A Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde story

January 16, 2006 By

billboardLast week I suggested reporters cover what women go through after they have an abortion, and today the New York Times, of all papers, has a story that mentions counseling done for some women who regret their abortions. The story, by John Leland, profiles A Woman’s Choice Resource Center, which provides ultrasounds, counseling, diapers, baby clothes and adoption referrals to more than 4,000 women each year. The story says the country has 2,300 to 3,500 crisis pregnancy centers nationwide, compared with about 1,800 abortion centers.

The women in this Bible study, a postabortion recovery group, are far from the public battles over abortion laws and the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. But in their quiet way, they represent a dimension of the anti-abortion movement that is just as passionate and far-reaching, consisting not of protesters or political activists but of Christian therapy groups, crisis pregnancy centers, adoption ministries, and support programs for single mothers and their children.

The first ten paragraphs or so of the story were fairly descriptive and interesting. I’ve been interested in the abortion issue for decades and I found it educational. And it’s nice to see that as abortion opponents prepare to march in Washington a week from today, papers are ramping up their coverage of the folks on that side of the issue. Unfortunately, the Times story veered off into viscerally one-sided territory, portraying crisis pregnancy centers as sneaky organizations that obtain clients by deceiving women and tricking them. It’s not news that abortion clinic personnel and supporters loathe crisis pregnancy centers, but a news story should probably try to obtain more balance:

A Woman’s Choice links the church to a national network of crisis pregnancy centers and postabortion groups that share marketing strategies, legal advice and literature emphasizing what they say are the harmful effects of abortion — including increased risk of breast cancer and a psychological condition called postabortion syndrome, which are considered scientifically unsupported by the National Cancer Institute and the American Psychological Association.

Like many crisis pregnancy centers, A Woman’s Choice is designed to look and feel like a medical center, not a religion-based organization with an agenda. Becky Edmondson, the executive director, said the center chose the look and name to reach women who were bombarded with pressures to abort and might think they had no other choice.

“A religion-based organization with an agenda.” Nice! I guess abortion clinics and the New York Times don’t have an agenda, but crisis pregnancy centers do. And what’s worse, they’re “religion-based.”

I also love how the reporter, rather than quoting recent peer-reviewed research (also ignored by the Times when it came out in December) about the increased trauma experienced by women who have abortions, invokes the American Psychological Assocation to discredit the possibility that women who have abortions might suffer from it. Now, maybe the American Psychological Assocation was too busy publishing papers saying conservatives were crazy or that paedophilia should be given a value neutral term, such as adult-child love, but I have news for the New York Times: the American Psychological Association has an agenda. Now, that’s not bad. It turns out that everybody has an agenda. But Times reporters shouldn’t just notice it when it’s the folks they disagree with. Here’s more along the same lines:
article bigpic 1

Surveys of postabortive women about their experiences have produced mixed and inconclusive results, allowing advocates on either side of the abortion issue to claim support for their view of whether abortion leaves regrets or psychological damage. Two analyses published in the same peer-reviewed medical journal, using the same data, came to opposite conclusions about whether women who have abortions suffer more depression than women who give birth after unwanted pregnancies.

I just have to mention one of my pet peeves. Now, I know it’s impossible to conceive that any Times reporter would ever make stuff up out of whole cloth, or that if that happened, the editorial process at the paper of record would quickly catch it, but if you’re going to mention studies with inconclusive and mixed results, go ahead and name the studies or at least which medical journal they appeared in. Don’t expect readers to just trust the reporter. Give readers enough information so they can check out the studies and determine whether the reporter characterized them accurately.

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Filed Under: Evangelicals, Journalism, Politics
  • brian

    I wonder – what is the agenda of the National Cancer Institute?

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    At the very least I hope it is to fight cancer . . . just like crisis pregnancy centers’ agenda is to prevent abortion or help women who had abortions.

    Some see it as a mission, others as an agenda. But all individuals and groups of people have it. We just tend to see it with those we oppose.

    I also bet that “rival” cancer groups could tell us more about the National Cancer Institute’s specific mission and how it differs with other groups.

  • tmatt

    This issue was at the heart of that famous May 22, 2003 memo from Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll to his staff.

