Uncle Sam’s Pregnancy Scam

Lies and the federally-funded pregnancy centers that tell them.

By Emily Amick, Wellesley College

What if 87 percent of all health information centers gave out false information? Smokers would be told that a pack a day adds years to their lives.

Luckily things like that just don’t happen … right? Actually, investigators from Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) office have found that 87 percent of pregnancy resources centers (PRCs) provide false information about the consequences of abortion. PRCs are facilities that provide free pregnancy tests and counseling services, and sometimes offer parenting classes, baby supplies, and sonograms. Since 2001, PRCs have received over $30 million in federal funding.

For Waxman’s recent report, False and Misleading Health Information Provided by Federally Funded Pregnancy Resource Centers, the congressman’s staff contacted 25 PRCs that have received money from the new $150 million Compassion Capital Fund, a fund of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services designed to support faith-based and community organizations. Twenty-two of the centers received an estimated $650,000 from the Institute for Youth Development, a middleman agency that has been awarded $7.5 million from the Compassion Capital Fund over three years. Fifteen of those groups were given funds to specifically pursue a “medical model” of service delivery.

The investigators posed as pregnant 17-year-olds deciding whether or not to have an abortion and successfully made contact with 23 PRCs. Twenty centers provided the callers with false information about the affects of abortion in an effort to convince her to carry her child to term.

Eight centers said that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer; one center said that it increases the risk by as much as 80 percent. Several studies have found no increased risk of breast cancer following an induced abortion, including a major 1997 New England Journal of Medicine article. Seven centers told the caller that having an abortion has severe negative affects on future fertility, despite the fact that researchers have compiled studies from 21 countries that prove that abortion poses no risk to infertility, low birth weight, “miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death or congenital malformations.” Lastly, thirteen of the centers warned of the long-lasting psychological effects of an abortion—the so-called “post-abortion stress syndrome.” One center said that the suicide rate for the year after an abortion “goes up by seven times.” Neither the American Psychological Association nor the American Psychiatric Associations recognizes this syndrome. An American Psychological Association expert panel found, “persuasive evidence that abortion is usually psychologically benign.” A British study followed 13,000 women over 11 years and found that abortion did not affect need for psychological treatment.

Abortion, compared to childbirth, is actually a relatively safe procedure. A woman is 11 times more likely to die from childbirth than from an abortion.

As more and more restrictions are placed on abortion, PRCs are becoming the only places in many regions for women to turn to with an unintended pregnancy. In states such as Mississippi, where there is only one struggling clinic left that performs abortions, there are at least 36 pregnancy resource centers. But as Vicki Saporta, President of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) said, “[PRCs] exist to sway women from having abortions and in order to do that they give women misinformation that could in fact be harmful to them in the long run.”

Indeed, PRCs are in the business of ensuring that women don’t have abortions. Thomas Glessner is the former President of CareNet and now President of the National Institute of Family & Life Advocates (NIFLA). He wrote an article for At The Center, the professional magazine for PRCs, with the tagline, “Many centers are acknowledging frustration over the fact that their ministries are becoming more social welfare agencies than cutting edge forces to reduce abortion.” These centers specifically target “abortion-vulnerable women.” In the report “Crisis Pregnancy Centers: An Affront to Choice,” NAF chronicles PRC-targeted outreach strategies for the “abortion-minded”—women who are young and low-income. PRCs capitalize on the lack of abortion accessibility in rural areas; 97 percent of non-metropolitan counties lack a provider. PRCs offer free pregnancy tests and locate themselves near universities to attract young women who are most “at risk” for abortion.

Historically, PRCs have used underhanded techniques to lure women into their centers, such as advertising in the Yellow Pages under “abortion” or choosing names similar to that of full-option reproductive health clinics. In 1986, Planned Parenthood won a logo infringement suite against a PRC that obtained an office on the same floor as the Planned Parenthood Clinic and then placed a sign outside their door that read, “PP, Inc.” In a 1994 speech, the founder of the first Crisis Pregnancy Center, in Hawaii, Robert Pearson, said, “A killer, who in this case is the girl who wants to kill her baby, has no right to information that will help her kill her baby. Therefore when she calls and says, ‘Do you do abortions?’ we do not tell her, ‘No, we don’t do abortions.’”

