Across the country, explicitly religious groups running “crisis pregnancy centers” are receiving taxpayer funding to carry out their fight against abortion. And many, like the Care Net Pregnancy Resource Center in Rapid City, S.D, only hire Christians.
“Do you consider yourself a Christian?” asks the center’s volunteer application. “If yes, how long have you been a Christian? … As a Christian, what is the basis of your salvation? … Please provide the following information concerning your local church. Church name … Denomination … Pastor’s name.” The application instructs volunteers to certify that they are “in full agreement with the pregnancy center’s Statement of Faith.”
In 2010, the center was awarded a $33,610 “capacity building” grant as part of President Obama’s stimulus bill.
Last year, the nonprofit National Fatherhood Initiative, with “support from the US Department of Health and Human Services,” awarded the center $25,000.
When South Dakota passed a law requiring that women get counseling from a “pregnancy help center” before receiving an abortion, the Rapid City center was quick to sign up — becoming one of three such facilities listed on the state’s official website. (Much of the law is tied up in an ongoing court battle and has yet to take effect.)
Like other crisis pregnancy centers, the Rapid City Care Net seeks to prevent abortions by offering women a combination of free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, a “24 hour hotline,” and medically dubious “abortion education” (its website wrongly claims that “a number of reliable studies have demonstrated connection between abortion and later development of breast cancer”).
The Rapid City center is not alone. The facility says it “submits to the affiliation guidelines” of the national Care Net organization, which supports more than 1,100 Christian crisis pregnancy centers. Care Net requires that at each center, “all board members, staff, and volunteers of the center agree with” its evangelical Statement of Faith.
WTF? How in the hell can these places receive federal funds, while providing bogus health information, and screening their applicants to keep the non-Christians from working there?
Perhaps we should stop worrying bout this country becoming a theocracy and simply admit that all intents and purposes we already are!
There's more here.
These are the same theocrats trying to rid the country of Planned Parenthood.
ReplyDeleteAll those white babies being sold for adoption, you know...
I'd like to give you a different perspective on at least one of these centers before you full on decide they are "bogus."
ReplyDeleteWhen I learned I was pregnant, I did not have insurance. I had no idea what to do. Believe it or not, I called Planned Parenthood, thinking they might be able to point me in the direction of a doctor or at least see me, as I heard they provided women's health services. They told me they couldn't help me. So, I came across one of these centers. They scheduled an appointment with me right away. When I came in, they gave me a free ultrasound, plus information on how to apply for Medicaid, a list of doctors that accepted Medicaid, along with a lot of other practical financial information and resources. Then they sent me home with a big basket of goodies for a pregnant woman, lol.
In the months ahead, they contacted me about once every few months to make sure I was doing ok and to see if I needed any assistance.
This is just one anecdotal example, but I will never forget it. I will also never forget that Planned Parenthood was of no help. It was frankly very disappointing, because I do support Planned Parenthood's efforts in distributing birth control and cancer screenings for women in need. But it was definitely a surprise that they couldn't even see me as a pregnant woman just to give me a general check-up. Granted, it might have just been that one branch office, I don't know.
I flat out don't believe you.
DeleteI refer myself to a Crisis Pregnancy Center with the lure of a free pregnancy test when I saw their ad on a billboard--
DeleteI was twenty-one, married and had one child already. There wasn't a question in my mind about keeping my baby - and that disappointed the shelter's staff. They were strong arming me to give up my baby for adoption!
They didn't give me any freebies, no referrals for prenatal care. They expressed their disgust in me for taking advantage (of their billboard advertised) free prenancy test--and told me that I was being selfish to keep my child as I wasn't in the place to raise it properly.
I did end up divorce shortly after my second baby was born - and I raised her on my own. She earned her masters degree in May of this year. I could not be more proud of her.
Choice means choice--the freedom to select from options. The place I went to was a strong arm to obtain babies for adoption. I wonder how many other young women submitted to their tactics.
Yeah... right. You sound like an advertising agency. Here is your nickel troll.
DeleteI figured I'd be called a troll for that post, even though I've been posting on a wide variety of posts on Gryphen's blog for some time now, and more often than not, taking a progressive position on the issue at hand.
