There SHE goes again, right?

From this blogpost about the plight of women who face heart-wrenching second or third term abortion decisions Blob Blogging Wingnut selectively cites:

"A lot of pregnancies I see at work are wanted, even if they aren’t planned, even if the boyfriend is a jerk and the woman is still in school or even on drugs. Some women really want the baby, but it’s the circumstances and the future that they don’t want, and that tells them that they won’t really be able to support this pregnancy."

SHE claims:

Pro-lifers dedicate millions of dollars to help these women bring their wanted pregnancies to term.

Millions of dollars? Oh yes, under Bush, The Fetus©™ fetishists received funding to establish 'Pregnancy Crisis Centres' which are fronts for anti-abortion groups. Directors and some staff of these agencies were paid big bucks while exploiting volunteers who did the front line work. Very little of that money was actually spent to directly benefit pregnant women or to support them and the children who were born. Those who asked for help were discouraged or distracted or harassed and delayed from exercising their choice to have an abortion in the first trimester. Then, more revenue is generated for zygote zealot organizations when connected christian adoption mills (such as this one, or worse) succeed in selling perfect white babies with no defects to the highest bidders.

There's fundamentalist christian profiteering for you.


Furthemore: o solo mama provides a link to this powerful investigative report about christian adoption mills, it may be one that fern already addressed in one of her many posts about the callous practices of crisis pregnancy centres.

When Pro-Lies turn against their own.

At News of the Restless & A Creative Revolution, I read that a US woman engaged the rapt attention of thousands of anti-abortion fetus fetishists for months with a totally fabricated story about a pregnancy, a doomed fetus and religious glurge. Ooops - sorry, the glurge was authentic.

Blogger's baby was a hoax ... Raechel Myers, a friend of Beushausen's from college, heard from someone that Beushausen was going through a difficult pregnancy. Myers and her husband, Ryan, had a daughter who died at birth, so they did more than most to support Beushausen."When I heard that she was pregnant, I called her and said if she needed anything, I was there for her," said Myers, who lives in Nashville. She said she spoke to Beushausen almost every day for the last few weeks. ... Even after learning of the hoax, Myers said she and her husband don't regret their involvement. "She's someone who needed love and attention, and we gave her that," Myers said.

Unfortunately, not all the readers of "April's Mom" were as forgiving and kind in that, you know, christian way. Which is odd, since Beushausen is vociferously against abortion and blogged incessantly about that and her imaginary fetus. However, some of her former fans don't display much, if any compassion for someone so obviously emotionally fragile and still grieving the loss of her child, 4 years later. One comment is typical of the bloodthirsty hatred the discovery of her subterfuge provoked:

"It has everything to do with the fact that this woman cooked up an elaborate scheme to defraud people. To prey on peoples emotions and to exploit that. I was quoted in this article; I have delved into Beccah's life this past week. People everyday live through much harder things than she could ever dream of and they don't make imaginary lives up for themselves. She needs to be held accountable for her actions."

Oh really? Such loathing, usually reserved for those the Pro-Liars call abortionists.

"I'm still feeling a lot of hate towards her," said Jacki Gallagher, a 30-year-old blogger from British Columbia who followed the site from early on. "Reading her site was part of my life. I hand make toys and was ready to send something, because she had moved me so much. She wrote beautifully and that was really the seller. She didn't just make short posts, she put a lot of time an effort into this," Gallagher said.

There's hundreds more comments like those.

"I think it's sick, what she did," said Briane Gibson, a 24-year-old blogger who quickly became suspicious and helped identify Beushausen ... "She was feeding off people's sympathy. She was making money of people," Gibson said. "She wasted the time of so many people who could have been helping real families in need," she said.

Now there's an interesting claim. Beushausen never asked for money for herself. It wasn't an extortion scam, where she threatened to have an abortion unless people sent her financial support, as others have tried to do. She directed donations towards an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centre which, one would assume, her readers should consider worthy of support, regardless of the legitimacy of her story. Yet the Centre is furiously trying to distance itself from "April's Mom" because of the optics.

