As the abortion battle continues to rage around the country, New York City will be a very interesting place to watch, as Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani has one faith leader worried about how crisis pregnancy centers might be treated.
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The Rev. Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare Pregnancy Services, told CBN News Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is “ostensibly pro-abortion” and that, despite being a Muslim, he “piggybacked off of these left-wing causes like abortion, transgenderism, environmentalism,” among other issues.
While Muslims would generally oppose abortion after a certain point in pregnancy, Harden said it’s unclear how Mamdani will handle the issue once in office.
“We’re not exactly sure which Mamdani is going to show up to work on Jan. 1, but, when he was campaigning, he campaigned very hard against pro-life pregnancy centers,” he said. “And he claimed that he was going to protect New Yorkers from the fraud and deception that is perpetrated by pro-life pregnancy centers like ours, which, of course, is ridiculous.”
Harden said Mamdani pledged to enforce Local Law 17, which Harden said was “written specifically to target pro-life pregnancy centers in New York City, to essentially carry the water of pro-abortion political elites.”
The pro-life leader said he is “very concerned” about what might happen once Mamdani comes into office, noting he believes it will be a “challenge.” One document tied to Mamdani’s campaign went after crisis pregnancy centers and pledged that, as mayor, his administration would take action.
“The Mamdani administration will protect New Yorkers from false or deceptive information spread by Crisis Pregnancy Centers, including lies about abortion safety and medications, and enforce Local Law 17 forcing these centers to disclose whether they have licensed medical professionals,” the document read. “It will also strengthen the city’s Abortion Access Hub by doubling funding to $2 million, which confidentially helps New Yorkers find abortion providers and supports people living outside of New York through the process of scheduling appointments and finding financial assistance.”
Of course, Mamdani isn’t the only politician to purportedly target crisis pregnancy centers, with Harden explaining what he believes creates so much negativity around these institutions. New York Attorney General Letitia James has, for instance, attempted to stop crisis pregnancy centers from advertising abortion reversal treatments, though a U.S. appeals court recently ruled against James on that matter.
“At heart, what drives the attacks on pregnancy centers from people like Attorney General Letitia James, who supported Mamdani’s election, by the way, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, you know, and and other pro-abortion extremists … I think what drives them is a Marxist ideology, and one of the key planks in Marxism is atheism.”
He warned communism is bent on deconstructing, destabilizing, and destroying societies built on a Judeo-Christian framework. Attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, Harden said, follow this pattern.
“Why they attack pregnancy centers is because pregnancy centers represent that key truth that is the basis or foundation for all civilized order,” he said. “And that key truth and in the constitutional rule of law is that we are endowed by our Creator, not our government, with certain unalienable rights as declared in the Declaration of Independence. The first of which, the right upon which all other rights are predicated is the right to life.”
Harden said this right is essential to comprehend, especially considering humans are made in God’s image and are designed to “reflect Him and His character.”
“When you destroy or you extract God from the equation of civilized order and global nation-state interactions … and even in domestic affairs, what you have left is a vacuum of power, and government is happy to jump in and fill that,” he said.
Harden said attorneys with the Thomas More Society are already being consulted by CompassCare Pregnancy Services as they work on a plan to “push back” should Mamdani target their efforts.
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