NARAL Pro-Choice America is among the country’s most powerful abortion advocacy groups. Thanks to an interesting set of events, I ended up on their email list and started getting getting regular updates. Some of these messages display an impressive level of honesty; granted, it’s usually unintentional.
You can see that in the email NARAL President Ilyse Hogue sent out last last week. Hogue opens by declaring, “Anti-choice senators are blocking legislation that would help women sold into slavery–unless those survivors are denied access to abortion care.”
The legislation she’s referring to is the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. Authored by pro-life Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), it would impose tougher sentences on human traffickers while putting confiscated money into a victims’ fund. It also stipulates that the fund isn’t to pay for abortions, which makes sense. Simply put, no one should get the death penalty for his or her father’s crimes.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t sit well with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). He and other prominent Democrats are refusing to let the bill pass unless the provision is removed.
Hogue is telling the truth when she says the legislation is being blocked by “anti-choice senators.” After all, the senators who oppose the bill also support the abortion industry. And if you’re looking for examples of how it helps to deny freedom of choice, you don’t have to look hard.
Abortion providers offer the “right to choose,” but it’s often not women who exercise it. Coerced abortions are a great way for abusive partners to avoid the hassle of child support. They’re also a big help to sexual predators hoping to destroy the evidence of their crimes.
In fact, some studies suggest that more than half of women who abort due so under pressure. That can include financial coercion, threats of personal blackmail, or fear of physical violence. The latter frequently turns deadly, with women being shot, stabbed, burned, smothered, and beaten to death. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that homicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant women.
Human traffickers make use of abortion too. During his testimony before Texas’ Joint Interim Committee to Study Human Trafficking, Dallas Department of Public Safety officer Jeff Williams asserted that traffickers frequently use abortion to keep their victims working. The anti-trafficking group A21 Campaign has helped to publicize this fact. Below, you can see a video it’s released in which a victim named Nicole mentions being forced into two abortions by her captor.
The abortion industry isn’t the only one pushing an anti-choice agenda —so do its political allies. That was on display when Texas state Rep. Molly White co-sponsored a bill requiring abortion clinics to provide a private room containing information about assistance programs and a telephone with which to contact law enforcement. NARAL Pro-Choice Texas’ legislative counsel, Susan Hays, responded with the claim that the legislation was “creating a problem where none exist to push yet more abortion legislation in Texas that is not needed.” Trafficking victims like Nicole seem to feel otherwise.
As Nicole explains, her pimp controlled every aspect of her life. Given that trafficking victims live lives devoid of free choice, it’s hard to think of a more anti-choice move than blocking legislation to help rescue them. And yet, that’s exactly what Sen. Reid and other are doing.
Pro-lifers should make it clear we’re not going to abandon those held in slavery. One way to help them is by demanding that the Senate pass the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act pass. We can also get behind anti-coercion bills like Rep. White’s Coerced Abortion Prevention Bill. Meanwhile, if NARAL and Harry Reid want to see an end to the anti-choice agenda, then there’s something simple they can do: stop pushing it.
