Yesterday LifeShite got into it. Here's its account:
The Crisis Pregnancy Centre of Ottawa, operating under the registered business name First Place Pregnancy Centre, issued a Statement of Claim Tuesday against Planned Parenthood Ottawa and two of its representatives before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. First Place alleges that Planned Parenthood Ottawa interfered with critical funding and defamed their charity putting the charity and the women they serve at risk.
On Monday, November 26th, 2007 the wives and girlfriends of the Ottawa Senators announced the launch of their holiday fundraiser, the "SENSational Tree Raffle", naming First Place as one of three chosen charities. The following day, Planned Parenthood Ottawa issued a press release in which it is alleged that they made false and defamatory statements about First Place. Planned Parenthood's actions caused First Place to withdraw from the fundraiser and forego the thousands of dollars that could have assisted First Place and its clients.
Terri Mazik, Executive Director of First Place Pregnancy Centre asks, "Why did Planned Parenthood Ottawa interfere in this way? While we do not refer for abortion we provide and have always provided nonjudgmental support to women facing an unintended pregnancy in order for them to make an informed decision. We have an obligation to our clients and to the community to realize our mandate and we have therefore decided to take legal action to protect our ability to do so."
Why did Planned Parenthood interfere?
Simple. To let the people buying raffle tickets know where the money was going to go. (The other two recipients were Kids Help Phone and a women's shelter.)
We think it's pretty safe to say that people buying raffle tickets from a totally apolitical, non-religious organization like a professional hockey club would just kinda assume that the dough would be given to totally apolitical, non-religious causes.
So what is First Place Pregnancy Centre? LifeShite tells us:
First Place Pregnancy Centre is a registered Christian charity providing fully informed choice and compassionate service to anyone facing an unintended pregnancy.
So, it's a Christian Crisis Pregnancy Centre, a topic we've addressed several times here at Birth Pangs, most recently here in a post about a Maryland legislator proposing that Crisis Pregnancy Centres post warnings to potential clients informing them that CPCs are not obliged to tell the truth. Because they don't tell the truth. See below.
Back to the story. Planned Parenthood puts out a press release alerting the public to the nature of First Place Pregnancy Centre. Heather Mallick, among others, picks up on it. She calls Dave Ready, president of the Sens Foundation, the charitable arm of the hockey club. She's had a look at First Place Pregnancy Centre's website and wants to go through it with him.
We went through the First Place site links together. There’s a standard disclaimer but First Place hopes we’ll find them “helpful.” I told Ready that some of the news headlines appeared to be libellous, particularly the ones linking corporations that make birth control drugs to the Jewish Holocaust and one drug itself to Nazi death camps. Others were grotesque: “One baby in 30 left alive after medical abortion” turns out to be an absurd, unsubstantiated anonymous “news story” in a British entertainment magazine.
You’re also guided to a donation page for the American Life League*, a hardline group based outside Washington. There’s a shop, admittedly very funny, that sells “Abortion is mean” T-shirts for two-year-olds.
They offer booklets explaining that abortion is wrong even in the case of incest. They tell members to scare away raped children outside abortion clinics. They call RU-486 “the anti-human pesticide.” They offer sample letters to the editor to send to outlets that employ, I imagine, columnists like me. One begins: “Planned Parenthood is not ‘a good guy.’”
Ready gets more and more quiet as we track this. Soon he is desperate to get off the phone. He will not let me talk to a Better Half, who might well explain that she hadn’t known that First Place is financed by the Bethel Pentecostal Church in Ottawa and its mission — declared on the Bethel website but nowhere on the First Place site — is not just anti-abortion but anti-birth control.
*Promoter of 'The Pill Kills Babies' campaign.
Shortly after Heather's column is published, the links page is 'updated' and all the scurrilous links disappear.
Mild hubbub ensues in the blogosphere and on Sens fan sites.
Not surprisingly, many Sens fans are a tad cheesed that they were not informed that one of the 'good causes' they were being asked to support was an anti-choice Christian Crisis Pregnancy Centre.
Stony silence emanates from the Sens organization. Then, First Place Pregnancy Centre withdraws from the fundraiser.
Now, however, it is suing Planned Parenthood because, according to LifeShite:
the organization directly caused a sharp decline in the clientele at First Place Pregnancy Centre following the erroneous and unjustly condemnatory press release.
Let's recap. The Senators' wives and girlfriends neglect to inform the public that one of the 'charities' is a Christian Crisis Pregnancy Centre. Planned Parenthood fills in that information. Heather Mallick and others help spread that information.
We at Birth Pangs are not lawyers, but it seems to us that this lawsuit is misdirected. The wrong was committed by the wives and girlfriends' organization, The Better Halves, in not being forthcoming.
We are all about choice here. We have zero problem with people supporting whatever cause they choose. But it seems to us that Sens fans were as badly served as First Place Pregnancy Centre clients in being offered a fully informed choice.
Bonus: Researching this piece, we ran into this gem at ProWomanProLife:
Pro-life women and girls get pregnant unexpectedly too. Consider that pro-lifers believe that the unborn are people, not to be killed. In short, abortion is not an appropriate option. Should that pro-life girl only have the option of counseling from Planned Parenthood—a place where in the same room with a different client that counselor will sanction and refer for an abortion? Pro-lifers have sex, fear pregnancy, get pregnant, are further terrified and need counseling too. Must they all go to Planned Parenthood Ottawa? Or should there be other options?
Who knew?
(First published at Birth Pangs.)
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