    For those who missed this crucial text in the media-bias wars, click here:

    http://www.laobserved.com/carrollmemo.html

    To: SectionEds
    Subject: Credibility/abortion

    I’m concerned about the perception–and the occasional reality–that the Times is a liberal, “politically correct” newspaper. Generally speaking, this is an inaccurate view, but occasionally we prove our critics right. We did so today with the front-page story on the bill in Texas that would require abortion doctors to counsel patients that they may be risking breast cancer.

    The apparent bias of the writer and/or the desk reveals itself in the third paragraph, which characterizes such bills in Texas and elsewhere as requiring “so-called counseling of patients.” I don’t think people on the anti-abortion side would consider it “so-called,” a phrase that is loaded with derision.

    The story makes a strong case that the link between abortion and breast cancer is widely discounted among researchers, but I wondered as I read it whether somewhere there might exist some credible scientist who believes in it.

    Such a person makes no appearance in the story’s lengthy passage about the scientific issue. We do quote one of the sponsors of the bill, noting that he “has a professional background in property management.” Seldom will you read a cheaper shot than this. Why, if this is germane, wouldn’t we point to legislators on the other side who are similarly bereft of scientific credentials?

    It is not until the last three paragraphs of the story that we finally surface a professor of biology and endocrinology who believes the abortion/cancer connection is valid. But do we quote him as to why he believes this? No. We quote his political views.

    Apparently the scientific argument for the anti-abortion side is so absurd that we don’t need to waste our readers’ time with it.

    The reason I’m sending this note to all section editors is that I want everyone to understand how serious I am about purging all political bias from our coverage. We may happen to live in a political atmosphere that is suffused with liberal values (and is unreflective of the nation as a whole), but we are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times.

    I’m no expert on abortion, but I know enough to believe that it presents a profound philosophical, religious and scientific question, and I respect people on both sides of the debate. A newspaper that is intelligent and fair-minded will do the same.

    Let me know if you’d like to discuss this.

    John

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    just like crisis pregnancy centers’ agenda is to prevent abortion or help women who had abortions.

    That looks like two agendas to me, Mollie. Would I be able to tell, from outside or from its ads, that a crisis pregnancy center is pursuing both of those agendas?

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    Mollie,

    I wonder, how many of these “crisis centers” have you visited? Have you compared their methods and what kind of advice/care/help they give? Have you compared them in urban and rural areas?

    In my area (central Illinois), a couple of my friends curious as to what these centers were like called and made appointments posing as women who believed themselves to be pregnant. Would you be surprised that the “care” was in the form of a medically outdated and misleading religious video and attempts to lead them in prayer and directions to churches in the area?

    Now maybe the centers near you are far more helpful, but here our Planned Parenthood branch is far from an agenda-driven abortion factory. Abortion is only one (small) aspect of their clinic, and great care is taken with those seeking an abortion (waiting periods, multiple checks to see if they are ok with the choice, mandatory counselling sessions).

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Avram,

    I guess it depends on which ads you were looking at — the ones offering help to women who are currently pregnant or the ones offering help to women who already had an abortion.

    I don’t really understand your question, though . . .

    The National Cancer Institute, for instance, might have programs to research causes of cancer, fight cancer and help patients who are cancer survivors. They are different missions, but they are related, right?

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Jason,

    Like I said, it’s no surprise that abortion clinic personnel and their supporters such as yourself loathe crisis pregnancy centers . . . one simply has to wonder whether it’s the job of the NEW YORK TIMES to do the same.

    I, for one, would rather my newspapers just present the story without editorializing.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    I should clarify that I by no means meant to say that all abortion clinic personnel or abortion clinic supporters loathe crisis pregnancy centers.

    I know that many people who support abortion also support as many choices for women as possible — and that includes those choices available for women at crisis pregnancy centers.

    I just also know from my research that there is a particular conflict between the abortion clinics and the crisis pregnany centers, as indicated by Jason’s comment above.

  • kangapus

    Jason,

    I’m confused. Are you saying that the crisis pregnancy center was using trickery to lure unsuspecting women to their center in order to further their (gasp!) religious and (double gasp!) pro-life agendas, or that your friends were using trickery to dupe the center and further their pro-choice agenda?

