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What I Learned Undercover at a Crisis Pregnancy Center



By Caitlin Bancroft
Legal intern, NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia; Student, The George Washington University Law School
Posted: 08/15/2013 3:11 pm

I wasn't considering abortion. I wasn't considering adoption, or parenting, or childcare. I wasn't even pregnant, and I definitely wasn't scared -- at least not at first.

When I volunteered to visit multiple crisis pregnancy centers in Virginia, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are the foot soldiers [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/crisis-pregnancy-centers_n_3721377.html ] in the war against women. These anti-choice non-profits pose as women's health clinics then use lies and manipulation to dissuade pregnant women from considering their full range of reproductive options (ie: abortion and birth control).

CPCs use a variety of tactics to lure women into their buildings: they offer free pregnancy testing, are known to list themselves under "abortion" in online directories and search results, and may use misleading names with the hope that women will confuse them for legitimate healthcare providers. Once inside, women are treated to a carefully crafted program of manipulation designed to dissuade them from choosing abortion, birth control, and if they're not married - sex.

In Virginia, there are over 58 CPCs, more than double the number of comprehensive reproductive healthcare centers in the state. Still, most people are unaware that CPCs exist -- let alone understand the harm they cause. But I knew exactly what I was up against when I walked into "AAA Women for Choice" in Manassas, Virginia.

At first glance, the center resembled a doctor's office. The waiting room looked like it belonged to a pediatrician, complete with magazines and children's toys. The atmosphere provided a sense of credibility and legitimacy. Under different circumstances, I would have trusted this façade; it would have put me at ease.

After checking in, I was introduced to my "counselor," a conservatively dressed middle-aged woman who led me to one of the back rooms. She sat across from me with some forms on a clipboard I was not permitted to see. Much like the décor, the set-up reinforced the sense of professionalism and expertise. The consultation began with the standard questions: name, address, age, date of last period?

Right as I began to relax, the Q&A took a turn for the personal and invasive. "What is your relationship with your parents like?" "How is your financial situation?" "Have you told the father?" "What is his religion?" "Are his parents religious?" "How many people have you slept with?" "Would your parents be excited about a grandchild?"

As I sat there having my life probed, the purpose of the questions dawned on me. In case the test was positive, my "counselor" wanted to know which tactic to use to persuade me to continue the pregnancy -- exactly where my resolve was the weakest. Was there a loving Christian boyfriend who would make a great dad? Did I have kind supportive parents who would be excited by the idea of a grandchild? I knew I wasn't pregnant -- knew exactly what she was doing -- knew she wasn't a doctor. But my body reacted instinctively to her questions with guilt and shame. It felt like a kick in the gut when she asked if I had told my brother about the baby, and I felt a creeping sense of selfishness as I imagined the door slamming on my shared apartment, my twenties, my life. Would my parents want me to have this child? Would it matter?

The woman stopped between questions to comment on my answers and lie. "Oh, you've taken birth control. Let me tell you how that causes cancer and is the same a medication abortion." I was told abortion would scar me for the rest of my life -- would damage all of my future relationships and leave me "haunted." I was told the pill could cause breast cancer, that condoms are "naturally porous" and don't protect against STIs, and that IUDs could kill me. She lectured and lied to me for over an hour before I even received the results of my pregnancy test.

Also interspersed in the deception were subtle judgments of my life decisions. "So you do have some scruples about you," she said at one point, referring to my low number of sexual partners. One of the most disturbing comments came when I was pressed about the sexual experience leading to my visit, the reason I supposedly needed a pregnancy test in the first place. I told her an all too common story of acquaintance rape. I had been at a party, I said, severely intoxicated and unable to consent, "I didn't remember anything... I just wished it hadn't happened." Her response made it clear that the situation was my fault, "Oh so he took advantage of you. Well just don't do it again sweetie; just don't do it again." It made me sick.

It only got worse after a positive pregnancy test. At another CPC (the deceptively named "A Woman's Choice" in Falls Church, Virginia) I could hear two employees whispering before entering my room, plotting strategies to reveal the test results and best manipulate my reaction. When they did finally clue me in, my concerns were casually brushed aside and used as ammunition for their agenda: I could care for a baby with no job, my parents would certainly help, and I could absolutely handle the stress. They even argued that I could be a law student while pregnant: "It will probably be good for the baby," the woman said, "because you will be sitting down all of the time."

At this center and elsewhere, the conversations were always the same. It didn't matter how many times I said that l didn't want to be pregnant or be a mother the CPC staffer would continue to bully me. Their tactics were so blatantly manipulative that I should have been able to fight back. I wanted to have a response, some kind of self-defense. But I couldn't find anything to say. I am pro-choice feminist activist and I often discuss these kinds of difficult and emotionally sensitive topics at work and in school. Yet these women's so-called concern left me defenseless, struggling to find a response that didn't play right into their hands.