DeleteBut that doesn't mean I march in lockstep with EVERY progressive or liberal position. I'm sorry, but I happen to have had some life experiences that give me perspectives I wouldn't have otherwise had. And the fact is, I was pregnant with no insurance and the only organization I could find to give me some initial care was one of these pregnancy centers. And not only did Planned Parenthood tell me they didn't offer such services, the woman on the phone didn't even bother to tell me where I might seek such a service.
I have never brought this incident up before on a forum, ever. But reading Gryphen's post, I really felt I needed to share a time in my life where such centers filled a need for women in the position I was in: pregnant and not having the funds to pay for some initial care.
I don't believe these centers are benign either.
DeleteI have never met, heard about, or read about fanatical Christians who were reasonable, rational, and kind. Fanatics are a breed apart, who, once settled on a principle or goal, will stop at nothing to achieve regardless of the harm to themselves or others that might occur in the process of achieving that goal.
The word fanatic has its roots in the late Middle (or Dark) Ages latin "fānāticus" referring to a temple where followers engaged in orgiastic rites (unrestrained emotional behaviors).
Fundamentalists of any religion generally fall into this category. They are so convinced they and they alone are right that they will coerce by any means possible to get what they want. We are seeing this happen in our country. It is as if a wave of madness has taken hold of otherwise simply confused or gullible people and transformed them into folks who truly get off on the power of their beliefs and their need to force those beliefs unto others.
In short, they are gripped by orgiastic fever beyond reason, whipped up by their own need to escape the normal lives the rest of us live. They can be a threat, dangerous due to their blind zeal, but they are always predictable in the sense that they will not respond to reason and accept no rules but their own.
And I would also just add that I did make a point of stating at the end of my post that the issue I ran into with Planned Parenthood could have just been one branch's policy, not the entire organization. There may be other branches that offer pregnancy testing and provide resources on financial assistance if one wants to keep one's baby. That is what I needed, and that is what was provided to me by the pregnancy center I ended up going to, and so it bothers me to hear such centers tarred with a negative brush.
DeleteNWYWTH
DeleteThe more you advocate the less believable you are. You started out not believable. It's been downhill since.
NWYW2H @ 5:26 a.m.
DeleteYou are offering a fair and reasonable testament to your experience with PP and I'm sorry some people are attacking you.
But can't you imagine that if for even one moment you hinted that you might not want to carry that baby. . .those nice, solicitous and caring 'professionals' at that center would go pitbull on you, real pitbull, not pussybull like Sarah Palin.
They would harass and harangue you, use and abuse your private information in a campaign to humiliate and shame you to carry and give-up that child to a nice Christian family.
I'm glad you got the service every woman deserves, but you were deemed worthy of free, one-faced service, the very service they want to deny everyone they deem sinners, poor, unclean and whatnot.
NWYWTH,
DeleteThis is directly from PP website. Most of it is for family planning (duh!) STD's, Men's sexual heath, women's sexual health, BC, Emergency contraception & abortion.
On pregnancy:
"Only you can decide what is best for you when it comes to pregnancy. But we are here to help. A staff member at your local Planned Parenthood health center can talk with you about all of your pregnancy-related concerns. And we can help you get care that you need."
http://tinyurl.com/6f6bua
Thank you for posting your story, and I'm sorry that folks are discounting it and being unfriendly. As you say, it was your experience with one "branch" of PP. I'm so glad your experience was positive. Can you tell us how long ago this was? I wonder if you would receive the same good service today? Hopefully, that answer is yes.
DeleteWhat I object to is religious based services, proselytizing, demanding purity from ALL of us, demanding small government, yet wanting to run our lives. And then to turn around and take funds from federal sources?! That bothers me. A lot!
FWIW, I believe it is entirely possible to encounter a nonhelpful employee/volunteer at Planned Parenthood. It is also possible to encounter a crisis pregnancy center that isn't run by a fanatical anti-choicer.
