Fundies Faking Abortion Clinics on Your Tax Dollar

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/35545/

Exposing Anti-Choice Abortion Clinics
By Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet
Posted on May 1, 2006, Printed on January 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/35545/

According to a recent Planned Parenthood email, a 17-year-old girl mistakenly walked into a crisis pregnancy center thinking it was Planned Parenthood, which was next door. "The group took down the girl's confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their 'other office' (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby)."

When she showed up for her nonexistent appointment, she was met by the police, who had been erroneously tipped that a minor was being forced to abort. The crisis pregnancy center staff followed up this harassment by staking out the girl's house, phoning her father at work, and even talking to her classmates about her pregnancy, urging them to harass her.

I contacted Jennifer Jorczak of Planned Parenthood of Indiana to verify this story, and while she was unable to provide details out of respect for the patient's privacy, she confirmed that everything in the initial action alert email was true.

This humiliating and frustrating experience seems, by all accounts, to await more American women in the near future. And the best part? It's funded by your tax dollars.

Even here in the liberal city of Austin, Texas, the signs are everywhere: "Pregnant? Need help?"

If you're facing an unwanted pregnancy, one of the possible solutions would be getting un-pregnant -- still a legal, if sometimes difficult-to-find, option in America. But the "crisis pregnancy centers" these signs advertise seek to limit and, in some cases, prevent women from exploring their legal options for health care.

Dishonest as these types of crisis pregnancy centers are, it's hard to argue against their right to exist, especially since most of their clients enter their doors willingly. However, the aforementioned incident reported by Planned Parenthood of Indiana indicates that some groups are not above using more aggressive methods to stop women from aborting pregnancies.

These tactics are even more troubling in light of the growing legislative support to direct taxpayer money towards crisis pregnancy centers and away from places that provide actual reproductive services to low-income women. Texas, as usual, stands at the forefront of conservative innovation in the art of draining public funding while reducing services. In the latest round of cuts, $25 million was sliced from the state budget for family planning services and $5 million of that money was set aside in a rider from Republican Sen. Tommy Williams to fund crisis pregnancy centers.

Peggy Romberg of the Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas estimates that 17,000 low-income women will lose access to affordable family planning as a result of the cuts, adding to the 75 percent of low-income Texas women who are eligible for state-funded family planning services but who lack actual access. And that's just in Texas. According to Planned Parenthood crisis pregnancy centers across the nation "have received $60 million of government grants."

Only two organizations applied for the $5 million in available funding for Texas's crisis pregnancy centers, and the one that received it, the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, appears to have been formed just to acquire this money. The TPCN is associated with a group called Real Alternatives, an anti-choice organization that has put so little effort into their "educational" materials that the site goes so far as to have sections called "Telling Your Boyfriend" and "Telling Your Parents," seemingly ignorant of the fact that most abortions are performed on adult women, many of whom are married.

Anti-choice activists openly regard family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood as primarily feminist organizations that just so happen to provide health care. Sarah Wheat of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, who spent a considerable amount of time researching crisis pregnancy centers and has compiled a full report on them, explained that the first crisis pregnancy center was opened in 1967 by Robert Pearson as "the service arm of the anti-choice movement." Crisis pregnancy centers have a long history of providing the absolute minimum of services required to maintain the illusion that they provide care while they further their actual goal of trying to persuade women out of abortion -- sometimes using deceptive methods.

Peggy Romberg recollected that when she worked for Planned Parenthood in the '80s, crisis pregnancy centers would actually provide shelter to pregnant women right up until the eligible date for legal abortion had passed. They would then turn the women out, and it was Romberg's agency that was tasked with explaining to these desperate women that it was too late.

These hardline tactics were softened after a number of states began cracking down. Texas's own attorney general sued to prevent crisis pregnancy centers from advertising themselves as abortion providers in 1985. As a result the centers evolved to put on a better show of caring about women's health by advertising themselves as places to obtain full medical information.

But the kinder, gentler crisis pregnancy centers might be even more problematic than those engaging in more open harassment, as in the Indiana incident. The gentler face of the centers makes their health care pretenses slightly more plausible, even if their function is primarily political. Sarah Wheat said she and her staff regularly make phone calls to crisis pregnancy centers to learn more about the services offered there and, as a general rule, these pseudo-clinics have few or no paid employees, no medical personnel on staff and no real facilities to provide any medical care. Generally speaking, the medical treatment provided by the largely volunteer staff is nothing more than handing clients a pregnancy test that could be purchased over the counter for $10.

A friend warned me to be careful when contacting crisis pregnancy centers, as they are known to give callers the runaround, refusing to give information over the phone and asking you to come in for an appointment. Curious, I called Austin Life Care, a prominent local crisis pregnancy center and grilled the unlucky receptionist about the services offered. She said they offered pregnancy tests and counseling. When I asked about the credentials of the counselors, she replied, "Well, we have all different levels of education and some of them are really academic."

