For those of you familiar with Lila Rose, undercover investigations of crisis pregnancy centers is a familiar plot line. This week, however, it was pro-abortion advocates doing the impersonating.
The report, titled “Unmasking Fake Clinics: the Truth about Crisis Pregnancy Centers in California,” asserts that the clinics make false claims linking abortion to breast cancer and infertility and dissuade particularly vulnerable women from receiving accurate medical advice.
The investigation, which included visits to 14 clinics in six counties and phone calls to an additional 200 centers across the state, was conducted by the NARAL Pro-Choice California Foundation unpaid staff and volunteers over a six-month period ending in August 2009. […]
More than half of the clinics investigated highlighted mortality as a claimed complication from abortion and the unpaid volunteer investigators were ultimately “dissuaded from considering abortion as an option.”
Really? If they had been dissuaded, would they continue to volunteer for NARAL?
Amy Everitt, the California organization’s state director, said that the report will be distributed to community-based organizations that provide medical referrals to the most at-risk groups of women, including those who are young, low-income, of color or from rural locations.
Because medical staff don’t need to provide abortion alternatives to those women?
Part of the problem, Everitt said, is deceptive advertising, which is why the organization collected more than 66,000 signatures on a petition targeting two online information sites, YellowPages.com and SuperPages.com
On these sites, more than thirty centers nationwide, including two in California, were listed under “abortion information and referral services” or “abortion clinics”, but were found not to offer those services or referrals, according to the report.
One crisis pregnancy center, Options for Women in Concord, which is listed on the crisis pregnancy clinic website www.lifecall.org, is a self-described “abortion clinic alternative”.
If only there was a category for “abortion clinic alternatives” in my phone book. There wasn’t, but when I looked for “tattoo removal”, low and behold they were lumped in with the tattoo parlours. Shameful… those two things aren’t related at all.
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When pro-lifers impersonate and go into abortion clinics we find out things like the following: The staff are hiding rape, the staff aren’t abiding by parental consent laws, the staff are pandering to racists by agreeing to put donations toward the eradication of black babies.
When pro-choicers impersonate and go into pregnancy care centres, they find out the staff are attempting to prevent women from having an abortion.
Just let that sink in a little.
“The report, titled “Unmasking Fake Clinics: the Truth about Crisis Pregnancy Centers in California,” asserts that the clinics make false claims linking abortion to breast cancer and infertility and dissuade particularly vulnerable women from receiving accurate medical advice.”
WOW… that takes some cojones… apparently, telling women about the possible risks of an invasive procedure is a Bad Thing now…? And hiding rapes, specifically directing funds to killing black babies and having absolutely no sanitary standard is NOT a Bad Thing…? My brain hurts.
Up to last year, in the Edmonton Yellow Pages, Planned Parenthood was listed under “abortion alternatives”, the category that explicitly states that “no referrals for abortions will be provided.” this year, Planned Parenthood has changed names to the Options Sexual Health Association, and is listed under the abortion category.
Worst case scenario: an abortion-minded woman walks into a pregnancy care centre and is presented with pro-life information that she finds annoying and misleading. She’s out maybe a couple of hours of her life.
Worst case scenario the other way: a young woman is taken by her older brother (who has raped her) into an abortion clinic. No questions are asked, and she gets her abortion. She is then sent back home with her brother, and the abuse continues.
I have received services from both Planned Parenthood and a CPC in California. I went to the CPC specifically for information about finding a reputable adoption agency, so I didn’t hear their abortion information and have no idea what they would have presented. Overall my experience at the CPC was much more pleasant than that at the two PP clinics I have visited. Despite having made an appointment at PP (for birth control at both clinics), I had to wait over an hour to be seen, was rushed through my appointments, and was treated like an annoyance. After my second visit I vowed never to go back and have been able to get my birth control through a doctor that accepts my state insurance.
The woman at the CPC took time to speak with me and offer me a compassionate ear. The CPC was very helpful to me. They advised me to go to the county health clinic and have my pregnancy confirmed so that I could then apply for pregnancy Medi-Cal (state insurance). This one in particular offered free clothing, diapers, formula, and cribs. If PP offered these services I would have much more respect for them. I’m not sure why people are so hung up on CPCs as I think that the primary purpose of a CPC is to offer emotional and material support to pregnant and parenting women, not medical services. If PP stepped up and offered these services they could very well eliminate the need for CPCs, though I will say that I as a pro-life woman I would greatly prefer to go to an establishment that shares my views.
“telling women about the possible risks of an invasive procedure is a Bad Thing now…?”
No, *lying* about the possible risks is a bad thing. That includes hugely exagerating the risk, or citeing a link as fact when the evidence to support it is slim-to-none.
“I’m not sure why people are so hung up on CPCs as I think that the primary purpose of a CPC is to offer emotional and material support to pregnant and parenting women, not medical services.”
I have no problem with offering these services. The objection comes from some of them using misleading advertising to lure in women who are seeking an abortion, then resorting to underhanded lies and manipulation to try to change their mind.
I can’t speak for all the clinics, but my local crises pregnancy center (In California) has a message on their website that says that they are not an abortion provider and cannot refer. I don’t see any lies or deception in that.
Everyone please read the ‘Suricou Raven’ comment. It is bang on. I understand people’s desire to end abortion, but condoning lies and manipulation to achieve that end is unacceptable.
I’d also like to comment on the use of the words ‘pro-abortion’. These words imply that the person *wants* abortions to occur. That class of people so small that it almost does not exist. The truth is that if you ask your ‘pro-choice’ friends if they would prefer there to be fewer abortions, the *vast* majority will say ‘yes’, an answer that cannot be reconciled with the description ‘pro-abortion’.
This is what I find ironic about the ‘pro-life’/’pro-choice’ argument: Both sides *agree* that fewer abortions would be better, differing only as to what is acceptable to achieve that end (nor do we fundamentally disagree on the *exent* of the end – most pro choice people would be happy if no abortions occurred, provided that abortions were freely and truly available in principle).
The bottom line is, to keep (or make) the debate productive, it is crucial that we really understand the ‘other’ position and use accurate language to describe it.