On Monday, Republican Representatives Chris Smith (New Jersey), Claudia Tenney (New York), and Michelle Fischbach (Minnesota) introduced the "Let Pregnancy Centers Serve Act of 2025" (H.R. 2226).
They want to amend the Public Health Service Act to prohibit discrimination against entities that do not participate in abortion and to strengthen implementation and enforcement of federal conscience laws.
"The law would say that you cannot discriminate against a facility who does not offer abortion as an option to a pregnancy, which, of course, these pregnancy centers do not," explains Carol Tobias of National Right to Life. "It would also strengthen conscience rights protections for medical personnel who do not want to participate in an abortion."
Recognizing that some people and politicians, even those on the right, are on the fence about abortion, Tobias says the fact is the only choice for the so-called pro-choice movement is abortion, but pregnancy centers give women options.
"We will tell you what you could do," she relays. "It might be keeping the baby; it might be placing the baby for adoption. It's letting the mothers know what kind of support and services, whether it's from the private sector or the public sector, [are] available."
Meanwhile, state attorneys general are purposely going after the pregnancy centers, expecting them and asking them to meet unreasonable standards. Some of the PR campaigns against them are even funded by the state governments, with funds approved by the state legislatures.
Tobias says the message this new act sends to all elected officials is "let pregnancy centers do their job."
