Taxpayer-Funded Anti-Abortion Centers Posing as Abortion Clinics
Places like this, that trick pregnant girls into getting ultrasounds when they want an abortion, are just plain cruel.
On June 6, Cheryl Smith took her last $600 and drove her teenage daughter from Baltimore to Severna Park to get an abortion. When they got there, a receptionist told them the clinic had changed hands. The abortion provider had moved a few miles away, she said, but the new clinic would offer a pregnancy test and sonogram for free.
The Smiths stayed. After they saw a picture of the fetus at 21 weeks with arms and legs and a face, their thoughts of termination were gone.
"As soon as I seen that, I was ready. It wasn't no joke. It was real," Makiba Smith, 16, said. "It was like, he's not born to the world yet, but he is inside of me growing."
With its ultrasound machine and its location, the Severna Park Pregnancy Clinic demonstrates two of the most important tactics in an intensifying campaign to woo women away from abortion clinics. Antiabortion organizations in recent years have added medical services to hundreds of Christian-oriented pregnancy counseling centers nationwide. Many of these antiabortion clinics have opened in or near places where women go to end pregnancies.
So 16 year old Cheryl Smith decided to keep her baby. (I wonder if these people are going to help an under-educated, unmarried teenager with no job still living at home raise this kid after working so hard to get her to keep it? Sh-yeah, riiiight.)
Thankfully, not all young women are falling for these people's tricks:
But many women say they have felt duped. The National Abortion Federation has received hundreds of calls and e-mails from women who say they went into pregnancy centers with vague or confusing names, many of them found under "abortion services" headings in the phone book. Rather than receiving unbiased counseling on all of their legal options, these women said, they found themselves listening to frightening, sometimes false, information.
Last year, Allyson Kirk, 24, of Manassas, a student at Northern Virginia Community College, became pregnant and made an appointment at an abortion clinic in Manassas to talk about her options. When she arrived at the office park where the clinic was based, she saw a sign advertising "free pregnancy test" at a center called AAA Women for Choice. She walked in.
Kirk was given some forms to fill out. A woman took a urine sample for her test. While she was waiting for the results, the woman asked a series of questions about her religious beliefs and then told her about high rates of infection, depression and even death among women who had abortions, Kirk said.
When Kirk was shown a video depiction of a fetus's head being severed during a surgical abortion, she walked out.
"I was outraged," Kirk said. She recalled saying: "This is horrible. I can't believe you do this to women who are lost and looking for help."
Good for Ms. Kirk.
Oh, and did I mention these places are partially funded by our tax dollars?
Some funding is also coming from taxpayers. About 20 states have designated funding for antiabortion counseling centers, according to the Chicago-based law firm Americans United for Life. Last year, Minnesota appropriated $5 million and Texas $2.5 million for centers that encourage women to carry pregnancies to term. About a dozen states, including Maryland, contribute revenue to such centers through the sale of license plates stamped "Choose Life."
A report in July from congressional Democrats found that the federal government has contributed $30 million to antiabortion pregnancy centers since 2001. Most of that money paid for sexual abstinence education. But some was distributed as grants to help pay for ultrasound machines, the report found. For example, Life Line Pregnancy Care Center in Loudoun County received a $50,000 federal grant last year to buy a machine.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, Luna smash.
On June 6, Cheryl Smith took her last $600 and drove her teenage daughter from Baltimore to Severna Park to get an abortion. When they got there, a receptionist told them the clinic had changed hands. The abortion provider had moved a few miles away, she said, but the new clinic would offer a pregnancy test and sonogram for free.
The Smiths stayed. After they saw a picture of the fetus at 21 weeks with arms and legs and a face, their thoughts of termination were gone.
"As soon as I seen that, I was ready. It wasn't no joke. It was real," Makiba Smith, 16, said. "It was like, he's not born to the world yet, but he is inside of me growing."
With its ultrasound machine and its location, the Severna Park Pregnancy Clinic demonstrates two of the most important tactics in an intensifying campaign to woo women away from abortion clinics. Antiabortion organizations in recent years have added medical services to hundreds of Christian-oriented pregnancy counseling centers nationwide. Many of these antiabortion clinics have opened in or near places where women go to end pregnancies.
So 16 year old Cheryl Smith decided to keep her baby. (I wonder if these people are going to help an under-educated, unmarried teenager with no job still living at home raise this kid after working so hard to get her to keep it? Sh-yeah, riiiight.)
Thankfully, not all young women are falling for these people's tricks:
But many women say they have felt duped. The National Abortion Federation has received hundreds of calls and e-mails from women who say they went into pregnancy centers with vague or confusing names, many of them found under "abortion services" headings in the phone book. Rather than receiving unbiased counseling on all of their legal options, these women said, they found themselves listening to frightening, sometimes false, information.
Last year, Allyson Kirk, 24, of Manassas, a student at Northern Virginia Community College, became pregnant and made an appointment at an abortion clinic in Manassas to talk about her options. When she arrived at the office park where the clinic was based, she saw a sign advertising "free pregnancy test" at a center called AAA Women for Choice. She walked in.
Kirk was given some forms to fill out. A woman took a urine sample for her test. While she was waiting for the results, the woman asked a series of questions about her religious beliefs and then told her about high rates of infection, depression and even death among women who had abortions, Kirk said.
When Kirk was shown a video depiction of a fetus's head being severed during a surgical abortion, she walked out.
"I was outraged," Kirk said. She recalled saying: "This is horrible. I can't believe you do this to women who are lost and looking for help."
Good for Ms. Kirk.
Oh, and did I mention these places are partially funded by our tax dollars?
Some funding is also coming from taxpayers. About 20 states have designated funding for antiabortion counseling centers, according to the Chicago-based law firm Americans United for Life. Last year, Minnesota appropriated $5 million and Texas $2.5 million for centers that encourage women to carry pregnancies to term. About a dozen states, including Maryland, contribute revenue to such centers through the sale of license plates stamped "Choose Life."
A report in July from congressional Democrats found that the federal government has contributed $30 million to antiabortion pregnancy centers since 2001. Most of that money paid for sexual abstinence education. But some was distributed as grants to help pay for ultrasound machines, the report found. For example, Life Line Pregnancy Care Center in Loudoun County received a $50,000 federal grant last year to buy a machine.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, Luna smash.