Poll: Vast Majority of Democrats Support Public Funding of Pregnancy Centers
The vast majority of Americans including Democrats support the public funding of pregnancy resource centers providing an alternative to abortion and would not vote for candidates who refuse to denounce vandalism attacks against them.
Both parties are in agreement that pro-life clinics should receive government assistance, with 70 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans strongly favoring their public funding, according to a national survey from August 3 through August 17 conducted by CRC Research.
The question posed to respondents, a pool which included 1,600 people randomly selected from opt-in panel participants, explicitly outlined that such clinic beneficiaries of public funds would be pro-life and would not perform abortions.
“Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has recently authored a bill that would make pregnancy resource centers illegal for providing ‘misinformation’ about the services they provide. Pregnancy resource centers do not perform abortions, but offer support to women in poverty who choose life for their baby, and help the family after the baby is born. Do you support or oppose the public funding of pregnancy resource centers?,” it asked.
After participants were informed of the resources, such as prenatal care, clothing, diapers, and housing assistance, that many such centers provide to pregnant women in crisis, an even higher percentage of both parties said they’d support their being publicly subsidized. While 78 percent of Republicans approved, 73 percent of Democrats also approved. Participants were also told that “pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes allow women to reach their goals and keep their baby.”
Amid the wave of vandalism, violence, and intimidation facing pro-life pregnancy centers nationwide since the leaked opinion projecting the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, a majority of respondents representing both parties also said they’d be less likely to vote for candidates that refuse to condemn them. Among Republicans, 63 percent said they’d oppose such a candidate vs. 53 percent among Democrats. Overall, 80 percent of total respondents agreed that “protestors who engages in acts of vandalism and violence against pregnancy resource centers and churches should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The breakdown of the poll’s participants was 48 percent male and 52 percent female.
Pregnancy centers and community-based health clinics, which outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities by 14 to 1 across the country, largely provide free services to clients without government support. Attacks against them have been ongoing since the Supreme Court’s expected decision in Dobbs went public, but the FBI’s investigation seems to have stalled, yielding no apprehensions or arrests so far.
Last week, vandals spray-painted “Jane’s Revenge” on benches located outside of Bethlehem House in Easthampton, Mass., with the threatening message, “If abortion isn’t safe, neither are you,” Catholic News Service first reported. Jane’s Revenge is the decentralized pro-abortion extremist organization that has claimed responsibility for a string of these incidents in the last few months and in June promised to unleash a “summer of rage” targeting pro-life clinics.