"We never had any direct contact with this woman and we are investigating," said Rick Ligthart, executive director of PASS. "We know of one, at least, donation related to this hoax and we want to make sure we do the right thing. "This lie is another indication of the brokenness this country's moral fabric," he said.

There you go. There was no fetus, just a still broken-hearted mother who gave birth to a baby that did not survive. Beushausen did not force anyone to read her moving and "beautifully written" posts. Her former supporters shrieeek that they could have been spending time helping real people who "everyday live through much harder things". But how many anti-abortionists actually help those in need, the mothers and families raising infants with physical handicaps, life-threatening genetic disorders and serious cognitive impairments? Observe how the religious fundamentalist abortion criminalizers cannot find a shred of love in their heart for someone so obviously needy. Doesn't that make them the liars, the fakes, the frauds?

Update: Check out psa's delicious rant du jour: Caps Lock ENGAGED!

Publicly funded lies

I did some research on Pregnancy Support Services of the Upper Ottawa Valley. It does have a website, but under another name, First Steps Options Centre.

And here's the money quote:

Our staff includes trained volunteers. The information we provide is not intended as a substitute for professional counselling. We are not a medical clinic and do not offer medical advice or services. We don’t provide abortion referrals.

Fair enough. At least they are up-front about it.

But as with First Place Pregnancy Centre, the links page gives them away.

There is this gang of lying liars who, despite rigorous sciency-type studies demonstrating that 'post-abortion syndrome' does NOT exist, continue to shrieeek that it does too.

Then there's another gang of lying liars, who continue to shrieeeek that again, despite those pesky facts, abortion causes breast cancer.

This link appears to offer factual information on abortion, but (sigh) also contains the breast cancer bull-doody.

Then there's this odd link to an organization touting carrying on with a pregnancy 'with negative prenatal diagnosis'.

In short, whatever it calls itself, this gang subjects its clients to lies, fear and guilt. And now it's doing it with our money.

Admittedly, not much of our money, but this is a step down the USian road of government-funded 'faith-based initiatives' and we've got to stop it.

Public Funding for Fetus Fetishists?

It seems the Ontario Government supports fetus fetishists with public money.

Pregnancy Support Services of the Upper Ottawa Valley is receiving $8,600 to purchase office and computer equipment.

This is to better equip the organization to serve pregnant teens in need of support services in the Upper Ottawa Valley.

Pregnancy Support Services does not appear to have a website (maybe they learned a lesson from First Place Pregnancy Centre in Ottawa), but I found this listing . (bold mine; I also corrected a couple of typos, you're welcome)

Mission Statement: We are a mental health organizationfounded on a Christian medical model who promotes informed choice, with follow up counseling being of uppermost importance, so women and men, can move forward after an unplanned pregnancy, or pregnancy loss, to live healthy positive lives in our community. We also have Post Abortion Recovery Education Groups available for women who are experiencing regret and feelings of loss. We train volunteers to walk with these women, shoulder to shoulder, on this healing journey. I received this training and the ability to train other facilitators in Greenville, South Carolina. Our service encompasses all of the county, and is free and confidential.

Such a center as this is a relatively new idea in this area, but PSS centers are operating through out Ontario, and other parts of Canada and the United States, for over 30 years.Check them out at www.capss.com and www.care-net.org you will see a picture of me for our center. WOW ! exciting huh!!!

We do not receive government funding and therefore we depend on the generosity of the community, to commit to donating time as volunteers. If this something that interests you contact us to enrole in out 21hour training. This training is open to the public as a personal interest course. this training is valuable and can be used in any crisis situation. Give us a call or visit the center, on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 12-4 PM, and Thursday evening till 6 pm.

Woo-eee. See all that zygote zealot code-speak?

Sound to me like one of those Crisis Pregnancy Centers, which in the US have been determined to offer 87% lies.

(Here are the links if you want to check out Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services and Care Net.)

Mental health organization? Since when is pregnancy a 'mental health' issue? According to fetus fetishists, it's only after one has an abortion that one goes totally bonkers.

Christian medical model? WTF is that?

