Since the passage of the Texas Heartbeat Act and the Supreme Court‘s declining to hear a last-minute challenge to it, abortion advocacy groups have shifted into overdrive to discredit not just the law itself, but those who have worked for its passage. Planned Parenthood went so far as to make public the personal contact information for an employee of Texas Right to Life in court filings about the case.

A Rasmussen Poll showed that more Americans approve of the Texas Heartbeat Act than oppose it, a finding consistent with Americans’ overall discomfort with the extreme permissiveness of our nation’s abortion laws. In fact, the vast majority of Americans have consistently said they support abortion’s legality only in the first three months of pregnancy, or in exceptional cases. The United States is one of only seven countries in the world, including North Korea, China and Cuba, that legally permit elective abortions after five months of pregnancy (the Washington Post affirmed this evaluation of US abortion law with its “elusive Geppetto checkmark.”)

Supporters of legal abortion have long claimed that they are not pro-abortion, but “pro-choice.” On its face, the label suggests equal support for all options presented to a pregnant mother, including parenting and adoption. Yet the debate surrounding the Texas law has featured unyielding pro-choice opposition to a program created to help Texas women level the socioeconomic playing field and choose life for their unborn child, regardless of their age, marital status or employment status. What’s more, Texas Democrats actively sought to defund or even eliminate the program—called the Texas Alternatives to Abortion, or “A2A”—long before the passage of the Heartbeat Bill.

Begun in 2006, A2A started as a modest, $4 million federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) initiative. The Texas legislature has gradually increased its funding each year, expanding available dollars to $100 million in 2021. Program services are now largely coordinated through the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, a nonprofit organization that was the first in the state to earn the “Seal of Excellence” distinction from the national, nonpartisan Standards for Excellence Institute. In addition to the audits performed by Standards for Excellence, the Texas Pregnancy Care Network also undergoes additional scrutiny and annual audits by TANF, as well as with the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.

Mary FioRito is an attorney and the Cardinal Francis George Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the DeNicola Center for Ethics and Culture. In 2000, Newsweek named her one of the “Women of the New Century.” She writes from Chicago.