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    Mollie, what I mean is, if I were a pregnant woman who had already decided to have an abortion, and I walked past one of these crisis pregnancy centers, would I be able to tell in advance that this was a place that would try to get me to change my mind about the abortion? Or would it look like a place I might be able to get information about getting an abortion?

    If the former, no problem. If the latter, problem.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Avram,

    I’m sure it depends on the clinic. But most of the advertising done for crisis pregnancy centers is done online, on television or in print publications.

    So that’s probably how women would know about their services.

    There’s an understandable tendency to be discreet about what women’s services are provided for both abortion clinics and pregnancy centers.

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    “I’m confused. Are you saying that the crisis pregnancy center was using trickery to lure unsuspecting women to their center in order to further their (gasp!) religious and (double gasp!) pro-life agendas, or that your friends were using trickery to dupe the center and further their pro-choice agenda?”

    How were my friends furthering the “pro-choice agenda”? By finding out how the center was run? The kind of “trickery” you name is often called “investigative journalism” in other contexts.

    I don’t have a problem with “pro-life” centers, but I do have a problem with these places passing themselves off to the general public as secular institutions (which they do) and that are merely there to offer up “all the choices” (which they do not).

  • http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/YoungHomemaker shari

    I actually went to one of those ceners when i was in college. i was given a pregnacy test and they used a littl calender to calculate a date. since i am a christian they Iasked them about some things in teh bible. also they told me they will hlep me get baby clothes and items stop lying these are greawt centers

  • Rachael

    Jason,
    I’ve taken a highschool journalism class taught by a well-known journalist in this region and I can tell you right now that professional investigative journalism doesn’t include
    disonesty or deceit or to get information and seeks to be objective. Because of your approach, we do have to question your objectivity.

    Mollie,
    Well done on presenting an objective view and both sides of the story.

  • http://www.rsnider.blog-city.com Rachael

    To futher elaberate:
    see the Journalism Ethics from Wikipedia, particularly under Objectivity:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics

  • http://BUSY Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    Mollie–For a minute a thought you were serious about the NY Times never publishing fabricated stories. Then I read your Blair link.
    The NY Times has become a standing joke-like Dan Rather- because of their anonymous, unidentified, phantom sources who say -like Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquest’s dummy Charlie McCarthy–
    everything the reporter clearly wants to say but doesn’t want his moving lips seen.

  • http://www.ecben.net Will

    The trust-us treatment is what I have learned to expect from NYT. Their first page 1 story on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Bill (And the first that I heard of the PBA issue) was that “the House voted to criminalize an entire class of abortions”, but I read the story several times only to find NO information on WHAT this “class of abortions” was (except to include the claim about a “rare emergency procedure”). Not even the “its opponents call” trope. It did not even refer to the bill by its short title — it took me a THOMAS search to find out WHAT it was banning.
    All the news that’s fit for the readers to know…

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    Mollie, I agree wholeheartedly about the value of providing readers with enough information to verify claims. In that spirit, I followed both of your links about the American Psychological Association. I found that in both cases you had linked, not to primary sources, but to descriptions of those sources by people hostile to the claims in question.

    In one case — the pedophilia article — the page starts off with a letter from the Medical Director of the APA criticizing the paper in question. If there was an APA agenda being pushed by that paper, the Medical Director doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.

    In the second case — that of the paper linking certain personality traits to politically conservative beliefs — you linked to a National Review editorial, which in turn linked to another editorial characterizing the study in buffoonish terms, and that editorial links to a PDF of the paper (which 404s, but Google found me another copy) and a summary. From the summary, both the editorials and your own characterization are inaccurate. The summary states (emphasis added):

    The researchers said that conservative ideologies, like virtually all belief systems, develop in part because they satisfy some psychological needs, but that “does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled.”

    And also that the characteristic associated with conservatism can also be “associated with such generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering loyalty”.

    In other words, the authors are most definitely not saying that “conservatives are crazy”. Which isn’t to say that I find no flaw in their claims. For one thing, from what I’ve read of the paper so far, they treat “right-wing” and “conservative” as synonyms, which I don’t.

    Anyway, I see an interesting link between this:

    Conservatives don’t feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. “They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm,” Glaser said.

