A big push for the California Catholic Conference — which represents and lobbies for the state’s Catholic bishops — has been to unite the various pregnancy centers across the state.
Domingo said they are working with the nonprofit Options United, which “uses online strategies to assist women and families with unplanned pregnancy,” to direct people to their dedicated site to help people search for the closest pregnancy center near them. The California Catholic Conference promotes their services through their parishes and schools.
“We recognize the need now more than ever, especially as women from out of state may come to California for abortion. They may feel that’s their only choice,” Domingo said. “We want to make sure that they can find resources that might give them a different option.”
The conference launched the “We Were Born Ready” campaign to mobilize “Catholics to fulfill their baptismal call to serve women, children, and families” in preparation for the overturning of Roe.
The forum’s website includes information about paid family leave, lactation and Title IX rights. It steers Catholics to donate to their local pregnancy centers and to rental assistance and voucher funds through Catholic Charities and encourages them to create parish meal trains for new moms.
The website also highlights the pieces of legislation that Catholics should support to expand paid family leave and eligibility for the state welfare program.
It notes bills that Catholics should stand against a bill that would create a working group to examine root causes of sexual health inequities in the state and another that would establish a corps to recruit a diverse workforce of reproductive health care professionals. The conference said these bills would lead to more abortion access.
To Domingo, it’s about standing for “prenatal justice.”
“We believe … pre-born children are members of the human community, they’re just developing,” Domingo said. “There is no more vulnerable population than pre-born children who truly cannot speak or act on their own behalf.”
Jonathan Keller, president and CEO of the California Family Council, said a chief goal of the anti-abortion movement will be to increase the number of pregnancy centers, calling them the “last line of defense before a woman decides whether or not she’s going to have an abortion.”
According to University of California San Francisco Professor Katrina Kimport, pregnancy centers are typically associated with evangelicals or Catholics. She told KCRW in a Tuesday (June 29) segment that these centers, which are also referred to as crisis pregnancy centers, are “informed by a religious ideology” and said they disseminate “scientifically false information.”
Between now and November, Keller said his organization will be focusing on calling attention to the ballot initiatives and the constitutional amendment on abortion.
“I think what we need to do is actually just educate the public about how extreme California’s new abortion regime would be if we enact this legislation,” he said.
This story has been updated.
This article originally appeared here.
