"Crisis Pregnancy" centers

[mykpart]

I'm posting this in Topic Forums too, but I want more people to see it. This is part of an email I received from Planned Parenthood:

The Story: An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend to one of Indiana's Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a "crisis pregnancy center" run by an anti-abortion group — one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic, and was designed expressly to lure our patients and deceive them.

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 arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there — the "crisis pregnancy center" had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The "crisis pregnancy center" staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl's home and calling her father's workplace. Our clinic director reports that she was "scared to death to leave her house." They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

This cruel and fraudulent behavior shows exactly what's behind the proliferation of these centers. That's why this new bill is so important: it would make it illegal for any entity to advertise abortion services if it does not provide such services.

Worse yet — the Bush administration has used $60 million in taxpayer dollars to fund these propaganda machines. This has got to stop!

[alfredo]

1. sounds like the old Operation Rescue. They used to use such

tactics. They would do fake pregnancy tests that always came out negative. they'd then browbeat their victims. One like that was in Louisville Ky until it got busted for not having a real physician present.

[meow2u3]

5. Operation Rescue's "crisis pregnancy centers" are a sham

They're designed to give real crisis pregnancy centers a bad name. The real centers truly give quality care to the kid and the mom. I know because when I was 22, I gave up my kid for adoption, and I used a crisis pregnancy center because I couldn't either afford the expenses of a kid, nor would I even consider an abortion.

The center I went to was not in the least judgmental. They didn't call me nasty names, nor did they tell me I was going to hell for having sex. What they did do was treat me with the dignity I should have gotten at home.

[REP]

7. You Weren't Seeking an Abortion

You were looking to surrender a child; CPCs are adoption brokers (fee-for-services from the adopting couples). Of course they were nice to you!

[Samurai_Writer]

19. CPCs are for-profit adoption brokers

Like the other person said, of course they were nice to you. They wanted your baby. Did you have an open adoption or a closed one? I'm betting it was closed or at least semi-closed. Did they offer any counselling after the relinquishment papers were signed? Do they have a post-adoption department? Are you able to have any type of ongoing contact with your child's adoptive parents?

And I would have to disagree that CPCs give true quality care to the kid and the mom. They give care to pregnant women so that they can secure the baby for adoption. As shown in posts below, if you decide to keep your baby, they have no interest in you.

[REP]

28. $30K - $100K Per Baby

Even when abortion is illegal, something like 2% of women with unwanted/mistimed pregnancies surrender children to adoption. Even in the bad old days, adoption was a for-profit industry that was set up to benefit everybody except the woman who gave brith and the child she surrendered.

[LeftyMom]

21. They're real nice to anybody who has a marketable baby they can sell.

That's what the CPC industry does.

Women who go in intending to keep thier baby generally get little or no help, because there's no money in it (and often because they don't think that the unmarried/unmonied/unworthy woman deserves her kid. Chances are very very good that if you had decided to keep your child that your experience would have been a very different one.

[azurnoir]

2. Does Indiana

have anti-stalking laws, this would seem to fit . Also there are HIPPA laws which strictly protect the privacy of medical information of any sort, these laws are federal. Also it would seem that some sort of fraud took place here they after all proported to be a clinic and they weren't.

[PublicWrath]

4. I have a liberal friend there

From what this friend tells me, I'm inclined to think this type of
conduct at a "crisis pregnancy center" would probably be applauded in Indiana.
It makes me really angry that such places receive tax dollars.

[azurnoir]

6. I agree

but the HIPPA laws are federal ,if any of the people involved have any type of medical license or certification they would lose it pronto even if the people they informed already knew she was pregnant.

[smoochpooch]

3. Sounds like they don't even need a real pregnancy,

if they can just allege there is underage coercion going on and the cops show up.

[Quantess]

8. Weellll......

If you ever need a pregnancy test, you can get one free at Crisis Pregnancy Center.
I did that a few times, using a fake name, and every time the test came out negative, the "Pregnancy Crisis worker" looked so disappointed. ('Crap! No fetus to save!')

If it comes out positive, then just be sure to tell them that you want to keep it, whether you really do or not.
;)

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Sure, but- how expensive are those things?

I'd rather pay the ten bucks to Costco or whoever than get the stink of self-righteous fundies all over me.

Some of the disappointment probably had to do with the "worker's" bible-based rage over the fact that you had not only fornicated but gotten away with it.

[Quantess]

13. it's free.

Free of charge for the "sad lil' gal", that is...
Nah, but yes, if you go to a "Crisis Pregnancy" center, the pregnancy test is free.

Take that info any way you wish.:evilgrin: ;)

Upon edit: the Dollar Tree has pregnancy tests these days, so I hear...

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Oh, I meant how much do they cost if you buy them, and skip the Jesus

lecture.

I don't remember, it's been a while since we needed one.

[LeftyMom]

27. Somewhere between a dollar and ten dollars, depending on where you buy

Oddly the more expensive ones often aren't the most sensitive.

[LeftyMom]

22. The dollar store has pregnancy tests

Not the most sensitive things ever, but by the time one's period is late any test will do. Some of the best pee tests out there are aim sticks. A lot of Dr's offices use them, they aren't sold in drug stores but you can buy them over the internet for a buck or two and just throw a few under the sink.

I'm not even sexually active at the moment (darn the luck!) but I keep a few around in case a friend needs one or anything like that.

Planned Parenthood does cheap or free tests too, and won't lie about the results or what one's options are. I did my test with them when I got knocked up with LeftyKid and they were very helpful in arranging for medical coverage and maternity care. We talked about all my options but nobody ever implied that I should pick one over the other.