    And this:

    This is, of course, a variation on the “Culture Wars” thesis of sociologist James Davison Hunter at the University of Virginia, who stated that our culture is divided into two groups: The “progressives” who believe that truth is personal, experiential and evolving and the “orthodox” who believe there is such a thing as eternal, absolute truth.

  • Alex

    Just a note. In Canada, there is currently no abortion law on the book, and the abortion issue has been ignored by the federal gov’t for a number of years. One of the most vocal abortionists, Dr Henry Morgentaler, has now accused the party which currently is in the lead, of having a secret agenda to put him out of business. Here, read Canada’s media spin on this whole issue:

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060116.welxnmorg0116/BNStory/specialDecision2006/

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Avram wrote:

    “In one case — the pedophilia article — the page starts off with a letter from the Medical Director of the APA criticizing the paper in question. If there was an APA agenda being pushed by that paper, the Medical Director doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.”

    That was the American PSYCHIATRIC Association criticizing the American PSYCHOLOGICAL Association.

    Not that I didn’t almost get tripped up on that, too.

    Mollie

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    Ack, you’re right!

    I’ve said before that what the world needs is some kind of Bureau of Acronym Registration to force organizations to come up with more distinctive names.

    Your mention of the alleged breast cancer/abortion link reminded me of a blog entry I wrote three years ago complaining about the same things you’re complaining about — how little detail most people in the general press provide when they’re writing about the topic. Looks like nothing’s changed.

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    So, anyway, about that “pedophilia” paper, I found the actual thing in PDF form, and I’m skimming through it. First observation: It’s a meta-analysis of existing research on the topic. Second observation: It’s not just about pedophilia. On pg 15 of the PDF, it says that a small minority of the studies limited their definition of child sexual abuse to cases where the victim was prebubescent at the time. This means that most studies have mixed pedophilia in with ephebophilia.

    A page or two later my eyes glazed over, and I just went for the search bar and looked for the phrase “adult-child love”. It doesn’t appear. “Adult-child sex” appears once, on page 41 of the PDF. (The PDF doesn’t have the same pagination as the original report.) And in context, it becomes clear that the authors suggest (and it’s just a suggestion; everywhere else throughout the paper they use the term “child sexual abuse” or the acronym “CSA”) avoiding loaded language — in other words, the same sort of neutrality of language that, in other contexts, this blog advocates.

    Anyway, the closing paragraph (before the 11-page bibliography) says:

    If it is true that wrongfulness in sexual matters does not imply harmfulness ( Money, 1979 ), then it is also true that lack of harmfulness does not imply lack of wrongfulness. Moral codes of a society with respect to sexual behavior need not be, and often have not been, based on considerations of psychological harmfulness or health (cf. Finkelhor, 1984 ). Similarly, legal codes may be, and have often been, unconnected to such considerations ( Kinsey et al., 1948 ). In this sense, the findings of the current review do not imply that moral or legal definitions of or views on behaviors currently classified as CSA should be abandoned or even altered.

    So don’t judge the thing by a bunch of angry letters.

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    “I’ve taken a highschool journalism class taught by a well-known journalist in this region and I can tell you right now that professional investigative journalism doesn’t include disonesty or deceit or to get information and seeks to be objective. Because of your approach, we do have to question your objectivity.”

    Undercover journalism isn’t against journalistic ethics and has been practiced by many under many different circumstances from all across the political spectrum. Furthermore, these girls went purely for sake of their own curiosity, they didn’t publish anything.

    I love how two people have attacked the “trickery” of the girls who went undercover to see what these centers were like, but no one has talked about how many of these centers pose as secular clinics in their advertising when they are clearly not. Look at the billboard posted in this entry! Does it reveal anything about the group?

    In any event, I would prefer more fairness and accuracy (which is what I think Mollie was calling for in the first place) than the often false “objectivity” of most press reports.

  • http://jace32.bravejournal.com/ Jane

    I don’t see what the problem is with the billboard. It is true that free pregnancy tests are offered.

    What I hear repeatedly is people who somehow see something deceptive in an organization who *obviously* uses the free pregnancy tests as a tool to get young women to at least hear about other options besides abortion. That isn’t evil. It’s a smart way to reach your target audience.

