Did Crossroads Clinic Cross Its Fingers?

I'm confused. Is Crossroads Clinic pro-choice or anti-choice?

Or maybe, just, um, flexible.


Here they are trumpeting their involvement in The Sexual Assault Response Network.

The Sexual Assault Response Network (SARN) is a collaboration of seven partners including the Sexual Assault Response Committee (SARC), Crossroads Clinic, Cantara Safe House, RCMP, Southern Alberta Child & Family Services (Brooks Office), Victim Service Unit, and Alberta Health Services (AHS) Emergency, Sexual Health Unit, and Social Worker Unit. These agencies have banded together to address an overwhelming need of support for an estimated 3,400 victims of sexual assault in the City of Brooks alone.

Crossroads Clinic, the lead partner, was awarded a grant by the Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta. This grant allows them to provide training for those working with the program from the various agencies, as well as purchasing a phone and phone plan for the Support Line. Crossroads Clinic staff mans the support line during the day and Cantara Safe House operates the phone during non-business hours.

I checked at the Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta and found that yes, indeed, Crossroads Clinic Association (Brooks Pregnancy Care Centre) got a grant in Fall 2013 of $6,048 ($1,639 for Crisis Line Phone and $4,409 for Training for Crisis Line).

Since it is the standard of care to provide emergency contraception (EC, or Plan B) after rape/sexual assault, it seemed that this disclaimer sorted rather badly with Crossroads' new role as sexual abuse counsellor.

Note: Crossroads Clinic provides limited medical services. We provide free medical confirmation of pregnancy and Sexual Transmitted Infections screening and limited treatment for women. We do not provide ongoing prenatal care, abortions, birth control or contraceptives.

Kathy Dawson asked the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services on Twitter if Crossroads were a member. Nope.

@fernhilldammit @blueskies366 TY for the tweets. #CrossroadsClinic not an @aasasmembership service under our umbrella http://t.co/bQACkwa5SC

— AASAS (@aasasmembership) February 23, 2015

I emailed two of the legit-looking organizations in the "network," Cantara Safe House and the Sexual Assault Response Committee (SARC) of Medicine Hat, to ask a) is it true that Crossroads is a partner and b) WTF -- do they know that Crossroads is an anti-choice crisis pregnancy centre?

Then I found that SARC has a twitter account. So I asked.

@fernhilldammit SARC is prochoice all of our partners have agreed to refer to AHS Sexual Health for

— Sarcmedicinehat (@SARCmedicinehat) February 23, 2015

@fernhilldammit for options counselling, plan B and medical care

— Sarcmedicinehat (@SARCmedicinehat) February 23, 2015

They call it "options counselling," do they? And EC/Plan B too?

But but but, Plan B is an ABORTIFACIENT!!!!!! Well, according to fetus freaks it is. (Sane people understand how EC actually works.)

So, now we're wondering. If, for the purposes of reaching out to a new group of potential "patients" and/or the six thousand bucks, Crossroads has agreed to act as if it's prochoice, do its fetus-freak donors know? More importantly, does the Canadian (formerly Christian) Association of Pregnancy Support Services know?

If they crossed their fingers behind their backs when agreeing to the prochoice protocols, do the other organizations in the network know and how are they keeping tabs on them?

Crossroads, crossed fingers. . . what's the diff?

Bang for the Buck

A few days ago, there was this story about fetus fetishists being "upset" over funding of morning-after pills under the Maternal Health Initiative. (Note to editors: the word "stupid" is only one character more than "upset" and way more accurate.)

Anti-abortion activists say the federal government has broken its pledge to leave abortion out of its maternal health initiative, just as Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrapped up an international summit Friday with a fresh commitment of $3.5 billion to improve maternal health around the world.

The issue is the morning-after pill, a.k.a. emergency contraception. The morans are still claiming that it is an "abortifacient." It is not. There is no scientific controversy about this.

The morans are simply lying. Again.

But buried in the same article was this bit of info.

