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Taxpayer-Funded ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ Tell Jewish Woman To Convert To Christianity Or Go To Hell

thinkprogress.org

An Anti-Choice Group is buying up Google ad space to misdirect users who search "Abortion"

feministing.com

Anti-choice group Online for Life has dedicated monies to buying up Google ads so when a person is googling to find access to a reproductive health/abortion provider, they are intercepted by ads that claim they offer full medical counseling–but are actually for crisis pregnancy centers.

Online for Life writes on their website about this new deceitful and problematic campaign,

The primary place where abortion-determined women and men go to find abortion providers is the Internet. There are over 6 million Internet searches every month for abortion-related information in the United States alone.

However, a large majority of abortion-determined people change their mind and heart when they see their baby during an ultrasound. Seeing the form, movement, and life of a baby—their baby—is a powerful and transformative event.

Online for Life™ uses the Internet to find abortion-determined people who are looking for abortion facilities and instead connects them with life-affirming agencies that use ultrasound technology.

Saving Lives. One click at a time.

Featured content in Google usually appears on the right hand side of the results page. But sometimes it is placed before the actual search results, making it more difficult to tell which results are paid advertisements.

Essentially, this group is tricking people into clicking on Pro-Life propaganda. Once again, the primary tool of anti-choice zealots is deceit.

Stop False Advertising by Crisis Pregnancy Centers

change.org

Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) deceptively advertise as comprehensive women’s health clinics, often listed under “abortion services,” to lure women to their facilities, where they are pressured to choose pregnancy or adoption in lieu of abortion or birth control.

Of the 3,500 CPCs nationwide, a Congressional study found that 87% provide false and misleading information about birth control and abortion.

The American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and the World Health Organization all dispell fake clinics’ false claims that abortion leads to breast cancer, infertility, suicide, and that condoms are ineffective.

The Hatch Amendment, which reinstates $250 million in federal funding, over 5 years, for failed abstinence-only Title V programs, slipped under the radar and made its way into the new Health Care Reform Bill.  States can choose to opt into this funding and millions of these federal dollars will be funneled to fake clinics.

We urge you to tell Congress to support legislation that would stop CPCs’ deceptive advertising practices, require that accurate medical information is provided, and eliminate ALL federal funding for CPCs!

Feministing: NARAL Pro-Choice NC releases undercover investigation of CPCs

feministing.com

By VANESSA | Published: OCTOBER 24, 2011 Today, NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina released their undercover investigation into crisis pregnancy centers, and it’s pretty friggin’ scary.

The state actually has an intense presence of crisis pregnancy centers — in fact, there are 8 times as many CPCs in the North Carolina than there are abortion clinics. And now, two recent state laws will drive even more funding to the centers:

Money from sales of the new “Choose Life” license plates, which are expected to become available later this year, will go to the anti-abortion centers. On Wednesday, under the new law that places restrictions on abortions, a state-run website will launch and list the places that provide free ultrasounds, a service provided by the private centers.

That’s right, a state-run online registry will send pregnant women in NC to these “clinics,” 94% of which (the report found) have no medical professionals on their staff. And yeah, we all know these centers are, as my grandmother used to say, “full of what the chippies eat” — but many North Carolina folks do not and will not when looking for legitimate reproductive health care.

And not only will they be subjected to lovely anti-choice coercion on their visit, but religious propaganda as well:

The report says one Jewish investigator who posed as a pregnant woman was told at five centers she wouldn’t go to heaven unless she converted to Christianity…

Conversion attempts are hardly a new tactic for CPCs, but this is a reminder: these centers are doing more damage than just interfering with people’s health care (which is bad enough). And now, they’re being state-supported.

Read the full report here.

