The Frightening Truth About Crisis Pregnancy Centers

April 15, 2008 · Filed Under Reproductive Rights ·

Sadly, very few women know what the term “crisis pregnancy center” really means and that is exactly what crisis pregnancy centers prey upon.

There is a personal story from Allyson Kirk published on AlterNet of a woman who got caught in the trap of these centers, thinking it was a regular reproductive rights clinic, as these centers have tried their best to look like to lure women in and intimidate them into carrying their pregnancies to term.

After calling the National Abortion Federation Hotline seeking an abortion, she got a number for a health care clinic, but a crisis pregnancy center located themselves a mere two doors down from the clinic, where the woman ended up walking into thinking it was the clinic she was in search for. What these people put her through is sick, twisted and no woman should have to be put through this when making a personal decision regarding her body.

“She asked me about my religious beliefs. I was immediately defensive at this point. I asked her why this was a relevant question to ask in a medical facility. “Because I can’t properly counsel you on the issue of abortion unless I know your moral standing,” she said. I decided that this was not the kind of place I felt comfortable seeking medical care so I asked her to complete the free pregnancy test and then I would be on my way. I gave her a urine sample and she agreed to run the test, but only if I watched an educational video while the results were processing.”

First of all, the woman felt the need to ask about the religious beliefs of the patient just to feel around and see if she had to intimidate her to stay there so she could “counsel” (ie: push her moral standing onto her patient and make her believe what she wanted) and the woman of this clinic, after seeing the hesitancy, started bartering with the woman over getting a pregnancy test done at their clinic. “You can have your pregnancy test if you watch this video.” That is not the way to treat the women who walk into your clinic, but they knew that this woman was hesitant and was starting to realize what was going on and knew that she should not be there, so I guess bartering is the only other viable option since these people are completely unprofessional and exist only to terminate a woman’s right to choose.

“The video I was forced to watch made false claims including: doctors who provide abortions graduate at the bottom of their classes and can’t get real jobs; abortion is dangerous and often results in serious injury, even death, to women, and abortion causes severe psychological and emotional damage to women. The woman on the video said many women who have abortions have nightmares of babies crying and have guilt about their decision so intense that it sends them into depression.

The second portion of the video showed an illustrated enactment of a surgical abortion procedure. A picture of a uterus with a fully formed fetus inside filled the TV screen as illustrated metal instruments appeared. The instruments were shown probing inside the uterus and dismembering the fetus. Then a suction device entered the screen, pulling the fetus out of the illustrated uterus for disposal.”

These centers should not be able to give women completely fabricated information. “Abortion providers can’t get real jobs?” Sorry, I believe that abortion providers have one of the most important jobs–Giving a woman power over her own body and giving her the respect to know that she can make her own decision. I would think that the people who “can’t get real jobs” would be the ones who make a living off of scaring the hell out of women who walk into their trumped up office. I would think that these people can only get jobs in which they must lie to scared and impressionable women in order to push their personal beliefs onto other people–whether they’re willing to listen or not because if they don’t, they’ll just barter with them–”We’ll let you out of this room as long as you agree to pray with us.” This makes me sick.

I am willing to bet that their claim that abortion results in serious injury and even death are taken from statistics published before the early 70’s, since they would be right–Back alley and illegal abortions that women are going to have to resort back to if abortion is ever outlawed, do cause serious injury and in a lot of cases, even death.

That, my friends, is why the option of a safe and legal abortion is a hell of a lot better than an abortion done with a wire coat hanger either in your home or in unsanitary surroundings because I, for one, would rather an already living and breathing woman be able to continue with her life before I would put the life of a cluster of cells before her.

Tags: anti-choice, crisis pregnancy centers

Crisis Pregnancy Centers Having to Tell People They Lie? Hells Yes!

March 15, 2008 · Filed Under Reproductive Rights ·

Crisis pregnancy centers really strike a chord in me that makes me sometimes rant to the boyfriend about how unfair it is that they are even able to “practice” pregnancy “options” with the women that go to them for help out of desperation and whom are bullied by so-called professionals to make the decision that they want women to make while completely disregarding the feelings of women seeking help.

I recently came to find out that Maryland feels the same way!