    There is no obligation to disclose religious affiliation in the marketplace. And those who support CPCs–which unlike most abortion clinics are non-profit–know what their mission is.

  • John Leland

    From John Leland of the New York Times:

    A lot of thoughtful commentary on the article and subject matter here.

    I’m not sure why it’s controversial to describe the crisis pregnancy center as “designed to look and feel like a medical center, not a religion-based organization with an agenda.” No one would deny the Christian calling of the staff, nor their mission to reduce abortion. And no one, looking at the bland medical-style signage and waiting room, or reading the name A Woman’s Choice, would connect the center to either of these things. It would be remiss not to report this. But I did not think it was the whole story of the center, nor the most important facet, so I discussed it in the middle of the article and let readers make up their own mind how significant it was — whether it was bait-and-switch, as critics of pregnancy centers assert, or simply strategic marketing, as folks at the NRLC described it.

    As for the scientific literature, since it was inconclusive and contradictory, I made a choice to use the space available to me to describe what I saw on the ground — the staff, the clients, the work of the center — rather than fill it with footnotes and caveats. The two contradictory studies I mentioned ran in BMJ, formerly called the British Medical Journal (though the researchers and data are American). They’re available online at http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7528/1303 (no increase in depression) and http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/324/7330/151 (abortion increases incidence of depression). There’s a lively back-and-forth between the two authors, as well as some PA testimony, at http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/331/7528/1303.

    I won’t link other research here, but those who want to spend more time down this rabbit hole can find some other studies through the footnotes to these two.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Thanks for joining the discussion, Mr. Leland!

    You say you’re not sure why it’s controversial to describe the crisis pregnancy center as “designed to look and feel like a medical center, not a religion-based organization with an agenda.”

    You go on to explain that “no one, looking at the bland medical-style signage and waiting room, or reading the name A Woman’s Choice, would connect the center” to its Christian staff or mission to reduce abortions.

    While I would argue that the term ‘no one’ is a bit broad — I know many women, at least, who immediately would be able to identify the place so named and designed as a crisis pregnancy center . . . let me offer a few thoughts as to why it’s controversial.

    1) the word agenda — used in conjunction with the reportage that the place is designed one way, not the way it should be/could be if it were honest about its religious/political mission — implies something hidden and nefarious. That is a negative connotation.

    2) writing that the center does not broadcast its religious affiliation without mentioning that neither does it hide it tells only part of the story. It also fails to consider or provide context to the reader that many religiously-affiliated or religiously-motivated charities don’t broadcast their religious motivations. Many shelters and humanitarian groups don’t tell the recipients of their beneficence about their religious motivation at the door to the shelter, the construction site or goodwill center — even if recipients are told after they enter. Similarly, many abortion clinic personnel might not tell the recipients of their services about their political motivations or affiliations. For that matter, I have never heard of a business that advertises by saying, “please help increase our profits and make us filthy rich.” But they don’t hide their profit motivations, either.

    3) It is not unexpected that a place that provides sonograms and pregnancy tests might look like a medical center.

    4) What would a center “designed to look and feel like . . . a religion-based organization with an agenda” look like, actually? How would it differ from a pregnancy center designed “look and feel like a medical center”? Should it look like a church? A church basement, perhaps, with old carpet and a musty smell? The way it is phrased makes it seem like there is something weird about a religious organization offering its services in a professional manner.

    Having said all this, I certainly agree that it’s important for a reporter with integrity to introduce the criticism from abortion clinic personnel that CPCs trick pregnant women.

    5) Also, the fact that only the agenda of one group is highlighted is odd. Every organization — especially businesses such as abortion clinics — uses marketing to draw in clients. Every organization has an agenda — many agendas, even. It stands to reason that the profit motive of abortion clinics might lead to all sorts of marketing practices. The organizations used to bolster the arguments of CPC opponents also have agendas and marketing practices. If a reporter is going to point out the agenda and marketing practices of one, it might be good to drop in an adjective here or there to describe the marketing practices or agenda or affiliation of others. Otherwise, it looks like one side is getting the raw deal.

    Hopefully these thoughts are of some use.