DeleteThanks to the posters who didn't automatically assume I was a troll from Free Republic. And to those who are insisting I'm a liar, well, in your own way, you're about as narrow-minded as a Freeper.
DeleteMeredith, my experience happened about five years ago, in the metro area of Denver. I have no reason to think I wouldn't get just as kind attention today as I did then.
These are definitely centers run by pro-life people. I would say it's the most positive manifestations of the pro-life movement. At least these people know that one reason women seek abortions is because they aren't medically insured and worry they won't be able to pay for the pregnancy. So instead of screaming at them in front of an abortion clinic, they're actually providing a means for women to learn where they can get financial resources to pay for a pregnancy, and resources to pay for food and other sundries after the child is born. And in addition to that, providing them with some basic pre-natal care.
There is something about this knee-jerk opposition to such centers that reminds me of the rightwingers' all-encompassing loathing of Planned Parenthood, even thought PP does distribute birth control and cancer screenings.
I dont want my tax dollars to fund any religous institution! Period. If they're fundemental mission isnt secular then NO federal dollars!!!
DeleteWow, I'm amazed at the incredulous naysayers who are attacking NWYWTH's experience.
DeleteI believe every word she wrote because I've seen it happen myself. These wonderful "fanatics", you see, take a minor position at Planned Parenthood in an effort to prey on women at their most vulnerable time of need for safe, LEGAL counselling, support, and services they need. Breitbart and O'Keefe didn't come up with their tactics on their own, they're way too stupid.
This happened at a PP clinic in Philadelphia in the late '70's through mid '80s, their front desk clerk was purposely referring women to "crisis centers" until she was caught, who knows how many victims she preyed on? AND that was one incident.
If it can happen here, I'm sure it was happening elsewhere.
I'm sorry to hear this happened to you, and I can most certainly understand how helpless you felt, but I'm glad you got the services you needed.
And NWYWTH couldn't possibly be one of these fanatics even if "her" posts sound like propaganda? Look at "her" nom de plume. You said yourself, they infiltrate PP to do their thing. "She" is very glib. None of it sounds authentic. I don't believe "her" at all. Don't be fooled folks. They play with your heartstrings. "She" sounds like someone who would advocate for Christian Mingle dot COM.
DeleteAnita, I think you might be mistaking my post from the poster who said she had an unpleasant experience at an alternative pregnancy center. My own experience was positive. Maybe I'm misinterpreting your post, I don't know.
DeleteAnon 3:12 am, if my words sound glib and inauthentic, then I take some responsibility for that...perhaps I should improve my writing skills.
But I can't help but wonder no matter how gifted a writer I was, if some of you still wouldn't refuse to believe this experience took place. Because the lines really seem to be drawn here regarding Planned Parenthood versus alternative pregnancy centers. If you're for the one, apparently you have to be against the other. And vice versa.
Whatever. That's your problem, not mine. It doesn't detract from the fact that when I was pregnant and uninsured, one of these centers gave me basic prenatal care and helped me find the resources I would need to make sure I'd have financial assistance to carry and birth my baby.
Religion loves putting their hands in the governments pockets. Tax exemptions, Federal student loan guarantees to attend faith based schools... even the Medicare system for religious owned hospitals. Makes you wonder why they own hospitals in the first place.. Prayers and God are not working out so they need a fall back? Isn't that just dandy!
ReplyDeleteAbout 235 years ago we fought a revolution to get away from the crushing weight of The Church and a system where The Rich ruled over everyone else:
ReplyDeletewhere austerity was forced upon millions to ensure the luxury of the privileged few.
235 years... it was a nice ride while it lasted.
It is only over if we sit on our collective butts and let it happen. The power of vote is what has made this country what it is - whether it is a political vote or a vote to form a union.
DeleteSitting around complaining is the surest way to be assimilated into an oligarchy. Our democracy requires us to be fully engaged - every stinking one of us. If you don't want corporations or the wealthy to take over, then vote against them and their politicians. You are not helpless unless you chose to be. Vote - and monitor that vote.
