More press on crisis pregnancy centers
The press is on, and it’s the new strategy of the abortion movement in response to the success of the pro-life movement. Crisis pregnancy centers have emerged as the great provider for women who face this life changing choice, which is very interesting for an industry that profits immensely from perpetuating the myth that choice is what abortion is really all about.
As detailed earlier here in the Forum, the New York Times Sunday Magazine did a cover story in January on crisis pregnancy centers, and Time Magazine did one in February.
Now, it’s the Chicago Tribune (subscription required). It starts off well enough, as they all do. They want to warm you up to the good work these centers are doing.
Janeen Daniels was on her way into a West Loop clinic for an abortion when a couple approached and suggested she had other options. She accompanied them to a crisis pregnancy center, where she was given a referral for an ultrasound exam of her uterus and the promise of help if she decided to carry her pregnancy to term.
“Once I saw the ultrasound pictures–he was 10 weeks old, moving already–I decided to keep him,” said Daniels, 29. The child, Steven, is now 3, and Daniels can’t imagine life without him. To her the pregnancy center was a godsend.
“If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have my baby now,” said Daniels, a nursing assistant with five other children.
The facility she visited is part of a burgeoning movement of pregnancy centers set up by abortion opponents to dissuade women from terminating pregnancies. The centers usually provide free pregnancy tests, counseling, referrals to social-service agencies and material aid such as diapers and baby clothes.
Why are they referred to as “abortion opponents”? To balance out the choice language here, should the other side be called “life opponents”, or what?
Although a few existed in the U.S. as far back as the 1970s, there are now more pregnancy centers than abortion providers, which have been decreasing in number for 15 years.
That’s big news. Have you heard that reported much before now? At all?
Estimates of the number of crisis pregnancy centers nationwide range from 2,300 to 4,000, compared with about 1,800 facilities that perform abortions. In Illinois there are at least 71 of these pregnancy centers and 37 abortion providers.
This is a sea-change in America.
To many people, crisis pregnancy centers, sometimes called pregnancy resource centers, provide a valuable service. President Bush is one of their supporters. Women such as Daniels praise the emotional and material support they received, saying they are grateful to have avoided an abortion.
Others agree that reducing abortions should be a public policy goal but criticize the centers for their tactics.
That, in and of itself, is a tactic. It’s the strategy of the abortion movement to make that criticism as publicly as possible.
Many of the facilities, they say, masquerade as full-service women’s clinics and give out false information to pressure vulnerable women into continuing their pregnancies.
That’s the frame of reference they’re coming from, pressuring vulnerable women.
The issue has been revived lately as some taxpayers and legislators question the use of federal money to fund such pregnancy centers. A report issued last summer by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found that 87 percent of federally funded pregnancy centers reached by his investigators provided false or misleading information about abortion.
Now that obviously depends on what you consider false or misleading.
According to the report, the centers told potential clients there is a link between breast cancer and abortion, which has been refuted by the National Cancer Institute, and that abortion causes infertility and mental illness, which is not supported by comprehensive reviews of the medical literature.
“Can cause” is an important clarification, and part of what should be a necessarily complete informed consent obtained from the woman before the procedure is done. The link between breast cancer and abortion is well researched and covered, starting with these doctors and scientists. There’s plenty of credible information available, to those who avail themselves of it.
So, back to the article…
Kristin Hansen of Care Net, an umbrella group that provides resources to pregnancy centers, contends the centers do not pressure clients; instead, they want to help women make fully informed choices.
Get that? “Fully informed choices.” I will continue to ask the question, what does the “choice” movement have against information? Why don’t they want women to be informed? Crisis pregnancy centers do.
“We don’t want [a woman] to feel coerced by her parents, her boyfriend, an abortion provider or the pregnancy center,” said Hansen. “We would like each woman to make the decision for herself, but having received all the information she needs and knowing that if she decides to carry the pregnancy to term she’s not alone.”
That’s a critical component in this area of care, because a great many women who resort to abortion fear they have no choice, and they feel very alone. Crisis pregnancy centers start by meeting the women right where they are in their unexpected pregnancies and talk about their reaction to that.
Officials at Chicago’s Aid for Women, where Daniels went, say they tell callers up front that they do not perform abortions.
“The counseling relationship has to be based on trust,” said Sue Barrett, chairman of the center’s board, which is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. “Right from the start, we’re going to be truthful.”
Sharnina Starling-Buford, director of client services at Aid for Women, said her staff is not judgmental and goes over all three options with each client: parenting, adoption and abortion.
How many abortion clinics go over all the options with women? In fact, I’ve wondered why “Planned Parenthood” is…called that. Aid for Women gives women information they are only getting at crisis pregnancy centers.
The instructional materials they use do not contain gruesome pictures of aborted fetuses, she said. Staffers do mention perforation, infection, post-abortion stress, suicide, breast cancer, infertility and death as among the risks of abortion.
“Our job is to provide education and information, so we want them to be aware of the risks,” Starling-Buford said.
Women deserve no less.
Hansen said, nearly all pregnancy centers are “faith-based” and “pro-life.” They also are generally aligned with the push toward abstinence until marriage.
Why is the term pro-life in quotation marks? The designation went from becoming a pejorative in the media, to becoming nearly extinct with the new ubiquitous term being “anti-abortion”, to becoming an oddity that has to be set aside with quotes, so the reporter can keep a distance from it.
About 1,900 crisis pregnancy centers, including Aid for Women, are affiliated with Care Net and Heartbeat International, a second national umbrella group that works closely with Care Net. Other centers are independent.
Two other Christian organizations, Focus on the Family and National Institutes of Family & Life Advocates, help centers acquire ultrasound equipment and convert to medical centers.
That is one of the criticisms voiced by the National Abortion Federation, which issued a report on crisis pregnancy centers last year.
The federation’s report states that although many centers look like medical facilities, “Most volunteers who work directly with women are not medical professionals. Their main qualifications are a commitment to Christianity and anti-choice beliefs.”
Now what would you expect the National Abortion Federation to say in its report about crisis pregnancy centers? And…what are the qualifications for volunteers who work directly with women in abortion clinics? And…”anti-choice”? Whose really giving women the choice here?