I followed up by asking what kind of medical staff they had on hand and she replied, "Well, we have sonographers."

When I asked her what a sonographer was, she was curt: "It's someone who can do your sonogram."

Actually performing a sonogram on a client probably adds to the illusion that crisis pregnancy centers are providing care. In fact, this allure explains why there's a bill pending in Congress to grant crisis pregnancy centers ultrasound machines, despite the fact that having a sonogram performed by an unsupervised technician could be dangerous. Dr. Diana Kroi, the ob-gyn who authored "Take Control of Your Period," explained that ultrasounds need a trained physician to look for problems like ectopic pregnancies and other dangerous indications that a woman's health is imperiled.

If a woman who's had an ultrasound mistakenly thinks she's had actual prenatal care, she may not go elsewhere for real care. Anti-choicers are banking on the ultrasound's appeal as a pre-born snapshot machine, though it's an actual diagnostic tool, or as the Mayo Clinic puts it, "[Ultrasound] isn't meant primarily to provide parental thrills or souvenir snapshots," and it's irresponsible to treat it as if it were. This is especially irresponsible in a setting where clients are being told that Planned Parenthood and other affordable clinics are nothing but abortion mills who want to hurt the woman and the expected baby.

So it's possible that these centers are not only detrimental to those women seeking abortions, they could be inadvertently stopping women from obtaining proper prenatal care. And from what I could gather on the website, most of the "counseling" available is for the only syndrome that crisis pregnancy centers show any interest in treating; one they call "post-abortion stress syndrome." The problem with this syndrome is anti-choice activists made it up. Unlike, say, post-natal depression, neither the American Psychiatric Association nor the American Psychological Association recognizes "post-abortion stress syndrome." So add proper mental health services to the list of services not rendered.

Because they have so little overhead, crisis pregnancy centers are proliferating while clinics offering actual medical care lag behind. NARAL Pro-Choice Texas noted that as of December 2005 that there were only 43 abortion providers in Texas compared to 183 crisis pregnancy centers -- which is unsurprising considering the cost of real medical care versus a stick to pee on and a video to watch. There's no indication as of yet that the $5 million grant to Texas Pregnancy Care Network will result in anything resembling professional medical care offered to the low-income women who need it, most of whom are punted by crisis pregnancy centers onto Medicaid, escalating the cost to the American taxpayer.

The truth is that Texas taxpayers are being asked to pony up $5 million to an organization that provides no services apart from furthering an outsider political agenda. Even the much ballyhooed "education" about alternatives to abortion isn't worth a dime of taxpayer money, even from those who would prefer fewer women to have abortions. After all, Planned Parenthood was already in the business of educating women about their options and the education offered is far more complete.

Peggy Romberg ended with a story about a young woman she'd worked with a few years back who'd been fortunate enough to get help from a college friend whose parents were friends of hers. The young woman had recently broken up with her boyfriend only to discover she was pregnant. When she contacted him for help, he instructed her to meet him at a nearby crisis pregnancy center. The ex-boyfriend had gone to a football game instead, forcing the young woman to endure the berating of the staff alone. She then went back to her dorm and despaired, running into another friend who was able to help her obtain the abortion. Without that stroke of luck, Romberg noted, there's no telling what a young woman who so far had met with nothing but abandonment, lies and berating would have done to escape her situation.

Amanda Marcotte co-writes the popular blog Pandagon.

[Alyrium Denryle]

These fuckers violate people's healthcare provider-patient priviledge and both state and federal privacy laws.

[Guardsman Bass]

This should be a target of any prospective Democratic President's Attorney General. As you mentioned, it completely shits on anything resembling healthcare provider-patient privilege, on top of which it is basically false advertising.

This genuinely disgusts me. What is wrong with these type of people? Are they simply so tunnel-visioned that they can't see how disgustingly unethical this is?

[weemadando]

This should be a target of any prospective Democratic President's Attorney General. As you mentioned, it completely shits on anything resembling healthcare provider-patient privilege, on top of which it is basically false advertising.

This genuinely disgusts me. What is wrong with these type of people? Are they simply so tunnel-visioned that they can't see how disgustingly unethical this is?

You evil man! You're the one who's unethical! You're killing babies! BABY-KILLER!

They're just doing God's work! GOD'S WORK!

[Johonebesus]

This genuinely disgusts me. What is wrong with these type of people? Are they simply so tunnel-visioned that they can't see how disgustingly unethical this is?

In a word, yes, need you even ask?. If abortion is murder, then obviously it is ethical to lie to the police, disseminate privileged information, and call upon neighbors and classmates to harass the would-be murderer. And if some redneck eventually decides to take the next logical step and kill the doctors or even the women, well, that's not the Christians' fault.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Even if they didn't agree with abortion they could go about it rather differently. I think a nice little firing line would do.