Take a day off and volunteer (you get paid peanuts) and work the polls to ensure that every election if fair. I have. It is tedious and time-consuming, but it is worth it. Be a part of democracy in action, please! Volunteer to drive people to the polls or help those folks in hospitals or nursing homes cast their ballots. You can push a wheelchair and explain the ballot to those who need your help, can't you.
If you don't do it, the other side will. Just spend a few hours every year to make a positive difference and prevent those who have power and unlimited wealth from making the decisions for us all.
Vote for individual rights and help others get to the polls as well.
To me, the problem is that 'the vote' can't be trusted any more. I have lost faith that voting machines and mechanisms really reflect the voters' wishes. Systems can be badly compromised, almost entirely if not entirely by right-wingers, I believe. And that is really, really scary to me.
DeleteThanks, Anonymous 5:29
DeleteI'm the same way, have worked the polls, phoned, given folks a ride and assisted people with copies of the ballot in advance, so they know exactly what their choice is, and how to cast their vote.
Please, everyone, don't allow fear of votes being manipulated or miscounted keep you from voting.
Voting is your only chance at getting your voice heard. Apathy in this election is the last thing we need.
With the tax exemptions that religious organizations get, we're subsidizing the entire religious hijacking of our country: our schools, politics, health care. Sickening.
ReplyDeleteO/T: Just saw a commercial for "DANGEROUSLY RICH Billionaire Super Security" premiering Monday on CNBC. They live in fear while they hoard their money, demand excessive "productivity" to the point they ruin people's health just to avoid hiring more people, corrupt the political process, and then have nothing to think about but who's going to try to get their money. What a horrible way to live.
It sounds like a form of mental illness - a financial hoarding, an obsessive need to get more, more, more.
DeleteYes, it would be a terrible way to live. Guess that why there is that old saying "money alone can't buy you love nor can it make you happy."
Sharon so right:
Delete"With the tax exemptions that religious organizations get, we're subsidizing the entire religious hijacking of our country: our schools, politics, health care. Sickening."
I don't want my tax dollars funding these bastards.
We need to make it clear. If planned parenthood doesn't get funds, neither do their fundy pregnancy clinics.
Again we need to "rock the vote" and get a decent congress and clean up this mess the current congress under the corrupt John Boner has done!
I've been wanting to conduct a study on how Viagra leads to prostate cancer, but the powerful bread lobby keeps getting in my way.
ReplyDeleteAnd a number of reliable studies have demonstrated a connection between christianity and later development of brain cancer.
ReplyDeleteThe Care Net group hired Sarah Palin to speak at a fundraiser on Sept 14, 2010 in Waco, Texas. They hosted Rick Santorum last year. So, they provide medical misinformation, pressure women toward adoption, engage in discriminatory hiring and political activism, and get tax dollars. It's really too early in the a.m. for me to feel so angry.
ReplyDeleteSarah's Care Net speech was when she reported 'delivering' in Anchorage. It's also the first documented time she incorporated Trig Truthers into her speech and explained why there was a reasonable basis for a 'conspiracy'.
"You know what, by the way, some of these internet bloggers and this is...this is the last thing I say about media....what they did up...but this conspiracy theory that my child, Trig, can not be my child, we call these people Trig Truthers and there’s a bunch of ‘um out there because I didn’t tell anybody I was pregnant ‘til I was 7 months and then Trig came really early AND I went into labor when I was in Texas."
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2010/09/now-sarah-claims-t-ohave-given-birth-to.html
Trig Truthers - "...there's a bunch of 'um out there BECAUSE I didn't tell anybody I was pregnant 'til I was 7 months and then Trig came really early AND I went into labor when I was in Texas."
ReplyDeleteChew on that. This isn't like the Obama birth conspiracy that developed from thin air. Sarah's own behavior screams hoax. And then she objects when people notice.
A key propaganda ploy of America’s right-wing news media has been to insist endlessly that there is no constitutional separation between church and state and that the United States must “return” to its status as a “Christian nation.”
ReplyDeleteThis propaganda has proved so effective that some polls now show that more than half of Americans believe that the Founders created a “Christian nation” despite the lack of any reference to Christianity in the Constitution.