The Maryland state senate is considering a bill requiring Crisis Pregnancy Centers to issue a disclaimer stating that the information they give to women in search of options and counseling, is not accurate. The same bill is being considered in New York as well as in West Virginia. Examples of misinformation that crisis pregnancy centers have been giving out are:

Abortions lead to breast cancer.
Abortions lead to infertility.
Abortions lead to mental illness.

All of the above are completely untrue and should not be given to women seeking abortion services as facts when they are simply taking advantage of emotional women and brainwashing them by throwing around personal morals that are fabricated as far as medical accuracy goes.

87% of the clinics studied in a July 2006 came out to misinterpret and grossly exaggerate medical facts.

I do not believe that crisis pregnancy centers like this should not be able to practice. They should not be able to brainwash desperate women and guilt them into believing that abortion is not the answer to their unwanted pregnancy when an abortion is what they are seeking. Not to mention, Planned Parenthood clinics who support women and support the informed choices that women are able to make on their own–Imagine that!

I was recently watching the fourth season of The L Word, which I am absolutely addicted to and love unconditionally, and in the very first episode of the fourth season, it shows exactly what happens at these so-called women’s clinics. To watch the episode, which I highly suggest, you can by going here. In fact, I think that everyone should watch The L Word, so here is a link to all five seasons which you can watch online. (clickclickclick)

I really hope that Maryland gets this bill passed, the truth about these clinics must come out and I could not support Maryland enough in this bill.

Tags: anti-abortion extremism, anti-choice, crisis pregnancy centers, television, The L Word

Vote Pro-Choice and Go to Hell

March 3, 2008 · Filed Under Religion ·

Oh, the Catholic church is at it again with their preposterous shenanigans. Catholic bishops, being the men who form the delusions of speaking directly with god and informing others of his word, are going down their list of damnation and letting us all know that the latest memo says that reproductive rights trump everything.

Bishops have not only taken a poll, saying that all politicians who believe in a woman’s right to choose are going to hell, but if you vote for them, you have a seat reserved right next to them.

“It is important to be clear,” the bishops said in a 44-page statement titled “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” “that the political choices faced by citizens not only have an impact on general peace and prosperity but also may affect the individual’s salvation.” Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, chairman of the committee that drafted the statement, put those high-minded sentiments into plain English earlier this month. Support for a candidate who “espouses policies that are gravely immoral” is possible “only under exceptional circumstances that are hard to imagine,” he told the Cathedral Club of Brooklyn.”

But that isn’t all! Not only do these bishops condemn you to hell if you vote for a politician who upholds women’s rights, but you are also helping us follow in the footsteps of the Nazis:

“In our country we have, for the most part, allowed the party of death and the court system it has produced to eliminate, since 1973, upwards of 40 million of our fellow citizens without allowing them to see the light of day,” wrote Rockford, Ill., Bishop Thomas Doran in 2006. “No doubt, we shall soon outstrip the Nazis in doing human beings to death.” He continued, “We know…that adherents of one political party would place us squarely on the road to suicide as a people.”

Note: “The party of death” sure is clever and ranks up there on my list of “Funny things Catholics say for kicks while in the process of using scare tactics for conversion.”

I cannot even imagine how those who have family who had been tortured and killed during the Holocaust feel about now being compared to those who performed the torture and killing of their ancestors by a group of people who protect pedophiles and actually aided the Nazis. I suppose we have come a long way, however, since the Catholic church is now actually admitting that the Holocaust even happened; but the hypocrisy that spews from the mouths of these people every time they deem something immoral is becoming a bit more than I can handle.

The moral of this story, and the new law that god told the bishops to relay to all of us peons who do not get to speak with him directly, is that now to gain entry into heaven, even if we do everything else so-called “correctly,” if we vote pro-choice, we’re spending eternity in hell. Nice. I wonder what else god has in store for us in the coming years.

“This just in: All people who are interested in spending eternity in heaven with the pedophile priests all must wear clown noses and hop on one foot for an entire year.”