[JME2]

Jesus Christ. Godamm fuckers; I'm so fucking sick of hearing of these assholes and shit like this...

[Darth Wong]

Frankly, none of this surprises me. There is no depth to which the American religious right will not sink. If they had their way, people would still be put on trial for heresy, and women would still be beaten, executed, or at least exiled for impropriety.

[Darth Servo]

Other fundies BLOWN UP abortion clinics in the past. This (while still bad) seems to pale in comparison.

[Cairber]

Near my house there is a large billboard that says "Pregnant? Scared? Considering an Abortion?" and gives a number to call for help. There's a VERY pregnant woman on the sign, smiling and all happy. Sure enough, when I called to figure out who would put up such a mixed messaged sign, I realized it was a crisis pregnancy center.

[Coalition]

Other fundies BLOWN UP abortion clinics in the past. This (while still bad) seems to pale in comparison.

Am I the only one getting an idea to introduce the two to each other?

It would be something along the lines of assisted premeditated murder on my part, but a very interesting reaction too.

[SirNitram]

Other fundies BLOWN UP abortion clinics in the past. This (while still bad) seems to pale in comparison.

Depends. Are we glad this group is not resorting to terrorism? Or should we consider that, yanno, now they are in positions of power to use government funds to spread their nonsense?

Or:

Is it better if the extremists are terrorists or rulers?

[Mayabird]

This should be a target of any prospective Democratic President's Attorney General. As you mentioned, it completely shits on anything resembling healthcare provider-patient privilege, on top of which it is basically false advertising.

This genuinely disgusts me. What is wrong with these type of people? Are they simply so tunnel-visioned that they can't see how disgustingly unethical this is?

You evil man! You're the one who's unethical! You're killing babies! BABY-KILLER!

They're just doing God's work! GOD'S WORK!

And by doing God's work, they're getting their ticket into Heaven. You know how they're always saying that everything we do here on Earth would be completely pointless if there's no Heaven to go to? Well, since Heaven is the only thing that's worth working for, anything to get them on God's good side is the only thing that's worth doing. All else matters not.

They don't care about morality, ethics, or any of that jazz. They've been taught and trained all their lives that they're evil, immoral sinful beings that can't possibly be good unless they're actively sucking up to God. Really, they're selfish bastards who are only in it so they can win the eternal game of musical chairs for a seat in the heavenly choir.

These people make a lot more sense when you think of them this way.

[Darth Wong]

They don't care about morality, ethics, or any of that jazz. They've been taught and trained all their lives that they're evil, immoral sinful beings that can't possibly be good unless they're actively sucking up to God. Really, they're selfish bastards who are only in it so they can win the eternal game of musical chairs for a seat in the heavenly choir.

These people make a lot more sense when you think of them this way.

They make the most sense when you conceptualize them as the "bully's posse" from grade school. Remember grade school, when there would always be a bully on the schoolyard, and he would have a small posse of followers? Unlike the more liberal religious types, the fundies don't shy away from the idea of God as a cosmic bully; they love it, they embrace it. They revel in the idea of God arbitrarily laying waste to nations, slaughtering millions or billions at a whim, etc.

And they want to be part of his posse.

[Mayabird]

They don't care about morality, ethics, or any of that jazz. They've been taught and trained all their lives that they're evil, immoral sinful beings that can't possibly be good unless they're actively sucking up to God. Really, they're selfish bastards who are only in it so they can win the eternal game of musical chairs for a seat in the heavenly choir.

These people make a lot more sense when you think of them this way.

They make the most sense when you conceptualize them as the "bully's posse" from grade school. Remember grade school, when there would always be a bully on the schoolyard, and he would have a small posse of followers? Unlike the more liberal religious types, the fundies don't shy away from the idea of God as a cosmic bully; they love it, they embrace it. They revel in the idea of God arbitrarily laying waste to nations, slaughtering millions or billions at a whim, etc.

And they want to be part of his posse.

Yeah, that would be a more apt description.

The important thing though is that these aren't people who are in it to save lives or do anything morally good. They're just scum doing bad things and enjoying it. Thinking of them as people who have some twisted sense of right and wrong is totally incorrect, as that's not how they function at all. I think that's the message I should start passing along: don't listen to them. They don't have good points and they're not trying to do good things. They're just assholes.

[Zablorg]

It's not about good deeds, it's about god's word, which can overlap in some interpretations of god. But if god went down to these people and told them to kill old ladies, whereas previously he had told them to do good things, they wouldn't care. It's god's word, and god's word gets done.

[Mayabird]

Which I guess is the point people have made many times before, as in that baby-killing quote.

I just applied for a job at Planned Parenthood. If I get it I might get a chance to start applying all this stuff.