[Der Blaue Engel]

9. I went to a Crisis Pregnancy Center years ago

I had no insurance and I was hoping to get some useful information from them about how the hell to have a baby in America with no insurance...since you are basically not allowed to purchase insurance once you're pregnant (the cost goes up about 1,000 x for the "pre-existing condition"). I had already decided to keep the baby; I was just looking for information and advice.

As soon as they realized I wasn't considering an abortion, they basically dismissed me. They had no interest in anything other than talking women out of abortions. A pregnant woman trying to to make sure she could have her baby wasn't worth their time. They couldn't have cared less if I lost the baby due to malnutrition or died in childbirth due to lack of access to medical care. They didn't even have the basic information that I could have gone to the city general hospital emergency room and the hospital would have been obligated to deliver the baby, or information about WIC or medicare or AFDC or anything that could have (and ultimately did) help me. (I had to research it all myself, and found out a lot through my pro-choice lesbian feminist midwives who delivered my baby at home.)

They advertise in the phone book under abortion and birth control services. I'm furious that this is legal.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Right, because if you want help for prenatal health coverage

you're just a dirtbag commie, who should get a job.

[Der Blaue Engel]

20. Lol

And of course, I had a job. They just called me a "long-term temp" so they wouldn't have to give me benefits. But the reality of the inequity of health care in this country is lost on these people.

[REP]

11. They're BABY BROKERS! They're In It For The Money

Keeping your baby means there's no money in it for them; they only get paid when they can sell a newborn to an adoptive couple. Antiabortion laws have a lot to do with hating women, and while there's a high demand and a limited supply of healthy white babies, it's about money. There's a LOT of money to be paid in private adoptions.

[alfredo]

16. I never thought of it that way.

[Der Blaue Engel]

24. That had never occured to me either

That explains much.

[Dulcinea]

14. My story:

In the early 80s, when I was in college, I went to one of those places. I just picked it out of the phone book. I wanted the free pregnancy test. Well, I did get the free test, but they made me sit through a 45-minute video of puritanical brainwash featuring women crying about their abortions while I waited for the results (pregnancy tests took a lot longer then than they do now.) I couldn't tell my parents; they're staunch Catholics & don't believe in abortion unless it's a matter of life and death.

Thankfully, the test was negative, but I had already made up my mind to have an abortion if it had been positive. At that age I was nowhere near ready for parenthood! I had plans for my life! And where did these driveling fools get off in telling me I was wrong to make that decision? I have been solidly pro-choice ever since that day, & probably always will be.

I now have 2 daughters whose rights must be protected, as well as all other American women & girls. I'm a card-carrying member of Planned Parenthood. I will fight for reproductive freedom of choice as long as I live. No one should have dominion over another's body or private medical decisions. There should be no forced parenthood. Ever.

[depakid]

15. Sounds like and excellent lawsuit

for fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress as well as for HIPAA violations.

[Cats Against Frist]

17. My experience with CPC

Same as someone else, above, I went in to get the free pregnancy test, and find out what the hell to do about insurance. Test was positive, and they were really nice -- but one thing that creeped me out is that they gave me a sonogram, and a picture of the little blinking spot that was supposed to be my son's heartbeat. I'm quite sure that they do that to discourage abortion. When I told them that I was thinking about abortion, they DID try to talk me out of it, but weren't overbearing. It was also creepy when the woman asked to pray with me. I said, "You can pray, but I'm agnostic." So, she prayed, and then did help me get information for Washington State health insurance and WIC.

They followed up, and, after my son was born -- which was the BEST decision I've ever made, in my life -- they offered to get me a carseat, diapers, blankets, and sent me some gift certificates.

I believe that, creepy as the praying and the sonogram was, that under these circumstances, these people have the absolute right to do what they do. In the case of fraud, however, and behaving like the CPC in the article behaved, should be against the law. So should CPCs that are backed by an adoption agency catering to desperate parents who only want a healthy white baby -- it's false advertising, and, under that facade, they could pressure a very impressionable young female into doing something that she may regret, later. I'm a fairly astute person -- though much less astute, at that time in my life -- and I had no idea that they'd be religious or whatever. I'm sure many women don't know that they have an agenda. For that, they should have to operate ethically, and make their intentions clear.

[Der Blaue Engel]

23. They definitely should not be allowed to advertise

under abortion services. I just looked in my (San Francisco) phonebook, and I'm pleased to discover that at some point in the last 15 years, they added a category called Abortion Alternatives, with a clear statement below that indicates the agency does not offer abortion services, and under the Abortion Services section, it clearly states that all listings do offer that service. That's a step in the right direction. However, there are two large, color advertisements on the page for anti-abortion agencies that appear alongside the Abortion Services because of layout spacing, so it is still very misleading. I think they should have to have the category clearly labeled at the top of their advertisements as well.

[LeftyMom]

25. A lot of those CPCs have been caught doing fake sonos

I'm not saying that yours was (and if all you saw was a heartbeat, it probably wasn't,) but they sometimes have those things rigged up to display the results of another sonogram on a farther along mother with a baby that looks much more baby-like in order to inspire maternal feelings in the hope that the woman will opt to stay pregnant.

[noonwitch]

18. I thought people were on to that scam by now

The yellow pages are very specific about this stuff, too. Crisis pregnancy centers are listed under a separate heading-usually "abortion alternatives".

We haven't had picketers at Detroit area abortion clinics in a long time. Every once in a while you will see one or two in front of the clinic on E. 8 Mile, but rarely. It probably has to do with the fact that the vast majority of anti-abortion protestors are white and most white suburbanites don't like to go south of 696 unless there's a sporting event or gambling involved.

[cynatnite]

29. There is a bill in congress about this...

http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/fake_clinics2_hp

A new bill in Congress, the "Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act" (H.R.5052), would stop "crisis pregnancy centers" from deceiving women. Urge your representative to support this important bill.