While Jim Harden awaits the arrest of those responsible for the firebombing of the pro-life CompassCare pregnancy center he runs in upstate New York, he is also facing an unexpected investigation into the clinic itself.
One of several pro-abortion bills signed into law by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on June 13 directs the state’s commissioner of health, currently Dr. Mary T. Bassett, to conduct a comprehensive study of pro-life pregnancy facilities like CompassCare that do not provide abortion services.
The probe will assess the impact that so-called “limited service pregnancy centers” have on women’s access to “accurate, non-coercive health care information” and “a comprehensive range of reproductive and sexual health care services,” the legislation states. A final report is due in December 2023.
Harden, CompassCare’s CEO, told CNA that the state wants him to turn over information on contributors, patients, service processes, affiliates, and more.
Meanwhile, no arrests have been made in connection with the June 7 firebombing and destruction of the clinic in Amherst, New York, a Buffalo suburb.
“They want to know anything and everything. They want an open book,” said Harden, who does not intend to comply. “It’s absolutely ironic and crazy.”
CompassCare is one of a growing number of pro-life pregnancy centers that have been vandalized in the last two months in response to the leak of a draft decision in a Mississippi abortion case calling for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The FBI stated on Friday that it is looking into the attacks.
On EWTN’s “The World Over” with Raymond Arroyo on June 16, Harden took issue with the New York law calling pro-life pregnancy centers “limited.”
He claims that abortion clinics are the ones with limited services because they only offer one service: abortion.
“The only intent here is to draft more legislation to regulate us,” he told Arroyo. You can watch the full interview in the video above.
CompassCare offers free OB-GYN care, diagnostic pregnancy services, sexually transmitted disease (STD) treatment, and abortion pill reversal care to women.
More information is available on the center’s website.