NARAL report on CPCs in Massachusetts

prochoicemass.org

The report is fairly in depth, but just to give you a taste of some key findings:

  • CPCs outnumber women’s health care providers 3 to 1, and location matters.
  • CPCs design their online profiles and web-based advertising to mislead women seeking abortion care or nonbiased pregnancy options counseling.
  • CPCs misinform and deceive women about their health. 
  • Many CPCs misstate data about miscarriage and pregnancy complications.
  • CPCs prioritize their anti-choice agenda over a woman’s decision-making and health.
  • Today, there are an estimated 4,000 “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) nationwide, a network of anti-choice facilities that dates back to the days before Roe v. Wade.
  • In Massachusetts, there are currently 30 separate facilities across the Commonwealth where CPCs operate and advertise their services both online and in print. This makes CPCs three times as prevalent as the nine women’s health clinics specializing in reproductive health that currently advertise abortion care among their services.
  • Over the course of the investigation they found that CPCs employ three main strategies to deter a woman from considering or seeking an abortion: delay support and deny options and referrals for pregnancy-related care, spread medical falsehoods, and sensationalize abortion and use anti-choice rhetoric to shame or pressure.

The report also mentions some underhanded tactics used by CPCs, notably this one:

“CPCs often locate near reproductive health facilities, and some follow these women’s health clinics from location to location. For more than half of the abortion providers in Massachusetts, a CPC is located nearby – within a ten-mile distance, or, if located in Boston, within a two-mile walking distance.

Most notably, Problem Pregnancy of Worcester was originally located in the same building, on the same floor, and used the same acronym as the Planned Parenthood clinic. (Their “PP” logo was so similar to Planned Parenthood’s that a state court found them to be infringing on Planned Parenthood’s trademark, and Problem Pregnancy was forced to change its logo. Planned Parenthood has since moved from that building, but Problem Pregnancy followed, relocating directly across the street.”

Weekly News Roundup

 Here are a few of the stories we’ve been paying attention to:

That’s all we’ve got. What have you been reading?

Play

Follow up to post about 17 year old girl deceived by fake clinic

So this post has gone viral in a way I never expected! I’ve been following the notes and I noticed people thought this might be a hoax. I edited the original with the ETA below, but because few people are reblogging it from me directly anymore because it’s branched out so far I’m making a separate post hoping people will see this.

********************

ETA: Some people in the notes were wondering about the veracity of this story so I found the original source (the citation above was all that was given at the website I got this from). Here’s some more quotes from the original story:

We [Planned Parenthood] have obtained permission to share some of the remarks the patient and her family wrote soon after their encounter with the CPC.

“I have been getting phone calls [from the CPC volunteer] at home and on my cell phone, and they came to my work… saying ‘we will come get you and throw you in a car and take you to a place that is safe.’  I made my decision [to have an abortion].  Even though I had talked to [the CPC person] before, she has no right to be giving out information about me [and my family].  They need to quit harassing me and my family and loved ones.  They have come to my home banging on my door and non-stop calling me.  I have heard racial comments about my boyfriend [and me].  They keep yelling my name, my mother’s, and my boyfriend’s.  They have no right giving out my information, and they need to respect my and my boyfriend’s decision. … They are trying to trap me but this is my decision and no person has forced me and I would like them to stop harassing me, my family, my boyfriend, and my work.”

Her mother added:

“These people have given [our personal contact] information to someone at [my daughter’s] school.  Now it seems even the students know certain things and are giving my daughter and her boyfriend a hard time as well.  Also, the faculty has heard things, too.  These people [the CPC personnel] have been standing outside Planned Parenthood yelling obscenities at all who enter.  My daughter’s, her boyfriend’s, and my name have been yelled out for all to hear.”

ETA #2: You might also be interested in this post I did awhile ago on more recent investigations of CPCs and their deceptive tactics.

Crisis Pregnancy Center That Makes Expectant Parents "Earn" Baby Supplies Through Bible Study Seeks Federal Loans for Expansion

Written by Sofia Resnick for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

This article is published in partnership with The American Independent.

Should taxpayer funds be used to help a “Christ-centered ministry” buy and renovate a building in which it will offer Bible instruction and other services aimed at preventing abortion?

That’s the question at the center of a lawsuit filed by Care Net Pregnancy Center of Windham County, Vermont, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) rejected the center’s application for a federal building loan.

