortion activists since the Supreme Court draft majority opinion leaked in May.
Surveillance footage showed a suspect spray painted the words “If Abortions Aren’t Safe, You Aren’t Either” and broke the windows of the Next Step Pregnancy Center in Lynwood, Washington, in late May. An unknown pro-abortion group splattered the Capitol Hill Crisis Pregnancy Center with red paint and marked the words “Jane Says Revenge” in graffiti.
Police arrested 10 pro-abortion protesters for allegedly throwing smoke bombs at an Oregon pregnancy center on June 27. The activist group Jane’s Revenge allegedly firebombed crisis pregnancy center in Amherst, New York, overnight on June 7, while arsonists attacked Wisconsin Family Action in Madison. The Oregon Right to Life offices in Keizer, Oregon, were also firebombed with Molotov cocktails.
The centers offer free or low-cost pregnancy testing, education on adoption services, ultrasounds, STD testing and treatment, prenatal and parenting lessons, after abortion recovery counseling and sexual risk avoidance education, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute. (RELATED: NBC News Joins The Fight Against Crisis Pregnancy Centers)
The Massachusetts senator has repeatedly called for the construction of abortion clinics on federal lands and national parks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, handing states the right to regulate abortion. She suggested that tents and trained medical personnel be set up on federally funded property to allow women to access abortion.
In a New York Times op-ed, she and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith advocated the use of “federal property and resources to protect people seeking abortion services locally.”
Warren and several prominent Democratic lawmakers signed a letter urging President Joe Biden increase access to medication abortion and establish a medical ombudsman at the Department of Human Health and Services and Department of Justice to analyze data on the types of reproductive services needed and provide that on federal lands.
“The Department of Justice and all relevant agencies could analyze the types of reproductive health services that could be provided on federal property, especially in states where such services are limited by state law or regulation,” the letter stated.
The senator’s push for clinics on federal lands is currently prevented by the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding toward abortions except in cases endangering the mother’s life. Many activists estimate that the Hyde Amendment prevents at least 60,000 abortion per year.