Violence and Fake Pregnancy Clinics

Remember raging nutcase Flip Benham, he of the 'wanted' posters of abortion providers and snappy shrieeeeeks at women entering clinics like 'Satan will drink the blood of your child'?

He was charged with criminal stalking and 'disruption of domestic tranquility for residential picketing'. Found guilty. Sentenced to two years' probation. And ordered to stay away from targeted doctors.

Benham and his associates were ordered to stay 300 feet or more from wherever the targeted doctor works and 1,000 from his residence. Benham was put on two years probation.

The two years sounds about right to me -- spent doing hard time, that is.

He won't abide by the conditions. He''ll appeal. He'll wail about free speech. He'll get arrested again. And there will be MASSIVE martyrgasms among his followers.

It is so predictable.

Meanwhile, I did learn something new. There is a strong association of violence against clinics and staff with proximity to fake pregnancy clinics, aka 'Crisis Pregnancy Centers'. Flip is a featured player here.

Another cruel hoop

Back we go to whacky South Carolina for this story of yet another niggling
hoop for abortion-seeking women to hop through.

A bill that would increase the mandatory wait time between a mandatory ultrasound and the desired procedure from one hour to twenty-four hours is advancing again. It had been stalled for a year.

Critics have said requiring two trips creates a burden, especially for poor, rural women who may have to take two days off work. Three clinics in South Carolina provide abortions.

Ah, but the fetus fetishists have come up with a solution and it's a doozy.

The Senate approved a tweaked version on Wednesday that expands where those qualifying ultrasounds can occur to crisis pregnancy centers statewide. . . . Supporters of the Senate change said women can more easily access the anti-abortion, religiously affiliated centers.

Because I'm betting there are waaaay more than three fake pregnancy centres in SC.

So, let's imagine a woman in rural South Carolina. She's had the 'oh shit' moment, thinks about it, and decides to terminate. She makes an appointment at one of the state's three clinics and is told she has to have an ultrasound 24 hours in advance. Before she can get into full rant mode about how stupid this is, the trained counsellor on the phone informs her that she can go to her handy Christo-Taliban-run fake clinic for it. If the counsellor is really well-trained, she or he will whip out a prepared list of fake clinics and direct her to the nearest one.

And now we direct you to an older post about the training of fake pregnancy clinic manipulators/counsellors.

Our task in greeting new clients was to determine, on a scale from 1-10, how "abortion vulnerable" the woman is. That is, is she considering abortion, or did she come here because she's already chosen life and wants help with the new baby?

Easy-peasy with this new law. An angry woman stomping in demanding: 'Is this the goddamn place where I can get a goddamn ultrasound before I get a goddamn abortion?' is probably a 10 on that scale.

Let's consider what happens next:

If a woman was deemed not abortion vulnerable at all, they were often given nothing more than an opportunity to volunteer at the CPC itself, on top of whatever real job they actually had. They were paid in diapers, wet wipes, formula, some second-hand clothing. Nothing substantial. Certainly no prenatal care or anything like that. The abortion vulnerable women, however, they were offered the lot. High chairs, cribs, brand new clothing, even financial assistance for prenatal and pediatric care in rare cases!

Remember, this woman must must endure whatever the fetus fetishists fling at her in order to get the ultrasound she needs. Gory fetus pr0n, glurgey sermons, unending gord-talk. And, of course, all the usual lies about abortion causing breast cancer, insanity, and a permanent rift with Gord.

Loads of fun!!!! For the fetus fetishists.

For the unwillingly pregnant woman? Not so much.

I continue to marvel at the creative cruelty of fetus fetishists.

BONUS TRACK: In checking to make sure the story hadn't changed from when I copied the link this morning, I found another report. I think the writer is a little confused.

The legislation, according to CBS, would have stretched the the wait time between an ultrasound and an abortion from one hour to one day. However, a compromise in the Senate will allow women to have an abortion at any crisis pregnancy center in the South Carolina the day after receiving an ultrasound.

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.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Harassment

Ha. We're not the only ones a tad obsessed with fake pregnancy clinics, aka Crisis Pregnancy Centers/Centres.

Here's a fab website I just stumbled on: Crisis Pregnancy Center Watch.

Much good information, but what I found rivetting were the women's stories of how they were treated by the Kristian Talibaners:

Here's Lisa's story (emphasis mine):

When my period was late, I went to a place called "Problem Pregnancy Center" that advertised free pregnancy tests. When I was waiting I was in a small room watching bloody and disgusting videos about abortion. After the video they told me I was pregnant. I got an ultrasound there too. They said I was 12 weeks along. They said I was too far along to have a legal abortion in my state. I knew this was wrong and realized I wasn’t in the right place. I screamed at the staff and left in a huff, saying I was going to have an abortion somewhere else. Whoops. I didn’t mean to do that, it was definitely a mistake. But I was so angry that they were lying! A few days later, my mom got an anonymous phone call that said I’d killed her grandbaby. I was infuriated and humiliated. Fortunately my mom was understanding and said she would have done the same thing but wishes I had talked to her first because she knew of a good clinic and I wouldn’t have ended up in this terrible place. I felt so happy and relieved. Seven months later, I got a card in the mail. It said, “Congratulations on Your New Baby!" but it was splattered with red paint or ink. Every year after that, I’d get a Happy Birthday card made for children, except they’re all splattered with red paint. We couldn’t get them to stop legally because there was no proof the Crisis Center was sending them. I finally stopped receiving the cards when I moved out of the state and didn’t leave behind a forwarding address.