Care Net is a self-described “pregnancy resource center” that works to prevent abortion by offering an array of services, including free pregnancy tests, parenting classes, and counseling. The USDA denied the group’s loan request due to the “inherently religious” nature of some of its programming.

Care Net’s most troubling offering, as far as USDA officials were concerned, was a rewards-based learning program called “Learn to Earn,” wherein expectant parents had to take a certain number of parenting and Bible study classes in order to receive free baby supplies. (Care Net’s executive director has said the center has since suspended the Bible study requirement.) The center also offers, according to a brochure, a “bible centered program” called “Post Abortive Teaching and Healing” that “enables women to process their abortion-related experiences and emotions with the goal of healing and recovery.” In addition, Care Net conducts an abstinence-only sex-education class called “Why Am I Tempted?” or WAIT.

Backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom — an influential Christian conservative legal group — and a New Hampshire law firm, Care Net is arguing that the USDA’s actions violated the Fair Housing Act and its constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection under the law. In October, a federal judge ordered a USDA hearing officer to consider these arguments in deciding whether Care Net should get the loan.

Care Net’s attorneys hope the case will have a broader impact and will help lead to more religious groups being able to access government funding.

Read the rest here.

“[...] Jordan was isolated in the shepherding family's house; her only social contact was with the agency, which called her a "saint" for continuing her pregnancy but asked her to consider "what's best for the baby." "They come on really prolife: look at the baby, look at its heartbeat, don't kill it. Then, once you say you won't kill it, they ask, What can you give it? You have nothing to offer, but here's a family that goes on a cruise every year." Jordan was given scrapbooks full of letters and photos from hopeful adoptive parents hoping to stand out among the estimated 150 couples for every available baby. Today the "birthmother letters" are on Bethany's website: 500 couples who pay $14,500 to $25,500 for a domestic infant adoption, vying for mothers' attention with profuse praise of their "selflessness" and descriptions of the lifestyle they can offer. Jordan selected a couple, and when she went into labor, they attended the birth, along with her counselor and shepherding mother. The next day, the counselor said that fully open adoptions weren't legal in South Carolina, so Jordan wouldn't receive identifying information on the adoptive parents. Jordan cried all day and didn't think she could relinquish the baby. She called her shepherding parents and asked if she could bring the baby home. They refused, chastising Jordan sharply. The counselor told the couple Jordan was having second thoughts and brought them, sobbing, into her recovery room. The counselor warned Jordan that if she persisted, she'd end up homeless and lose the baby anyway. "My options were to leave the hospital walking, with no money," says Jordan. "Or here's a couple with Pottery Barn furniture. You sacrifice yourself, not knowing it will leave an impact on you and your child for life." The next morning, Jordan was rushed through signing relinquishment papers by a busy, on-duty nurse serving as notary public. As soon as she'd signed, the couple left with the baby, and Jordan was taken home without being discharged. The shepherding family was celebrating and asked why Jordan wouldn't stop crying. Five days later, she used her last $50 to buy a Greyhound ticket to Greenville, where she struggled for weeks to reach a Bethany post-adoption counselor as her milk came in and she rapidly lost more than fifty pounds in her grief. When Jordan called Bethany's statewide headquarters one night, her shepherding mother answered, responding coldly to Jordan's lament. "You're the one who spread your legs and got pregnant out of wedlock," she told Jordan. "You have no right to grieve for this baby." [...]”

—Excerpt from “Shotgun Adoption” by Kathryn Joyce

Crisis Pregnancy Centers Claim Constitution Gives Them Right To Lie To Pregnant Ladies

jezebel.com

The Huffington Post reports that the city ordinance was designed to address the fact that two crisis pregnancy centers led patients to believe that they offered abortion services, when in fact they basically exist to convince women to carry their pregnancies to term. One group, called First Resort, purchased Google ad space so that their clinic would appear first in search results for “San Francisco abortion,” even though they don’t provide abortion services.

