Did Targetting Town for Refusing Anti-Choice Ad Result in Defunding Fake Clinic?

Oh, dear. The town of Hinton, Alberta, is having some troubles.

We reported on the funding of its fake clinic, doing business as West YellowHead Pregnancy Care Centre, back in November 2014.

The Hinton fake clinic was getting dough not only from from the Alberta Lottery Fund, but also from the town's photo radar scam, which turns traffic ticket fees into "community grants."

The fake clinic was doing pretty nicely with annual revenues of over $100K, which is not bad considering the population of Hinton is under 10,000. By contrast, the fake clinic in Medicine Hat, with a population six times that of Hinton, scrapes by on about $60K a year.

HInton's fake clinic has received nearly $40K in the last three years from the photo radar scam.

But not this year. They applied for $17K and were turned down (PDF, page 9) in April.

And Hinton has other troubles. Like several other small centres, it is being sued by the fetal gore porn gang, aka Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform (CCBR), over its refusal to run said fetal gore on its buses.

Here's a story mainly about Grande Prairie, AB on the stunt.

A pro-life group is suing the City of Grande Prairie because it feels its rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were violated.

The story mentions that Hinton is also being targetted by CCBR.

"The city's [Grande Prairie] position on this is that we really don't want to take a position. We don't want to be involved in this debate. We don't think it's appropriate for the city to really take a side," said city lawyer Robert McVey*.

Nope. Nothing to do with us. We're completely neutral on the topic.

Well, maybe Grande Prairie can say that but Hinton's record of handing out significant amounts of dough to a fake clinic says otherwise. Maybe that's why the fetal gore gang picked them out?

Let's look at the dates. In January, the town reported that it is reviewing its transit ad policy (PDF, page 2), citing this as the reason.

The Town is currently being challenged by an outside agency that has had their request to advertise on our transit bus, refused by the Town. Having a policy in place will help to avoid being in a similar situation with other groups in the future.

In April, the town declines the fake clinic's request for dough.

Hmmm. Is it trying to distance itself from its own fetus freaks? Trying to position itself -- like Grande Prairie -- as having no, none, nada, zip dog in this race?

Sadly, the fake clinic seemed to be counting on that dough. It is now downsizing.

The West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre in Hinton is going to look a lot different as of next month.

Starting June 15, the facility will only operate as a satellite centre. According to a press release, there will be one volunteer counsellor at the centre which clients can access by appointment only.

The centre is downsizing due to a “significant decrease in funding and change in client numbers” the press release reads.

Boo-hoo.

But consider: did the fetal gore gang's aggressive move have the unintended consequence of forcing the town to distance itself from the fake clinic, and thus cutting off desperately needed funding?

Rather delicious, isn't it?



* Sidebar for those who are interested in arguments around this so-called free speech issue.

In June, LieShite reported on the situation in Grande Prairie.

In court this week, however, the northern Alberta city’s lawyers argued that the ad constituted “hate propaganda.” Stated the city’s brief: “The ad with its graphic images and strong language effectively equates women who have had abortions with murderers. Such a pointed accusation is not only legally incorrect, it exposes such women to hatred.”

Further into the brief, the city goes further, contending the ad was not intended, as CCBR contended, to educate the public about abortion but “was actually designed to promote hatred against an identifiable class.” The city called the CCBR’s position, based on the use of words such as “slaughter” and “evil” on its website, an “extreme religious” viewpoint.

Hate propaganda. Targetting an identifiable group. What we've been saying.

If you agree and haven't yet, please sign the anti-gore e-petition. It needs only 500 signatures to be presented to Parliament and now stands at 3872, but more would be better. We blogged about the petition here.

h/t to Kathy Dawson, (@blueskies366) for critical links. Also eagle eye. :)

Canadians Demand Action to Get the Gore Out of Our Faces

Abortion is a legal, common, safe -- and except in the tiny minds of a tiny minority -- ordinary medial procedure.

For the tiny minds, however, it is "killing" and they want it stopped.

To that end, some groups -- most notably the Fetal Gore Porn Gang, aka Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform -- will go to any lengths, including endangering drivers, scaring children, and disgusting just about everyone with their antics.

Some towns and cities have stood up to the gore-meisters. Others have caved, in fear of being taken to court over "free speech."

Well, Canadians are sick of the gore shoved in their and their children's faces and sick of their craven politicians, elected -- supposedly -- to represent constituents.

An e-petition to the Parliament of Canada is demanding action.

Text of the petition:

Petition to the Government of Canada
Whereas:
• Groups have been gathering in peaceful protest against abortion showing graphic imagery;
• The sight of such imagery is being exposed to nonconsenting individuals and children;
• Imagery may be triggering for persons who have suffered trauma and loss involving pregnancy, infancy, childbirth, etc.., including but not limited to: miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, abortion, domestic violence, and fleeing a country involved in war.