The way that these women treated me made one thing very clear: they didn't care about me, my future, my happiness, or my relationships. I was simply a shell that needed to be distracted and kept questioning until it was too late for me to make my own choices, and too late for me to decide if this is what I wanted -- or not. I truly can't imagine the pain that CPCs inflict on women who are actually struggling with an unintended pregnancy. I left each CPC feeling humiliated, terrified, and panicked... and I wasn't even pregnant.

I think we can all agree that it is wrong to shame someone seeking guidance. It is wrong to lie to someone in order to manipulate her future. It is wrong to treat women like walking wombs. Yet these tactics are core to the mission of Virginia's crisis pregnancy centers. They advertise to scared women who need help, and they claim to offer unbiased information, guidance, and support to those who need it. But instead CPCs treat women the way they treated me -- like disobedient children who need to be schooled in religion and saved from their own decisions. To them a woman is a vessel for a future baby, nothing more.

Ultimately, my undercover CPC investigations allowed me to witness firsthand the cruelty and deception at the heart of the anti-choice movement. As a result, I am even more dedicated to ensuring that every woman has the freedom to make her own deeply personal reproductive health decisions. Surprisingly, I also realized that I agree with Virginia CPCs on one point: when a woman walks through their doors, a life is at stake. But throughout all of my investigations, I was the only one who thought it was mine.

Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caitlin-bancroft/crisis-pregnancy-center_b_3763196.html [with comments]


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Kansas Anti-Abortion Activist Says George Tiller's Former Clinic Is 'Trying To Provoke' Gun Violence


A protester is seen outside the funeral of abortion doctor George Tiller at College Hill United Methodist Church on Saturday, June 6, 2009, in Wichita, Kansas.
(Photo by Allison Long/Kansas City Star/MCT via Getty Images)

By Laura Bassett
Posted: 08/15/2013 4:51 pm EDT | Updated: 08/15/2013 4:55 pm EDT

The Wichita, Kan., abortion clinic that reopened in April for the first time since the 2009 shooting of Dr. George Tiller is "trying to provoke an incident" of gun violence in order to raise money, a prominent Kansas anti-abortion activist alleged Thursday.

Mark Gietzen, chairman of the Kansas Coalition for Life, said he believes the South Wind Women's Center is allowing volunteers to escort women into the clinic in hopes that they will harass the anti-abortion protesters outside and provoke a shooting. He said Julie Burkhart, the founder and owner of the clinic, would blame the incident on the protesters in order to raise money.

Gietzen also said it's possible that the father or boyfriend of the woman seeking an abortion might show up to the clinic angry and armed because they disapprove of the abortion, and a security guard or nearby protester could end up getting shot.

When one of these men "walks up carrying a gun, and he doesn't want that abortion to happen, somebody is going to get a bullet in their head," Gietzen said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "I think she's trying to provoke an incident so she can say, "Look, these pro-lifers did something," and people from California and New York and these other places will give her money."

Burkhart told HuffPost that her clinic is on "high alert" after hearing about Gietzen's comments. She said she does not have volunteer escorts at her clinic because the women can be driven past the protesters right up to the door, and added that she has no interest in provoking violence against anyone on her property.

"We absolutely don't have that strategy in mind," she said. "I just find [Gietzen's statements] to be rather curious, shocking and unnerving. We absolutely take everyone's safety and security seriously-- our patients, our employees-- and while we might not agree with what these protesters do outside, of course I would want no harm to come to them either."

Any association of Burkhart's clinic with gun violence invokes the memory of Tiller, a former physician at the clinic who was fatally shot by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder while he was attending church. Burkhart worked with Tiller for years and reopened his clinic [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/04/10/julie_burkhart_reopens_dr_george_tiller_s_clininc_anti_choice_militants.html ] with a new name in April.

Several anti-abortion groups in Kansas, including Gietzen's, are now trying to convince the Wichita City Council to change its zoning requirements so that the South Wind Women's Center can no longer operate there. Gietzen sparked controversy earlier this week [ http://cjonline.com/news/2013-08-14/abortion-groups-tussle-over-potential-gun-violence ] when he warned the Wichita City Council that if it does not force the clinic out of its current location, its neighbors would "continuously be in the line of fire."

Compounding the issue is the fact that Kansas recently expanded concealed carry locations [ http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/Kansas-Conceal-Carry-Changes-Begin-Today-213848661.html ] in the state, allowing licensed permit holders to carry guns in more public venues.

"With the new conceal carry laws enacted since the closure of the Tiller Abortion Facility, the number of armed people present on-site will likely be higher, not lower," Gietzen wrote in a news release.

Burkhart said the city has no grounds on which to zone out her clinic. It serves a high level of need, she said, performing over a hundred abortions per month, and the nearest abortion clinic is about a three hours away by car. Plus, her clinic is already in a medical zone.