International Planned Parenthood notes that of $2.28 billion spent as of March 2014, only 0.55 per cent went to family planning, despite the fact that 222 million women around the world lack access to “a range of modern methods of contraception.”

Back in 2010, when Motherhood Steve was rolling out his plans for the Women of the World, there was a MASSIVE brouhaha over whether any family planning would be funded atall atall. Leave aside abortion. Motherhood Steve wouldn't touch condoms, b.c. pills, diaphragms, implants, etc. etc.

That idiocy blew up real good on him and Canada seemed to relent.

Now we find out that a measly 0.55% is being spent on family planning.

Let's consult the Steve's good buddies at the Gates Foundation, shall we?

However, more than 220 million women in developing countries who don’t want to get pregnant lack access to contraceptives and voluntary family planning information and services. Less than 20 percent of women in Sub-Saharan Africa and barely one-third of women in South Asia use modern contraceptives. In 2012, an estimated 80 million women in developing countries had an unintended pregnancy; of those women, at least one in four resorted to an unsafe abortion.

So, as always, we come back to square one of Abortion Reduction Bingo. Hate abortion? Support contraception. Support all kinds of contraception. Support as much contraception as possible.

And you don't have to hate abortion to support contraception.

Again, from the Gates Foundation, the benefits are huge.

Voluntary family planning is one of the most cost-effective investments a country can make in its future. Every dollar spent on family planning can save governments up to 6 dollars that can be spent on improving health, housing, water, sanitation, and other public services.

If my math (and calculator) are correct, 0.55% of $2.28 billion is just about $12.5 million (or about six junkets to the Middle East for Motherhood Steve and his pals and lackeys).

But multiply that by 6 and we get $75 million to spend on other health needs, water, sanitation etc.

OK, stick with me here. What if we spent a whopping 1% on family planning? Or, hey, let's go crazy and spend 2% on family planning!

That would be amount to $300 million in savings to be put toward other health needs in desperately strapped countries.

That strikes me -- admittedly NOT a trained economist -- as pretty damned good bang for the buck.

Butbutbut, the base would be "upset."

So, screw you, poor women. Who the hell do you think you are, wanting to decide when and how many pregnancies you want or can handle?

Canadian fetus fetishists will decide that for you.

Liars Gotta Lie

When the morning-after pill was approved, the actual mechanisms weren't well understood. It was thought that one way it worked was to prevent implantation, and since most definitions of pregnancy use implantation as the starting point, Plan B didn't cause an abortion.

But the lying liars insist that a whole complete 'person' is formed at the collision of egg and sperm, and so if implantation of the zygote is disrupted -- ABORTION!

From a report today:

Since then, the science has developed a much clearer picture of the drug's effects. Study after study has conclusively shown that emergency contraception (or EC) actually prevents egg release—and without eggs, naturally, fertilization can't happen, let alone implantation. Other studies have in fact shown that the drug is ineffective when taken after a woman has already ovulated. By this year, the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics issued a statement that the three emergency contraception drugs on the market conclusively "do not inhibit implantation."

Will this shut the liars up about 'abortifacient' drugs?

Fat fucking chance.

Just in Time for the Holiday

A new emergency contraception drug.

I believe that women should be given as many options as possible to help prevent unintended pregnancies.

So I'm keen to spread the news that a new longer-acting emergency contraceptive pill is now available.

The new pill, ellaOne, can be taken up to five days after unprotected sex - that's two days later than the current morning-after pill, Levonelle.

It has been available on prescription since October but few people have heard about it, so I want to let women know it's something they can ask their doctor for in an emergency.

ellaOne is the brand name.Ulipristal acetate is the chemical name.

So far it is available only in in Europe and only with a prescription.

The extra time afforded by this drug may be critical in certain cases -- such as a rape victim too scared to report the crime immediately, or, as Antonia reports, a woman who discovers that her contraception regime is being sabotaged by her partner.

The fetus fetishists -- you know where to find them -- are of course SHRIEEEKING about yet another way we evul Culturists of Death can murder single-celled organisms.