Once a woman is lured into the center, PRCs do everything in their power to prevent her from having an abortion. A variety of techniques are used – everything from promises of emotional and financial support (which are sometimes available) to grotesque slide shows, scare tactics about the effects of abortion, and religious-based threats centered on Christian beliefs. Some PRCs go as far as to show movies depicting graphic images of dismembered fetuses that have allegedly been aborted. And a new technique has emerged in recent years, one that is proving to be an extremely effective tool for influencing women’s decisions—showing the woman ultrasound images of the unborn fetus.

“Once an expectant mother is able to see the life growing inside of her and hear its heartbeat, her callous resolve to abort that life begins to fade. Awed at the life growing within her, she bonds with her baby,” said Angie Vineyard, a writer at Concerned Women for America.

Ultrasound machines have become number one on Santa’s wish list for PRCs all over the country. A Baton Rouge clinic reports that 98 percent of their “abortion-minded” clients, “chose life” after receiving an ultrasound. The Pregnancy Resource Center of Dallas has found a 243 percent increase in the number of “clients” that have chosen to carry to term after they started doing ultrasounds. But according to Focus on the Family, only 15 percent of PRCs currently have ultrasound capabilities.

The high efficacy rates of the ultrasound technology model of “introducing a woman to her unborn baby” have motivated two major organizations, Focus on the Family and the National Institute of Family & Life Advocates (NIFLA), to take on the crusade of getting ultrasound machines in centers. Focus on the Family has started a program called “Option Ultrasound” to raise money for PRCs to buy ultrasound machines and become “professional in their day-to-day operations, fundraising and public relations.”

In order to legally have an ultrasound machine, a PRC must be a state-registered medical clinic. NIFLA’s “Life Choice Project” provides centers with a comprehensive package of everything needed to convert to medical clinic status. In most states, the only requirement is to have a physician serving as the Medical Director and supervising all the medical services. Alice Thompson, executive director of Heartbeat Pregnancy Center in Beloit, Kansas explained to CampusProgress that the doctor can in fact be in “his office across town” and still serve in this function legally.

Pro-life politicians have also joined in the effort to get ultrasound machines in PRCs. In 2005 Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) proposed the Informed Choice Act, legislation (still stuck in committee) that would allow HHS to provide PRCs with grants to buy ultrasound equipment.

PRCs want ultrasound machines not to provide women with healthcare services, but rather simply to convince them to carry the fetus to term. The executive director of a Florida center that received a grant from the Institute for Youth Development said they wanted to have an ultrasound machine for women “to have accurate information regarding the pregnancy, which is what the girls are seeking and what they need to make an informed decision.” The Waxman report proved, however, that these clinics are providing women with false information. Vicki Saporta of NAF reported that some of clinics are even showing women ultrasounds of a fetus from a woman much further along in her pregnancy than the individual woman is.

“I think it’s unfortunate that taxpayers’ dollars are used by centers who mislead women who are very vulnerable with misinformation about abortion and health,” Representative Waxman told CampusProgress. “It was clearly a way to scare them into not having an abortion even though it’s a legal option.”

By providing this “service” under the auspices of “medical care,” PRCs are misleading the public and endangering women’s lives. An article in the Christian news publication World Magazine published in 2000 says that one of the positives of a PRC being classified as a medical clinic is that “pro-abortion groups” can no longer accuse PRCs of being “fake clinics.” A real clinic provides medical services in an unbiased and accepting setting. At a PRC, the lines between medical care and faith-based counseling are blurred. PRCs are not there to help a woman make her own decision, but to convince her to make their decision. In that process, they disregard scientific evidence and a constitutionally protected right in exchange for furthering their cause.

Representative Waxman said, “If we allow these groups to get money, they should do what’s required of them, which is to provide accurate information and counsel women, but not scare them and push them into a choice which may not be their choice if they were given all the accurate facts.”

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, "Anyone looking for health-care information or services deserves full, unbiased, and relevant facts. This includes a woman facing an unintended pregnancy. … Taxpayer dollars are being spent to spread deceptive and false information through crisis pregnancy centers.  Political propaganda should never take priority over women’s health—it’s time for Congress to step in and hold these fake ‘clinics’ accountable." 

Waxman’s report shows that these centers will throw science and medicine aside in order to promote their ideological vantage point. Medical care is not the place for theocratic rule.

 
Emily Amick is a senior at Wellesley College and a summer intern at The Nation in New York City. You can reach her at EmilyAmick@gmail.com.

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