We, the undersigned, Citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to please intervene and create law setting out the limitations as to what imagery and content can be used in a protest or similar demonstration that is subject to public viewing.

The petition was started on August 15 and yesterday at about 7 p.m. I saw a tweet from Campaign Lie.

Petition sponsored by @MPCelina 2 stop graphic abortion images. Is this how @liberal_party defends #freedomofspeech? https://t.co/H4KyXiMpMD

— CampgnLifeCoalition (@CampaignLife) August 17, 2016

When I signed it, it had just over 1200 signatures. This morning, over 1800.

Clearly, this is something Canadians care about and want fixed.

If you care too, please sign it and pass the link along.

Here's the link in plain text for easy copying: https://petitions.parl.gc.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-485

(We at DAMMIT JANET! contend that such ads and displays constitute hate speech. They target the patients and providers of a particular legal medical service and hold them up to ridicule, hate, and possibly violence. We'll have more to say about this later.)



Image source from Hamilton, Ontario, September 2013.

The Lie That Won't -- But Should -- Die

My heart sank a few days ago when I saw yet another headline in the fetus freak media SHRIEEEKING about the abortion=breast cancer (ABC) link-lie. Not because I expected anything other than the usual half-baked BS, but because I've taken on the Sisyphean task of refuting every new -- and they come around like clockwork every couple of years -- AMAZING STUDY that "proves" abortion causes breast cancer.

After I read beyond the headline, I realized it was just Angela Lanfranchi flapping her gums and re-upping her anti-choice creds. Nothing new.

But I got thinking about it from another angle.

Why do they keep doing this? The ABC link has been repeatedly, exhaustively, comprehensively trashed by major medical research organizations every time the freaks roll it out.

Every time.

Yet they keep it up. We know they are desperate for any shred of credibility, so why would they keep thumping this absolutely worthless piece of BAD (biased, agenda-driven) science? It can do nothing but further marginalize their stable of paid pet pseudo-scientists.

So, I wondered, does it work? What does it do for them?

Well, if it is intended to dissuade women from abortion, it's not doing much. In fact, according to anti-choice's own stats, very little is helping on that front.

Amanda Marcotte quotes researcher Nicole Knight Shine:

“Of the 2.6 million clients who visited crisis pregnancy centers since 2004, 3.52 percent, or 92,679 people, decided against having an abortion,” Shine writes. Yep, out of all the women that CPCs themselves describe as “clients who came to the center with initial intentions of Abortion or Undecided and then changed their mind to carry baby to term,” fewer than 4% were deterred by anti-choice propaganda.

Fewer than 4%.

Not even the Magical Ultrasound helps. The freaks have a mystical reverence for ultrasound. They've convinced legislatures in the US to force women to view these murky images, usually with narration of a bullshit script on fetal development written by politicians.

But a recent study investigated whether such viewing changes minds. Surprise, it does not. Under conditions where women were given the choice to view the images or not, of those who chose to see them, 98% went ahead with termination.

Groups such as the Fetal Gore Porn Gang (aka CCBR) insist that graphic anti-abortion images "work", but offer no evidence, just assertion.

I kept looking.

I found tons of studies on the reasons given by people for their abortions. But no studies on reasons given for rejecting abortion.

Lots of anecdotal stories from the freak media. "I just couldn't," "Jeezus spoke to me," etc. but no studies.

(Yes, yes, I know. A negative can't be proven.)

When I finally hit on the search term "abortion-minded women," I thought I might be getting somewhere. ("Abortion-minded" is an anti-choice classification for people stumbling into fake clinics. The others are "abortion-vulnerable" and "likely to carry.")

This search turned up a bunch of pages of advice for sidewalk harassers and fake-clinic bullies. Some of them are hilarious. Like this one, "Reaching the Post-Modern Abortion-Minded Client". Note use (bolded by me) of "girls."

In the 1950s, if you were counseling an abortion-minded woman, you would probably appeal to her sense of morality. Abortion is illegal. Abortion kills your baby. Simply put, abortion is wrong.

Much has changed in five decades. Now, abortion is not only legal, but also staunchly protected by the nation's highest courts. Whether or not abortion is wrong simply depends on your religious preference or political leanings.

A new wave of abortion-minded clients is appearing at pregnancy care centers across the country. These girls have been taught to reject any form of universal morality. These girls grew up believing that having an abortion is as easy as taking a pill. Therefore, pregnancy care centers will have to dramatically change their methods in order to reach these post-modern young women.

