- Newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson was the bookkeeper for a disaster being pregnant middle, IRS kinds present.
- However Johnson has by no means listed the place on his annual monetary disclosures.
- Disaster being pregnant facilities have a historical past of spreading medical misinformation.
Newly elected Home Speaker Mike Johnson labored for a disaster being pregnant group that used a cellular van to focus on “abortion-vulnerable ladies” and persuade them to not terminate their pregnancies, in response to tax returns filed with the Inner Income Service.
From 2016 by way of 2021, Think about Life Ministries, Inc. listed Johnson because the Louisiana group’s bookkeeper on tax kinds filed with the IRS. Johnson’s marketing campaign handle, because it seems on his web site, was additionally listed on the kinds.
A spokesman for Johnson didn’t present remark in time for publication.
In line with an archived model of Think about Life Ministries’ web site, the group operated primarily by way of a big van referred to as the “Cellular Being pregnant Unit” to hunt out pregnant ladies.
“Going cellular is an [sic] confirmed technique to succeed in ladies considering abortion,” reads the web site, including that the van allowed the group to “function wherever abortion-vulnerable ladies are prone to be — exterior of abortion clinics, on college campuses, in rural areas, and at public occasions.”
The van included an examination desk, restroom, and ultrasound machine, and supplied STI and being pregnant checks.
Disaster being pregnant facilities, or being pregnant useful resource facilities, goal to cease people who find themselves pregnant from looking for abortions by selling adoption and parenting abilities.
Many facilities exist in a authorized grey space, Insider beforehand reported. As a result of spiritual organizations can request state funding, many function due to taxpayer {dollars} — and so they’re additionally usually exempt from legal guidelines that regulate medical clinics.
Disaster being pregnant facilities usually seem to supply abortions to attract pregnant individuals in, however then use high-pressure techniques to disgrace sufferers into forgoing an abortion or unfold medical misinformation in regards to the process, Insider beforehand reported.
Think about Life Ministries famous on its web site that many ladies “have by no means heard of being pregnant facilities or the sources supplied there.”
Johnson by no means disclosed his work for the group on any of the eight monetary disclosure kinds he is filed with the Home Clerk since 2018.
Members of Congress are required to reveal any place held at a nonprofit group no matter whether or not they had been paid, in response to the Home of Representatives Committee on Ethics. Think about Life Ministries, Inc. is a registered nonprofit.
Positions in spiritual organizations are exempt from disclosure, in response to the 2021 disclosure directions. On all of their tax kinds filed with the IRS, Think about Life Ministries described its
major goal as a “cellular being pregnant middle that gives free ultrasounds and being pregnant testing.”
Tax kinds additionally give nonprofits the choice to designate themselves as “a church, conference of church buildings, or affiliation of church buildings.” Think about Life Ministries didn’t designate itself below that class in any filings since its founding.
Johnson, a comparatively unknown 51-year-old congressman elected in 2016 who’s by no means chaired a committee, emerged as a darkish horse candidate after three weeks of chaos following Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.
A religious Christian and social conservative, Johnson has quite a few ties to the evangelical proper.
Over the previous 5 years, he is been paid greater than $120,000 by Liberty College, a non-public evangelical college in Virginia, for instructing on-line authorities programs.
Final 12 months, he championed a invoice that might forbid using federal funds to advertise “sexually-oriented materials” to kids below the age of 10 — thought-about by critics to be a nationwide model of Florida’s “Do not Say Homosexual” legislation.
As a result of the definition of sexually oriented materials is broad and contains “gender id, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation,” the Human Rights Marketing campaign has condemned the invoice, calling it the “newest merciless try and stigmatize and marginalize the neighborhood.”
In 2003, Johnson wrote an op-ed advocating for the criminalization of homosexual intercourse. A 12 months later, he wrote one other piece describing homosexuality as “inherently unnatural” and a “harmful life-style.”