    I might also recommend the essay mentioned here by Los Angeles Times reporter Stephanie Simon. She described the methods she used to write an article about an Arkansas abortionist and his clients. It’s a great piece and a great follow-up essay. She says she received complaints from folks but she also received a great deal of praise from many quarters.

  • Dan

    While I agree with the criticisms of the NYT piece, I think it should be given credit for fairly conveying something that the press too often omits (due to its pro-abortion bias)in its reporting on abortion: abortion harms women. I also thought the piece conveyed to some degree the fact that love — for both the mother and for the unborn child — drives the pro-life movement. This is something that the NYT usually doesn’t acknowledge because, I think, it doesn’t understand it. I doubt that the NYT published the pregnancy counseling piece on Martin Luther King Day because they saw a connection between pregnancy counseling centers and Martin Luther King Day. But there is a connection: both stand for solving problems through love and non-violence. I wish the NYT would publish something that displays an understanding of the intellectual depth of the pro-life movement — that reflects an understanding of, for example, “The Gospel of Life” (which I consider the single most powerful statement of the pro-life position) and Hadley Arkes’ “Natural Rights and the Right to Choose” (which I consider an outstanding statement of the secular basis for the pro-life position).

    A minor criticism I have of the piece is that in my experience there is no divide in the pro-life movement between “non-political” supporters of pregnancy counseling centers and “political activists.” I am involved in both spheres and most of the people I know in the pro-life movement are also.

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    A point I don’t think has been mentioned so far: In some cases (I don’t know how many — could be a minority, could be the majority), these crisis pregnancy centers do not have state licensing to practice medicine.

  • Dan

    Some pregnancy counseling centers are certified to be “clinics” and some are not. Those that are not do not administer pregnancy tests or ultrasounds.

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    According to that press release from Elliot Spitzer’s office I linked to above, the agreement Spitzer reached with an upstate NY CPC (Birthright of Victor NY, Inc) included the following points:

    * The CPC will clearly inform persons who inquire about abortion or birth control that it does not provide those services or make referrals for them.
    * The CPC will disclose before providing testing or counseling that it is not a licensed medicla facility.
    * It will clarify in advertising that the pregnancy tests it offers are over-the-counter tests.
    * People who call or visit will be told that it is not a medical facility.

    Consider what this agreement implies about the CPC’s behavior before being investigated. Consider that Spitzer issued subpeonas to 24 CPCs in NY state. Consider that the director of one CPC described the requirements I listed as “oppressive client turnoff regulations” and “onerous, oppressive, violations of our free speech.”

  • http://www.rsnider.blog-city.com Rachael

    Jason,
    They underhanded methods your friends used were unethical. It’s one thing to be undercover, it’s another to be deceptive and lie. Also, I’d like to note that NARAL encourages such undercover and deceptive reporting. Wherein it’s not uncommon for high school and college students to interview the directors and tour the center and be able to gather the same kind of information.

    To address your question:
    Indeed some centers unfortuantly do use underhanded techniques in counseling. But keep in mind different centers operate under different parent organizations and are not all alike. For example, Birthright is not affiliated with any religous group, does not engage in religious discussions nor show graphic abortion videos. Also, as another posted, most non-profits don’t anounce or advertise their religious or political affiliations but neither do they hide it.

    Also, keep in mind their focus is on serving women in the position to choose and information and services their clients request, not pleasing political advocates or political correctness. So some services you may disagree with, may be services that women in that position may ask for (such as discussion of their religious beliefs, assistance available if they decided to carry to term, fetal development, etc.). Also, most clients aren’t concerned with political or religious affiliations, but rather the assistance and support they offer. Look at Goodwill and Salvation Army and how many clients they see for example.

    Also PRCs don’t advertise abortion services and are always listed under Abortion Alternatives in the yellow pages of the phone book. Also if a client asks how to get an abortion, they are legally obliged to tell their clients if they don’t preform abortions or refer for abortions, however they can inform them on the risk and procedure. No false advertising there. And if you look at most billboard or print ads, there’s usually not a full disclosure of the services or product their advertising due to a limit of space. Usually the responsibility falls on the consumer to research and be informed on their health care or social services provider.