This place was awful. I knew instantly that they didn’t want to help me but to torment me. And after I had the abortion, I was really fine. But once I started getting those cards, I wasn’t. All that guilt they said I would have if I had an abortion came true, but only because they created it. I would have been fine, honestly. I had no moral opposition to abortion, but they put that into my head and it still to this day haunts me. It’s like they create guilt and unhappiness in order to prove that you’ll be guilty and depressed.

Nice, eh?

Not only do they lie for the baybeez, they harass and intimidate for the baybeez too.

Don't forget. We got 'em here in Canada, too.

It's all about the bay-beeez. Well, unless. . .

While legislatures in backwards US states are merrily passing infuriating picayune little laws to hinder women's access to LEGAL abortion -- mandatory wait times, mandatory ultrasounds, mandatory bullshit lectures on fetal development and pain awareness -- in Connecticut, the grown-ups are in charge. They just passed a law outlawing diagnostic medical tests for -- wait for it -- non-medical reasons. Specifically, ultrasounds done on pregnant women have to be ordered by a physician or done for a valid medical reason.

Why, you ask? Because back in 2004 those sciencey folks at the Food and Drug Administration warned against them, particularly the 'entertainment' variety
offered by commercial studios that can expose a fetus to up to 45 minutes of high energy in a 3D ultrasound.

Prenatal ultrasound videos called “keepsake videos” and taken by commercial studios may affect the fetus, warns the US Food and Drug Administration. The administration shut down such studios 10 years ago and is again considering regulatory action. Ultrasound is a form of energy and can't be considered harmless, even at low levels, it says.

The studios have been springing up in shopping centres in cities and towns across the United States. Typically they use the latest high powered ultrasound equipment, which can cost up to $100 000 (£54 000; €81 000), to produce videos of the moving fetus.

The studios offer expectant parents one or more sessions at different stages of the pregnancy for $125 to $250. The videos show the fetus's fingers and toes, hair, muscles, facial features, and genitals and show it sucking a thumb or moving about. Some of the studios' websites post testimonials from parents who say that they bonded with their forthcoming baby and recognised features, such as the father's nose. The studios say they are an optional service and do not replace prenatal care. The cost of the service is not reimbursed by health insurance.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' April newsletter to its members says that the studios typically offer “a 30- to 45-minute ultrasound session with as many as eight guests welcome; a video to take home, often set to music selected by the parents; a set of photos, both print and digital; gender determination if requested.”

In contrast, doctors use two-dimensional ultrasound at a low power level to check for size, location, number, and age of fetuses and to check for birth defects, breathing, and heartbeat. The result is a grainy black and white picture.

Well, that just makes sense, doesn't it? Willingly pregnant women go to great lengths to protect fetuses from exposure to all kinds of potentially dangerous stuff. If you don't need an ultrasound, why take a chance?

And you'd think the fetus fetishists would agree, wouldn't you?

And you'd be wrong.

The zygote zealots consider forcing women to look at ultrasounds of the contents of their uteruses a powerful tool in their relentless campaign to lie, manipulate and coerce unwillingly pregnant women out of considering abortion.

Many of the fake pregnancy centres set up adjacent to women's clinics offer such ultrasounds, often performed by poorly trained volunteers.
Here's the whinging at LifeShite:

Pro-life leaders around the country consider ultrasound to be a technological marvel that has saved countless unborn children from abortion. Other states such as New York have considered banning ultrasounds for non-medical reasons.

Weird, innit? They're all for the fetuses, unless exposing fetuses to potential harm furthers their Mission from Gord. They're all A-OK with that.

Life, Choice, Options

As we reported back here, the name 'crisis pregnancy center/centre', aka fake pregnancy clinic, has acquired such a stink that anti-choicers eschewed the name in favour of the more forthright 'anti-abortion clinic'.

This caught my eye today: Mike Huckabee doing some fundraising for the fundies.

Huckabee was the featured speaker for the $50-a-plate fundraiser for Life Centers, formerly the Central Indiana Crisis Pregnancy Center, a group that provided free counseling, pregnancy tests, ultrasounds and other services to 21,889 pregnant women last year.

So I googled 'crisis pregnancy center formerly' and got a ton of hits. Rebranding among the fetus fetishists is running amok.

Many, like that Indiana gang, are going for 'Life Center' (ya know, as opposed to Kulture of Death Center): here, here and here.

Variants on the 'life' theme include
New Life Solutions (note lying plural -- there is only one solution to fetus fetishists), and LifeCare Pregnancy Center (care for life? Yeah, right.)

More care is offered by Care Net Pregnancy Center.

Then, of course, there's the otherwise anathema 'choice'. We've got LifeChoices in Colorado and Real Choices (ooooh, choices made by REAL women?) in Saskatoon.

'Crisis Pregnancy Centers' as a term is toast. 'Choice' is being usurped pretty thoroughly. (Think of last year's Canadian Blog Awards, Feminist Category.)

I predict that the next word to go down the road to Damascus will be 'options'. Planned Parenthood uses it.