Posts Tagged ‘crisis pregnancy center’

Once while working as an HCA at Planned Parenthood, I had an interesting experience with a patient who was around 19 weeks pregnant.  When I walked in, I saw a young woman in stunned silence in her chair. Soon she started to cry and told me that “the people at the other clinic I went to last week said I was only 12 weeks pregnant.” She went on to say that the staff at this “other clinic” told her that getting an abortion could increase her risk for breast cancer, give her post-traumatic stress disorder, and make her infertile. She was clearly very scared.

The moment she said all of this, I knew what exactly what had happened: she visited a crisis pregnancy center. I told her that although ultrasounds can be an approximation (possibly a few days off), there was no way that she was in her first trimester. I talked about the people who work at these centers, most posing as doctors or nurses, who date ultrasounds earlier to trick unsuspecting patients into thinking their pregnancy is earlier than it really is. By manipulating the pregnancy dating, it makes women think they have more time to decide about what to do about a pregnancy. These centers hope that these women will then run out of time and be unable to get a legal abortion in their state.

I wish I could tell you that this is a rare story I hear, but it isn’t. CPCs are places that exist solely for the purpose of deterring women from pursuing abortion procedures. Many are affiliated with religious organizations, few disclosing their relation, and they often lure women in with free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds and counseling. They usually place themselves near college campuses, lower income areas, and near abortion providers. Sometimes the staff makes the girls and women watch graphic videos depicting abortion procedures while waiting for the pregnancy test results, giving her brochures and pamphlets with false information about fetal development, birth control and abortion procedure side effects. They do not have to adhere to HIPAA compliant laws as medical offices do, so your contact information may be used as they wish. I once started the medication abortion video in a counseling room before I went over a patient’s paper work, and she started to scream: “Please don’t make me watch this! I don’t want to watch the video about Jesus and hell again!”

A crisis pregnancy center usually advertises with pictures of women crying or looking distressed on billboards and websites with phrases like, “Are you pregnant and scared?” On the phone or online they may evade questions you’re asking about abortion or say they only offer “positive” options. They may list reasons not to have an abortion citing evidence for depression in women who have abortions (which has been disproven). Some clinics are listed under “abortion alternatives” in their local yellow pages, but others, deceptively, list themselves under “abortion services.” If you or someone you know has visited a CPC, share your story in order to help law makers realize the damage CPCs are doing to women in your community.

Women deserve to be presented with accurate, unbiased, scientific medical information to make the most informed choices they can. When a woman is pregnant and asks for options at Planned Parenthood, you can guarantee she is presented with all of them: prenatal care, adoption, and abortion services. She deserves nothing less than the best care.

We’ve written before about the perennial and hugely problematic Choose Life License Plate bill in North Carolina.

This bill would create a state-mandated funding stream for organizations that agree to deny women legal health care information at a time of crisis. The bill specifically states that the funds raised through the sale of these plates may not be distributed to any organization that “provides, promotes, counsels or refers for abortion.”

We know that these so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” (CPC) prey on women when they are at their most scared and vulnerable. But for those who may think that CPCs aren’t so bad or are even providing a valuable service, HBO has brought you a new documentary “12th and Delaware”

The film takes us to the corner of 12th and Delaware in a small Florida town where a CPC has set up shop directly across the street from a clinic that provides abortions. 

The view inside the ambiguously named Pregnancy Care Center is shocking. Staff members openly manipulate frightened women and teens that they refer to as “abortion minded” into maintaining their pregnancies.

To name just a few of their tactics: 
  *Empty promises- “we will give you money, diapers, and clothes”
 *Complete fabrication of medical facts- “abortion causes breast cancer” and “all women regret their abortions” are two of the most prevalent
  *Emotional coercion- women are forced to hold dolls they are told resemble their 8 week old fetus, and
  *Flat out lies- multiple women are told they are earlier along in their pregnancies than they actually are so they believe they have more   time to weigh their options and may make their decision too late for abortion to legally be an option.

It is truly disturbing the great lengths staff members of the CPC will go to prevent a woman from making an informed decision that is hers alone. Are these the sort of organizations that we want our state funding?

The trailer is on-line but “12th and Delaware” is well worth a spot on your Netflix Queue when it’s released on DVD later in the year.

That way, when you see the Choose Life License Plates bill come up during the 2011 legislative session, you’ll have the insiders perspective on who would really benefit from it. One thing for sure, it’s certainly not women.

Imagine the outcry if North Carolina created a special breast cancer license plate to support organizations that agree to deny women information, referrals or counseling about the medical options available to treat breast cancer. Substitute pregnancy for breast cancer and, in essence, this is what activists rallying in Raleigh next week to pass “Choose Life” license plates want.

The “Choose Life” bill specifically states that funds raised through the sale of these plates may not be distributed to any organization that “provides, promotes, counsels or refers for abortion.” This puts the state in the business of fundraising for organizations that agree to deny women legal health care information at a time of crisis.

For years now, the “Right-to-Life” and other socially conservative organizations in North Carolina have pushed for a “Choose Life” license plate. Since it must be approved by the North Carolina Legislature, these activists tout the plate as either an issue of free speech or as a benign fundraising tool for “crisis pregnancy centers.”

First off, just because a person is free to speak a lie or, in this case, deny women legal health information, it doesn’t mean that the State should sanction this speech by fundraising to support it.

Second, “choose life” is pure political sloganeering. No other approved license plate in North Carolina panders to the politics of one side in a divisive argument.

Finally, implicit in their argument is that “life” is on their side. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every single minute of every single day a woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth–536,000 women every year. Of course, the majority of these women live in lesser developed countries where abortion is mostly illegal, family planning hard to come by and prenatal care virtually unheard of.

In fact, the abortion rate in countries where abortion is mostly banned often equals or exceeds the abortion rate in the United States. The primary difference is that in countries where abortion is illegal, women die at a much higher rate from abortion–so much for “choosing life.”

The quality of life enjoyed by most women in the U.S. hinges on access to safe, legal and affordable reproductive health care options including abortion, prenatal care and family planning services.

In the United States, sixty-percent of women who have abortions already have a child or children. They know the love a child offers as well as the demands of caring for a child. In fact, the number one reason women give for choosing abortion is, “concern or responsibility to other individuals.” For most of these women, choosing abortion is about “choosing life.”

image of proposed "choose life" license plate

So let’s go back to the fallacy of “Choose Life” license plates. Whose life are they choosing? The mock up plate features children rendered in crayon. North Carolinians who want to support children may already purchase a “

Kids First” license plate that raises funds for programs that directly serve children.

If the purpose of “Choose Life” license plate is simply to raise money for “crisis pregnancy centers” then would-be license holders should become donors. That’s what supporters of most causes do. Assuming the “crisis pregnancy centers” are legitimate non-profit organizations, the donations are even tax deductible.

The final suggestion made by these groups is that Planned Parenthood can get their own license plate to counter the “Choose Life” plate. In essence, their answer is for North Carolina to create two license plate funds: one, for Planned Parenthood, that provides women with all of their legal pregnancy options and a “Choose Life” fund that denies women this information.

Planned Parenthood is far too respectful of women’s lives, not mention the State’s budget crisis, to fall for such a wasteful bad policy. We hope the NC Legislature is as well.

Tell your legislators that the state has no business sanctioning and financially supporting organizations that deny women information about services they have every legal right to access. Take action now!