Tags: anti-abortion extremism, anti-choice, Catholicism, clergy sex abuse, Holocaust, pedophiles

The Fine Line Between Free Speech and Harassment

March 1, 2008 · Filed Under Reproductive Rights ·

Anti-abortion extremists in Massachusetts filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s health clinic buffer zone laws.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed a bill to put a 35-foot buffer zone between reproductive health and family planning clinics and anti-choice protesters last November. The reason behind this law is to ensure the safety of the clinic patients, as well as their staff as they enter and exit the clinics. There have been many cases of anti-abortion extremists protesting outside of these clinics across the country and by doing so, they are clutching their free speech cards and claiming that they are doing nothing wrong. This is true since the people of this country are able to voice their personal opinions and beliefs and there is, of course, nothing wrong with that. However, blatant harassment is not free speech.

You are not practicing free speech when you are screaming in the faces of the staff and patients of these clinics. You are not practicing free speech when you are screaming at the women walking into these health clinics and calling them murderers when you simply assume that is the reason why they must pay a visit to the clinic. You are not practicing free speech when you are telling women that their fetuses have a right to life when they may be visiting the clinic simply to get birth control or for their annual pap smears.

“For too long, patients and staff had to endure in-your-face screaming and harassment just to get to doctor’s appointments,” Angus McQuilken, vice president of public affairs for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, told the Boston Globe. “This 35-foot zone is more than reasonable.”

Between the hostility, billboard-sized pictures of fetuses, flyers that tell women that they are murderers and attempting to invoke guilt and the process of attempting to criminalize women for seeking a medical procedure that is legal, not only do I feel that the 35-foot buffer zone is “more than reasonable,” I feel as if there should be a much greater distance that these people must keep away from the Planned Parenthood health clinics. How dare they attempt to file a lawsuit saying that they are being denied the right to free speech. Women are being denied the right to safely and securely enter a health clinic based on other people’s moral opinions.

Tags: anti-abortion extremism, anti-choice, free speech, harassment, Planned Parenthood

McCain on Choice: Title X and Counseling on Abortion

February 18, 2008 · Filed Under Politics ·

family planning After a little break, we’re back to John McCain’s anti-choice record.

John McCain, an uber-conservative (for those who still think he’s in any way pro-choice) voted to permit federally funded Title X family planning clinics to decline to counsel women on abortion services.

Title X family planning clinics have served as health care facilities for typically young and low-income women for 30 years; one of the most-recognizable Title X clinics is Planned Parenthood, which makes up 14 percent of Title X projects. Their goal, as health care providers, is to educate women in this country on how to be safe when it comes to sex, avoid unintended pregnancies, and make education and services readily available to the women who need them.

These clinics offer a wide range of information and health care to women who need their services. They offer birth control, emergency contraception, literature and testing for sexually transmitted infections and diseases, education on how to prevent unintended pregnancies, pregnancy tests and screenings for breast and cervical cancer. The best thing about these clinics, in my opinion, is that absolutely no one is turned away from receiving the health care and/or education they need because of inability to pay.

Since Title X is federally funded, a law has been placed in Section 1008 of the law saying that Title X funds cannot be used “in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” In other words, Title X funds cannot be used to provide abortions. However, Title X projects must offer women neutral and factual information, non-directive counseling and referrals upon request for all of their pregnancy options, including prenatal care and delivery, infant care, foster care or adoption and abortion.

Senator John McCain voted in favor of Title X projects not even counseling women on abortion, as if the option didn’t even exist anymore. If you are pregnant and go into Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health care facility located in a hospital, which make up six percent of Title X projects or health department, 57 percent, and are seeking information about your options as far as pregnancy or not going through with your pregnancy, John McCain voted to make Title X projects refuse to even bring up the option of abortion. In his eyes you have two choices–you are either delivering and raising the child or delivering and giving the child up for adoption.

It’s no secret that McCain wants to abolish reproductive freedom for women, but to insist of closing the door on even the thought of terminating pregnancy is ridiculous. It is saying that McCain, along with the rest of the anti-choice brigade do not believe in women. They do not support or even like women unless they are in their place and doing what the conservative agenda believes is right. They do not trust women to make informed decisions about their own bodies but would love to force them into delivering and raising a child that they are either not ready for, in a matter of financial stability or mentality, or simply do not want. But we went over the reasons for this in the last McCain on Choice post. The more low-income children born to low-income mothers or families, the more future troops we have to carry out our world domination agenda.

Tags: 2008 election, anti-choice, family planning, John McCain, low income women, Planned Parenthood, Title X, world domination

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