Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, on Tuesday, described the work of crisis pregnancy centers as “torture.”

In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling last month to overturn Roe v. Wade, Warren spoke with reporters about defending abortion rights and took aim at eliminating crisis pregnancy centers across the country.

“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 to one,” Warren said. “We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts, and we need to shut them down all around the country. You should not be able to torture a pregnant person like that.”

Warren is one of many Democrat politicians who have vehemently criticized the Supreme Court for its decision. She, along with Sen. Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, have introduced the “Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act” to combat what they call “false advertising” from crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).

This is part of a sweeping effort by Congressional House Democrats to reinstate a top-down abortion policy that would bar all 50 states from punishing abortionists. The House has scheduled votes on two proposed bills, including the Women’s Health Protection Act (H.R. 8296), which could strike down nearly all state pro-life protections until birth. Abortion activists tout this proposed bill as “codifying Roe v. Wade into law,” although it goes far beyond Roe. In one swoop, the policy would strike down pro-life laws nationwide, eradicating laws that prohibit sex-selective abortions, prevent abortions on babies 20 weeks or older, and eliminating other state-regulated limits on abortion.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has said that Congress has a “sacred, fundamental duty” to promote such “fundamental rights” as abortion on demand.

The more modest proposed federal legislation “Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022” (H.R. 8297) would make it illegal for any state to hinder an abortionist’s “ability to provide, initiate, or otherwise enable an abortion” on a woman traveling from a state where abortion is illegal, nor to stop the shipment of abortion-inducing drugs that have been approved by the FDA across state lines.

Pelosi has pledged that the Democrats’ legislative efforts to advance abortion rights are only the beginning, a threat pro-life advocates take seriously.

“I expect more poison from Nancy Pelosi,” Rep. Jackie Warlorski (R-Indiana) told guest host Joseph Backholm on the Washington Watch podcast on Monday. “That’s why I just am so thankful that she’s going to lose that gavel in January.”

In addition to the three proposed bills, five scheduled House and Senate committee hearings on abortion rights began Tuesday and will continue for the next several days.  

Since the Supreme Court vote, crisis pregnancy centers across the country have suffered from waves of attacks by abortion activists. On Tuesday, one director revealed that she has since hired 24-hour security detail to protect her clinic.

“Pregnancy care centers from coast to coast are being targeted for violent assaults of vandalism, and hateful attacks online and in the media” Heidi Matzke, the director of the Alternatives Pregnancy Center in California, said Tuesday during the congressional hearing. “Just last week… a man approached our care center with an armed machete.” 

“We have been forced to hire 24-hour on-site security,” Matzke continued. “We have had to reinforce doors and bullet-proof 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.”

Centers like Matzke’s have seen an increase in attacks across the country since Politico published a leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in early May indicating that the court would overturn Roe v. Wade. The high court made that decision official June 24.

 
Above: Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other demonstrators rallied in front of the Supreme Court building on May 3 in response to the news that the high court drafted a majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

Photo: Jeff Malet Photography/Newscom