Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is targeting crisis pregnancy centers amid a record number of attacks on pro-life groups.
Ellison joined California and Massachusetts Tuesday in issuing a “consumer alert” about crisis pregnancy centers, citing a lone report written by abortion advocates as justification.
“The Minnesota constitution guarantees the right to safe and legal abortion. Many crisis pregnancy centers claim to offer comprehensive health care, but their purpose is to prevent pregnant people from accessing that right — which sometimes they accomplish by misleading, misinforming, or deceiving people,” Ellison said in a statement.
The consumer alert claims crisis pregnancy centers “may pose as reproductive health care clinics despite not providing comprehensive reproductive health care” or “any health care services at all.”
One of the main purposes of crisis pregnancy centers is to provide women with practical support and resources during unplanned pregnancies, such as counseling, ultrasounds, diapers and formula, STD testing, and more. Tim Miller, an executive director at Pro-Life Action Ministries, said these centers “offer hope and direction for women who see no other option than abortion.”
“This radical attack on Christian pregnancy care centers by Attorney General Keith Ellison sends a clear message — do not get in the way of us killing children or we will come after you. His orders are meant to intimidate through false propaganda using the power of his position,” Miller said.
“They are on the front lines every day saving children and caring for their mothers. This threatening behavior by Attorney General Ellison cannot be tolerated,” he added.
Moses Bratrud of the Minnesota Family Council said Ellison is ignoring the real issues, like rising crime in the Twin Cities, while “using state power to target pregnancy centers that provide compassionate, competent, and free care to thousands of Minnesota women every year.”
“The facts are clear: nationwide, pregnancy centers perform almost 750,000 pregnancy tests, 500,000 free ultrasounds, and 160,000 STI/STD tests every year, and educate almost 900,000 young people on sexual risk avoidance. This is the care that Attorney General Ellison calls ‘deceptive,’ parroting the talking points of left-wing activists,” Bratrud said.
“In fact, it is Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers who lie to women and mislead them about the short- and long-term health effects of abortion, which always ends a child’s life, and often leads to lasting harm to women,” he continued.
The consumer alert was issued amid an unprecedented wave of violent attacks on pro-life groups across the nation following the collapse of Roe v. Wade. In Minnesota, three crisis pregnancy centers and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life’s office have been vandalized this summer. A group called “Jane’s Revenge” has claimed responsibility for some of these attacks and is now labeled a terrorist organization by Facebook.
Ellison’s alert came the same day Yelp announced it will apply a new “consumer notice” to pregnancy centers.
“Relying on a ‘report’ produced by abortion advocacy groups, the attorney general is targeting these compassionate centers with misleading criticism while showing absolutely no concern about Minnesota’s abortion facilities, which are not licensed or inspected by the state,” said Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Executive Director Scott Fischbach. “Ellison’s pro-abortion bias is on full display.”
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
