Charles Lovekin is inspired to action by Dr. Martin Luther King’s words, “We must show up and stand up for change,” (Feb. 7), so Mr. Lovekin suggests attending Rachel’s Vineyard for “healing from the injustice of abortion.”

Dr. King, like most Americans, was in favor of reproductive choice, but beyond that, my guess is that he’d be deeply troubled by the tactics of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) and their affiliation with Rachel’s Vineyard.

CPCs are fake clinics that prey on the most vulnerable women and provide a litany of misinformation in order to manipulate them out of having abortions — telling women that they are too far along, will never be able to be pregnant again, that abortion can cause breast cancer, etc. CPCs often operate right next to real abortion clinics, and sometimes people in scrubs even stand outside and intercept people who believe they are going into an abortion consultation.

Anti-choice organizations like Rachel’s Vineyard may not use the indefensible tactics of CPCs, but they use something just as sinister: shame. While some do, most people don’t regret their abortions, but Rachel’s Vineyard asserts that everyone who’s had an abortion needs forgiveness and healing. We pro-choice folks have mostly kept quiet regarding this destructive cultural stigma. One in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime; this means that the anti-choice crowd have managed to paint one in four of us as murderers. Talk about fake news.

We need to take this conversation back. Abortion has always existed, and it always will. Abortion is normal. I “stand up for change” by fighting for everyone’s access to birth control, sex education and shameless reproductive health care, including abortion.

— Bekah Townsend