The crisis pregnancy centers say that this law is unfair and a violation of their free speech rights.

It is your first amendment right to speak your opinion and advocate for what you think is right. It is not your first amendment right to lie to scared women and feed them misinformation that convinces them to make a decision they might not’ve made otherwise.

N e p a l i .Family

CPCS ONG - Children Protection Centers & Services - Centre de DiliBazaar - Katmandou - Népal - Juin/Juillet 2011

Cela fais plusieurs jours que je pense à écrire ce dernier article qui clôturera mon périple népalais. Mais, j’hésite, je ne sais pas par où commencer, quoi raconter, comment décrire les choses, comment expliquer mes émotions… Et aujourd’hui, j’ai finalement compris : ces moments ne peuvent pas être traduits par de simples mots.

Je vais donc à travers quelques photos vous montrer à quel point parmi eux j’ai été heureuse et combien grâce à eux je ferai de mon mieux pour être toujours à la hauteur!

Au début de mon Trip Asiatique, je voulais trouver un endroit pour faire du volontariat, aider une cause. A quelques semaines de la fin de mon voyage je me retrouve avec tellement plus : une nouvelle famille.

Je vous présente ma famille Nepali, si précieuse…

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Vers toutes ces jolies petites mains, je retournerais dans les deux ans qui suivent…

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Morgane une jeune femme incroyable qui a rejoint notre famille une semaine avant mon départ, juste à temps pour LA Boum que j’ai organisé pour les enfants.

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Au Menu : crêpes faites par leur soin, fruits exotiques, confiture, chocolat, miel et jus de fruits. Le tout à volonté…

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Après la pause goûter, distribution de bonbons, puis danse à ne plus pouvoir s’arrêter!

                                                           ***

Ma Cérémonie du Tikka - les enfants m’ont déposé un “point” rouge pour me protéger et repousser les mauvais esprits - superbe tradition nepali!

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Tous autour de moi, je me sentais en sécurité totale. Tellement sereine, je n’ai jamais aussi forte…

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Après poèmes, chants et remise de cadeaux, ils sont tous venus me saluer.

Un signe de respect et d’amour inestimable.

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Après la cérémonie, j’ai décidé de leur offrir des “momos” pour le goûter, les raviolis locaux dont tous les Nepali rafolent!

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Avant de partir, je les ai pris les uns après les autres dans les bras, je les ai serré contre mon coeur avant de leur déposer un petit bisou sur la joue - dernier signe d’affection pour leur dire “à très bientôt!”.

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B I E N   A   V O U S   P O U R   T O U J O U R S

In Maryland, Free Speech Protects the Right of Crisis Pregnancy Centers to Lie to Women: An Analysis of the Baltimore CPC Case

Written by Imani Gandy for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

In the wake of the more than 1100 bills that have been rammed through state legislatures across the country, and as state legislators try to legislate women’s bodies while at the same time preventing them from calling a vagina “a vagina,” one important front in the “war on women” has gotten very little media attention — the scourge of crisis pregnancy centers (CPC).

In clinics nationwide, young women — mostly poor women — are lured into so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” which falsely advertise themselves as health clinics, but which are anything but. These crisis pregnancy centers are often set up and run by Catholic churches, which, for obvious reasons, doesn’t bode well for any woman seeking information about contraception or terminating a pregnancy.

Instead of offering counseling about a woman’s choices, these CPCs steer women towards a right-wing, anti-choice agenda, using Jesus and guilt as weapons. Some of the more pernicious CPCs manipulate women using tactics that include scheduling appointments weeks after they are requested, such that women who finally visit a CPC and realize that the center does not provide abortion services may be too far along in their pregnancy to terminate. These despicable tactics are calculated to force women into carrying pregnancies to term even if those women have already decided that they want to get an abortion, and visit a crisis center believing that abortions are available at that particular center. These tactics also deprive women of the freedom to make a choice for themselves without having a self-righteous third party take credit for a difficult choice that they made on their own.

Read the rest here.

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