But by offering two more days to act to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, this drug will no doubt prevent abortions.

And isn't that what the fetishists supposedly want?

Yeah. That was rhetorical.

Criminalizing Contraception

As 40 Days of Harassment kicks off, many bloggers and columnists are noting -- yet again -- the idiocy of the 'pro-life' position on contraception.

You'd think the people most dead-set against abortion would be the most avid cheerleaders for contraception.

You'd be dead wrong.

Antonia Zerbisias often reposts on her blog what she calls her treeware column with links added. Here's yesterday's, with a clarification added.

There are states – most recently Florida – where there are bills to ban contraception. Some pharmacists and doctors, both here and in the U.S., are refusing to provide the pill to patients, even married adult women.

We interrupt this column for a clarification:

The proposal in Florida is for a state constitutional amendment that critics assert would result in criminalization of the Pill. It wouldn't be the first time there have been legislative moves to ban some contraceptives, including the pill.

Then she links to my post about the celebrations the fetus fetishists are having over the success of their many incremental attacks in various US statehouses. Note that there were 300 initiatives against abortion and 60 against contraception.

At RH Reality Check, blogger Hunter Stewart ventures to Wisconsin to check out the 40 Days of Harassment campaign there.

There are two family planning clinics in central Wisconsin – one in Wausau, one in Stevens Point – that have been picketed by typical religious right-wing anti-choicers over the past two years. What’s not typical is that these clinics do not provide abortions. Nor do they provide referrals or even medical counseling for abortions, because their federal grant restrictions explicitly prohibit them from doing so. The people of Wisconsin know this. The protesters know this. So what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that this family planning clinic dispenses contraception – condoms, birth control pills, and emergency contraception. The protesters I spoke with in Wisconsin believe that “the morning-after pill” is the equivalent of murder. They even believe that the birth control pill is a form of murder. (Since in some cases it prevents the fertilized egg – which they would call “the embryonic person” – from implanting in the uterine wall.)

And condoms? One protester told me that condoms encourage men to use women “for sex without repercussions.” But isn’t it the woman who has to deal with the real “repercussions” of a pregnancy? You would think an anti-abortion activist, of all people, would see the use of condoms.

But no. “If you want to have sex,” he told me, waving his finger in the air, “make sure you can deal with the consequences. Which are children.”

Are we clear on this? Fetus fetishists are NOT about the baybeez. They are about control and punishment of mainly women, but men too, who have sex for reasons other then procreation.

The campaign is incremental. Throwing up niggling little laws here and there to restrict access to both abortion and contraception. Howling about pharmacists FORCED to dispense products a patient's doctor has ordered, but that the pill-counter finds morally objectionable. Launching idiotic bullshit campaigns like The Pill Kills. Lying about what emergency contraception or Plan B actually does. Lying about what ordinary hormonal contraception actually does. Shrieeeeking about the life-threatening dangers of the abortion pill.

Because, ultimately, what they want is CONTROL over everybody's reproductive systems. To that end, they want to criminalize abortion AND all forms of 'artificial' contraception.

Make no mistake about it. There is no common ground with these people.

SHRIEEEEKING from across the pond

While Merkin fundies are SHRIEEEKING over the FDA's sensible decision to stop playing politics comply with a court order to make emergency contraception available to 17-year-olds, Brit fundies are SHRIEEEEKING about this.

Furious parents called up radio phone-in shows in their hundreds to complain about the first television ad for the morning-after pill, which broke last night.

AEEIIII! An ad! On telly!



It's kinda odd, isn't it? The cartoon woman's surprise/shock/distress countered by the bouncy music. Not to mention the Pink.

So, the usual lying liars trot out their usual lies.

The ProLife Alliance has also condemned the ad claiming: "It is advertised inaccurately as emergency contraception when in fact its major function is to cause the abortion of an embryo that has already been conceived, not as suggested by the name to prevent conception."

Um. No. That's bullshit.

Anyway, good on ya, Britain. May we see such sense here.