"This area has been zoned medical since the mid 1930s or late 1930s," she said. "If they were to miraculously be able to rezone us, the Crisis Pregnancy Center to the south of us would be zoned out as well as the chiropractic and kinesiology clinics close by. I just don't think they have a lot of standing."

Two major Kansas anti-abortion groups, Kansans for Life and Operation Rescue, have joined with Gietzen to try to zone out Burkhart's clinic, but they quickly distanced themselves from Gietzen's remarks about gun violence this week.

"Kansans for Life disagrees with and wishes to completely separate ourselves from Mr. Gietzen's controversial remarks citing the potential for gun violence at abortion clinics as a reason to rezone the South Wind clinic," Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, told the Capital-Journal [ http://cjonline.com/news/2013-08-14/abortion-groups-tussle-over-potential-gun-violence ].

She added, "He said things nobody should say."

Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/kansas-abortion-mark-gietzen_n_3762079.html [with comments]


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Sex Ed, 1964



By JOYCE WADLER
Published: August 14, 2013

Every once in a while I read about sex ed in middle school and kids putting condoms on bananas and I feel kind of sad I missed out on this. This is not just because of the comic possibilities of condoms on bananas, actually anything having to do with bananas, but because kids today have so much accurate information.

I grew up in the 1950's, in a resort town in the Catskills. The only time my mother gave me any information about sex was when I was 13 and traveling alone for the first time to visit an uncle in California.

“We haven’t talked much about this,” Ma said. “But if a strange man ever puts his hands on you, you open your mouth and scream.”

Vague, some might say, but I was one of those kids who had been reading adult books since I was 7 or 8; “The Carpetbaggers,” “Peyton Place,” delving especially deep into my uncle’s Mickey Spillane collection, and I considered myself rather knowledgeable.

Here is what I learned about sex from my reading:

Women with dyed blond hair are sexually available, but may try to shoot you later.

When women undress to have sex their breasts start heaving uncontrollably. That’s how you know they’re into it, which they always are, despite wanting to kill you later.

Sex always ends with an explosion, which tears through your body so intensely you see brightly colored stars. I pictured it exactly like a fireworks show, so you can imagine my disappointment years later. Of course, that may be because I was with that most accomplished of lovers, a teenage boy.

Luckily, by the time I was 16, I had moved on to more anatomically instructive reading material: Henry Miller (very acrobatic and apparently did not spend his time in Paris at the Louvre), James Baldwin (not as much sex, but what there was was choice) and, best of all, the Playboy Advisor.

You had to haul through all sorts of tedious stuff about stereo systems and a well-stocked bar before getting to one item of sexual information and it seems to me this might have been the place where I picked up the information about Saran Wrap. I don’t think it was Henry Miller because, thinking back on it, the French in those days wouldn’t have needed Saran Wrap, because they went to the food market daily and wouldn’t have had leftovers. On the other hand, it was so absurd even Hugh Hefner couldn’t have endorsed it. Probably that was what attracted me, the silliness of it. It couldn’t be viable? Could it?

This sex tip, anyway, was that in place of a condom, one could use Saran Wrap, you just had to make certain things were well wrapped.

Looking back on it I find it hard to believe there was a teenage boy willing to go along with this, but then we were dealing with the thing a teenage boy will do anything for: sex.

So we got the Saran Wrap and wrapped. And wrapped. And wrapped. You new readers may not know this, but in matters of safety and personal health I am scrupulous. So we kept wrapping. I cannot, even in educationally correct greengrocer terms (root vegetable? zucchini? summer squash?) do justice to the final result. Let’s just say the only sexual thing possible, when we were done, was to look, and having looked, it was not something you would ever forget. Wait, I’ve got it: Picture a noble palace guard, swathed in 13 layers of dry cleaner’s plastic wrap, but, you know, proportional.

Anyway, summer ends, the teenage boy, who had been a waiter at one of the hotels, goes back home to New York City and this being one of the things in my life I want to block out forever, I do.

Until one day when I am 62, in the supermarket and a voice calls out: "Joyce! Joyce Wadler!" And it is he. Now a shrink. Living one block away from me. Who has remembered, God help me, my full name. I chat with him for the least possible time because all I can see is that image sort of hanging over us, like a Goodyear blimp. I cannot believe he is not remembering it, too, but it’s not the sort of thing I want to acknowledge. Where would I start? "Shrink, huh, what made you get into that?" “Do much cooking?” “What do you think is better, baggies or Saran Wrap or do you like your stuff shrink wrapped?”

Condoms on bananas in middle school? Great idea.

Joyce Wadler is the author of “Cured: My Ovarian Cancer Story [ http://www.amazon.com/Ovarian-Cancer-Plucky-Strikes-ebook/dp/B00DUEEIO2 ].” Previous “I Was Misinformed” columns can be found here [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/booming/columns/i_was_misinformed/index.html ].

© 2013 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/booming/sex-ed-1964.html [with comments]