It goes on in similarly patronizing and totally out-of-touch style for ten more paragraphs. It concludes:

If current trends continue, public schools will become even greater bastions of post-modern, anti-biblical thought. Abortion, as well as many other sinful choices, will become even more acceptable. Children will be raised with even less biblical and moral upbringing. Pregnancy care centers need to prepare their staff for this shift in American culture, and come up with new ways to reach the post-modern (and very needy) client.

It was published in 2009 and the author promised a follow-up, "The Secret to Counseling the Abortion-Minded Client," but I couldn't find it. I guess the secret proved a little more elusive than she thought -- as evidenced by the dismal 3.52% success rate cited above.

None of the similar helpful advice pages I found included any reference to breast cancer. So, it seems they're not using the ABC lie on the front-lines.

And really, when women are prepared to put their lives at risk to escape forced reproduction, what's a little future breast cancer possible increase?

Back in 2002, Joyce Arthur crunched what we know to be the totally made-up numbers, specifically the 30% increase that Joel Brind, the granddaddy of this scam, still clings to.

For the sake of argument, let's suppose that Brind's ABC link is real. What would it really mean? He claims that abortion may boost the risk of breast cancer by 30%, but this increase is not really that significant anyway. For example, the risk is two to three times higher (200 to 300%) for a woman whose mother or sister had breast cancer after age 50. Even this well-established risk factor is considered moderate by scientists. In comparison, the alleged ABC link barely qualifies—even if it's real, the risk is close to negligible. To put it another way, the National Cancer Institute estimates the current risk of breast cancer to be 1 in 2,525 for a woman in her 30's—if that risk was increased by 30%, it means 1 in 1,942 women would get breast cancer.

But they do not. Because abortion does NOT cause breast cancer.

Still this canard keeps coming around.

The only possible conclusion is that its impact is mostly on legislators and conspiracy nuts. ("What the abortion industry doesn't want you to know."*) For individuals, it's just more of the usual stigmatizing and fear-mongering. But without any resulting dissuasion. Just, you know, torture.

It's not only not my job but counter-productive to advise the freaks on tactics. But in the wake of the US Supreme Court's Hellerstedt decision, in which the notion that making abortion more difficult to access somehow "protects" women was decisively smacked around and kicked down the stairs, they might want to consider abandoning the ABC lie.

But that's just wishful thinking, I guess. I'm so sick of this.

What would be very useful to know is what convinces pregnant people who are considering termination not to. Someone should get at that 3.52% and find out what changed their minds.




*The conspiracy nuts have a new vehicle. It's a film called "Hush" made by a Canadian filmmaker, featuring Kay Mère on her ABC soap-box, and funded by the Alberta government. Or so the filmmakers claim and the Alberta government denies. I'll get to that in a future post.

BREAKING! Feminist™ PM Declares "What's Sauce for the Goose. . ."

DAMMIT JANET! has learned that Canada's feminist Prime Minister has taken note that just about nobody is pleased with Health Canada's idiotic rigorous dispensing rules for the so-called abortion pill, Mifegymiso.

From Newfoundland and Labrador, to Prince Edward Island's pharmacists and physicians, to Manitoba and British Columbia, just about everybody who has anything to do with reproductive healthcare is pissed off.

Heck, even the Globe and Mail's editorial writers are miffed.

If this restrictive handling of the abortion pill is meant to reflect safety concerns, it is misguided. Many prescription drugs, used wrongly, have the potential to do harm and yet we trust pharmacists to dispense them, because that is their specialty. Why should Mifegymiso be any different? The damage done by preventing women from obtaining the abortion pill they need will outdo any good that comes from excessive caution about patient safety.

But if these restrictions stem from residual nervousness about easier access to abortion, even in pill form, that is completely wrong. Women have a right to this drug and they should be able to get it without further obstruction.

Among the many objections to the regime are requirements that doctors -- not pharmacists -- maintain an up-to-date supply of the drug, set up billing systems for it, and watch the patient take the first dose.

Responding to criticism that absolutely NO OTHER drug -- not even powerful, potentially lethal chemotherapy drugs -- is treated like this, feminist™ PM Trudeau reportedly said: "All righty then. We'll change the rules on erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra. Physicians will control dispensing and patients will be required to take the pill in their presence. What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.

"Happy now?"

Um, no. We are not happy, Justin.



Inspiration from Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada's Facebook page

‪Pudgy Quast‬ Perhaps more people would understand this if men were forced to visit their Doctors to take their viagra pills in the doctor's presence rather the filling their prescriptions at a pharmacy! Women have been dispensing medication to their families forever…I think we can manage to fill a prescription and take a pill ourselves!