“I’m not pro-abortion. I’m pro-choice.”
This is a phrase I have heard time and time again when watching college campus debates or man-on-the-street interviews regarding the evil of abortion. This is most likely a phrase you have heard as well and it is, I believe, intentionally misleading.
The label of “pro-choice” leads people into the mindset of believing they are being more tolerant or loving than the “pro-lifers” who want to “force” women to give birth.
However, if you really get down to it, the label of “pro-choice” actually means “abortion only.”
Juan Elias-Riesco is a pro-life missionary on the streets of Chicago. He’s the city director of Love Life USA, an unapologetically pro-life and gospel-centered organization.
If you don’t yet follow him on social media, you should. He regularly posts interactions that he has with women who are on their way to their abortion appointments. What is sometimes missed in the background is the attitude of the abortion facility workers.
These workers are given the fancy name of “clinic escorts,” which makes them sound almost as if they are butlers nicely escorting you to where you need to go. The reality is that their main job is to dissuade women who are coming into the clinic from receiving or listening to any type of advice that gives them other choices.
In the videos that Juan’s account posts, you can see that as soon as a woman is within a certain distance, multiple clinic escorts will swarm her and shield her from seeing any type of pro-life literature and will often attempt to “shoo” the pro-life speaker out of the way.
The idea that the abortion industry is actually “pro-choice” is a lie. While the pro-life movement offers mothers financial aid, free baby supplies, counseling, job placement, adoption options, and more, the “pro-choice” side offers only death, guilt, and regret.
In fact, Live Action published an encounter where a former Planned Parenthood worker spoke about getting into trouble if women ever chose life for their baby.
“Like many former Planned Parenthood workers, Kincaid tried to convince herself that she was helping women. But seeing the body parts of babies after abortions distressed her. She says, ‘It wasn’t until I had to actually pick out the pieces of children, that’s when I started looking at these little arms and little legs. They’re like little dolls.’
Kincaid was then given the job of ‘counseling’ women coming in for abortions. She was happier doing this, but soon ran into trouble with her bosses. She was sending women home who were very ambivalent or who said they did not want abortions. Kincaid says she got in trouble ‘if [the woman she was counseling] walked out with prenatal vitamins for a patient instead of an abortion.’ The management of Planned Parenthood expected Kincaid to pressure women into abortions, which Kincaid was not willing to do. This conflict, as well as her misgivings about the abortion procedures themselves, led to her leaving Planned Parenthood.”
Kincaid’s story is not the only one. Many former abortion workers and doctors have described the pressure that women face to abort if they ever seek the “help” that Planned Parenthood offers.
The work that Juan and LoveLife USA are doing is vital and necessary. Not only are they countering the lies that women have been told about their babies and rescuing them from an irreversible tragedy, they are going up against the abortion industry itself.
“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” ~Proverbs 24:11
If you are interested in learning more about or donating to the vital work that LoveLife USA is doing in our own state of Illinois, click here.
If you are a Pastor and are interested in partnering with LoveLife USA, click here.