Informed choice? Informed by lying bullshit like abortion causes breast cancer and inevitable mental problems?

Post Abortion Recovery Education Groups? OK, that completely outs this outfit.

It is a Crisis Pregnancy Centre.

Funded by The Trillium Foundation, the arm of the government that doles out some of the profits from the government-run numbers racket to 'community groups'.

Here is its contact info:
1.800.263.2887
416.963.4927
TTY: 416.963.7905
Fax: 416.963.8781
trillium@trilliumfoundation.org

I am going to write to the foundation to ask about this grant. I'll let you know what happens next.

Sens to Fans, Women, and Fans of Women: PFO

All right, all right. If Unrepentant Old Hippie can do it, so can we.

First Place Pregnancy Centre, one of the recipients of the Ottawa Senators' wives and girlfriends' holiday fundraising efforts is a registered charity, but under another name. (And we wonder as does jj WTF is up with that.)

So, there.

But there are other developments. Over here, we reported on our undercover activities at SensNation, a fan site.

Today, one of the posters there added this from Planned Parenthood Ottawa:

Got some chain email going around now:
----
This morning we learned that the wives and girlfriends of the Ottawa Senators – the Sens Better Halves – have launched a holiday fundraising campaign that will benefit three organizations: First Place Pregnancy Centre, Kids Help Phone, and Harmony House. While not wanting to undermine the tremendous contribution the Senators have made to this community or the wonderful, empowering work of the Kids Help Phone and Harmony House, we are concerned that they have chosen to support First Place Pregnancy Centre. First Place Pregnancy Centre is an anti-choice organization that will not provide women facing an unintended pregnancy with referrals to abortion services. When we contacted the Ottawa Senators with our concerns, we were told that they chose this organization "knowing the values they espouse" and that they "understand what this organization does and does not do as far as services to women".

While we respect that the Sens "Better Halves" have their own set of values, we are concerned that the public may donate to their fundraising campaign without having a clear picture of where their funding will go. We are asking for your help in raising awareness. If you feel compelled to act, please forward our press release (below and attached) to your contact list and/or join our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6194818286 . We also encourage you to share your concerns directly with the Ottawa Senators by contacting Danielle Robinson, Director of Corporate & Community Services ( robinsond@ottawasenatorsfoundation.com or 613-599-0174).

To which, another poster says:

I wonder if that is going to be the extent of the team's response.

And the original poster replies:

Ya - that was definitely a big PFO from the organization.

Let us repeat what the Senators organization said:

When we contacted the Ottawa Senators with our concerns, we were told that they chose this organization "knowing the values they espouse" and that they "understand what this organization does and does not do as far as services to women".

Got that? PFO!

(First published at Birth Pangs.)

Sens still suck, but their fans are pretty nice

We at Birth Pangs felt that deluded loyal Senators fans should be alerted to the shocking situation that we reported here. We got out the pancake make-up to cover up the Maple Leaf logo tattooed on our forehead and infiltrated the enemy camp.

We had initially added to an existing thread (the link is in the first post) on the 'Better Halves'. A couple of fans took exception to the 'Sens suck' in the title, but some seemed prepared to discuss the matter. One person though asked us to start another thread since the topic of the Sens' support for a fetus fetishizing organization was distracting from the important subject of the upcoming marriage of some player or other. So as a polite noob, we did.

In the discussion there, you'll see that some didn't care that the Sens are lending support and recognition to a fetus fetishizing gang. Others said that as long as the fetus fetishizers weren't actually bombing abortion clinics, it was OK with them too.

It did seem to bother some of them, bless 'em.

We wait on further developments and will report.

UPDATE:
UnrepentantOldHippie weighs in, in her inimitable fashion. And she has an email address for the Sens. Which I could not get to work. :rant:

UPDATE 2:
Beijing York in the comments here brings us the news that Heather Mallick is on the case. And guess what. She finds that First Place Pregnancy Centre is not only, um, economical with the truth to its clients, but also to its supporters. FPPC apparently told the Senators Foundation that it is a registered charity. Well, Heather checked and it is not.

(First published at Birth Pangs.)