  • http://www.rsnider.blog-city.com Rachael

    Avram,
    The agreement was moreso politically motived, applauded and encouraged by pro-choice activist groups such as NARAL and PP seeking to shut down pregnancy resource centers because of their idealogical stance (regardless of the services they offer).

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    Got some evidence of that, Rachel? I ran into plenty of anti-abortion rights sources making that claim while hunting up those sources I linked to (and do please note that one of those sources is itself an anti-abortion group), but none of them had any evidence, it was all just raw assertion of bad will.

    Naturally it was applauded by NARAL and Planned Parenthood, but that’s not evidence that the CPC weren’t actually doing the things of which they were accused.

    Look at the first item on that list! If somebody asks if you provide abortion services, you have to give an honest answer. What kind of person would object to that requirement?

  • Dan

    The NYT piece mentions a CPC that advertised as “A Woman’s Choice.” Ha ha, I like that one. It’s totally accurate and puts pro-choice propoganda to good use.

  • http://www.rsnider.blog-city.com Rachael

    Avram,
    New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is dedicated to reproductive choice and a member of NARAL Pro-Choice America, is he not?

    Remarks By Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
    NARAL Luncheon
    New York City
    January 22, 1999
    http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/1999/jan/jan22a_attachment_99.html

    In a booklet, entitled “A Step By Step Guide to Unmasking Fake Clinics” published by NARAL Pro-Choice America, activists are encouraged to enlist the help of their state attorney general to investigate and severely regulate what CPCs say and do. Paraphrased from the booklet:
    File complaints with state agencies against CPCs for false and misleading advertising and pursue individual litigation against CPCs for the express purpose of closing them down.

    No, I don’t think that requirements are unreasonable at all, as any place that provides medical or counseling services (PP’s and abortion providers included) should be regulated, however it should be in the best interests of consumer health, not a political interest group.

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    Rachel, I should have been more specific. It’s not Spitzer’s political affiliations I have a problem with, it’s your claim that “groups such as NARAL and PP seeking to shut down pregnancy resource centers because of their idealogical stance (regardless of the services they offer)“. Do you have any evidence that the subpoenas served by Spitzer’s office contained false accusations? Any evidence that NARAL and PP would try to shut down CPCs even if CPCs were honest and forthright about what they do?

    Note the distinction Dan draws above between centers that are certified as clinics and those that aren’t. Note that the NARAL booklet is about unmasking fake clinics. The Pearson Foundation’s “How to Start and Operate Your Own Pro-Life Outreach Crisis Pregnancy Center” actually suggests dishonest tactics like setting up near legitimate family planning services and choosing similar names so as to trick women into visiting the wrong office. And there have been several cases of courts having to order CPCs to stop falsely passing themselves off as medical facilities.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Had to mention this story in NYT today that the “agendaless” National Cancer Institute might be embroiled in a medical scandal.

    A researcher, who previously said his funding came from the National Cancer Institute, fabricated data in a paper that argued anti-inflammatory meds reduced oral cancer. Data was falsified, though.

    So sometimes the National Cancer Institute might lend credence to those it shouldn’t. Which makes sense, since it’s comprised of humans and humans make mistakes.

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    So what are you saying is the National Cancer Institute’s agenda, as revealed by this story? Something other than fighting cancer?

    And you neglected to provide a link. Here:
    NY Times: “Cancer Study Was Made Up, Journal Says”
    Wash Post: “Second Med Journal Probes Research Fraud”
    More from Google News

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Oh I’m not saying anything about their main agenda which, I hope, would remain fighting cancer.

    Just that we should not pretend that an organization comprised of humans is perfect or beyond reproach.

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    Was anyone pretending that or saying it? I must have missed it.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Does anyone blindly trust the government or its agencies? I fear they do.

    Do folks think scientists are solely agents of reason beyond reproach? Again, I fear they do.

    I could be wrong, or I could know the wrong people . . .

    Well, I definitely know the wrong people, but either way I fear that people think scientists and the government are somehow perfect while the rest of the world is normal.

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    Really? In all my life I don’t think I’ve ever met so much as a single person who thought that government was perfect.

  • Rachael

    Sorry I never responded, Avram. I was ill this past weekend and busy catching up at work this past week. However, I’d be interesting in continuing our previous discussion if you’re interested.