While people came to the American continent for many reasons, one prominent reason was to find a place to escape religious persecution. Sadly, those who were persecuted because of their faith often became the persecutors.
Not once does the U.S. Constitution or any of its amendments use the words Christian or Christianity. The only times the word religion is used in the Constitution is in the prohibition of a religious test to run for public office and in the First Amendment, forbidding any limits on the free practice of religion.
Yet 53 percent of Americans believe the United States was established as a Christian nation.
This is so sad. I know that there are people who get abortions because they didn't bother to use birth control, but that's their business not mine. However, when thinking of the abortion debate, I always think of the truly innocent people who need to be protected the most...the ones we absolutely must keep abortion legal and safe for. What if an 11-year-old girl gets raped by an uncle and becomes, through absolutely no fault of her own, pregnant. What if she and her parents want to end the pregnancy rather than force this child to be pregnant at her elementary school and temporarily give up sports or activities she loves? Making this hypothetical little girl and her family go through this "counseling" is beyond cruel. This is emotional abuse.
ReplyDeleteI know you can't stand him, Gryph, but Chris Matthews made a good point the other night, when interviewing a pro-life Congressman who introduced a (failed) bill that made it illegal to abort a baby based on choice of sex. He asked the Congressman, "What is the penalty if a woman gets an abortion? You want it made illegal; we get that. My question is, what is the consequence of her obtaining one after it is outlawed? Or what do you do with the doctor who performed it? Put him in jail? Put her in jail? Impose a fine?" The guy simply could NOT answer the question. Utter failure. Chris said, "See, that's the point -- this is a deeply personal matter between herself and her doctor and NOBODY ELSE."
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else been getting spammed from a PO@poforjc.com on anti-abortion religious stuff?
ReplyDeleteHere's the latest I received:
"Really?
Really?
Abortion isn’t a church issue.
Really?
Abortion isn’t a concern of God.
Interesting that God’s first commandment to man was “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.” Genesis 1:28.
Interesting that when God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary, she was told, “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.” Luke 1:30.
Gabriel did not tell Mary, You will be with fetus. Gabriel said, “You will be with child..”
Later, during Mary’s pregnancy, she left her home in Nazareth and traveled to visit her cousin Elizabeth who also was pregnant. Interesting that when Elizabeth saw Mary approaching at a distance, “the baby leaped in her womb.” Luke 1:41. The scripture does not say that the ‘fetus’ leaped in her womb. It says “the baby leaped in her womb.”
To call an infant in the womb a fetus is meant to dehumanize it. Further, defining a fetus as nothing more than a mass of cell tissue and not as a human was a plan ‘conceived’ to make the child’s death seem an insignificant event . In truth, however, humankind degrades itself by passing off an infant in the womb as nothing more than tissue. What a vile concept.
Since the beginning of time, God has been in the life, mind, body and soul business.
To suggest other is to make oneself more important than God.
We would be wise to remember the words of Jesus “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:14.
May God bless all children and infants born and unborn.
PO"
Would sure like to figure out who is spamming me with this stuff.
You are.
DeleteNo one is pro-abortion, but there sure are a lot of people who are against sex education and against birth control.
DeleteFACT.
Exactly NO ONE is pro-abortion!!! And it is NO ONE's decision but a woman who must face that CHOICE.
Delete"Would sure like to figure out who is spamming me with this stuff."
DeleteA good start would be "PO@poforjc.com", why don't you send them a little email asking them why you are getting spammed by them?
A)If they don't reply, it's not them.
B)If they reply and ask for a "donation", then send them one.
If it happens again, repeat B as often as possible.
You have to be persistent to accomplish anything.
This fraudulent, illegal abuse of our taxpayers dollars has to stop. I can't wrap my brain around the tax exempt status of churches and charities. Knowing they only hire only "christians" is breaking the law.
ReplyDeleteWe're supposed to be a secular society.
The "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" should call themselves what they are, fundamental abuse centers. I don't think women use Abortion as their "go to" means of contraception, nor do they come to the decision lightly as these fanatics lead others to believe.
Planned Parenthood, in many cases, is a woman's only means of support, health care, cancer detection, and education in family planning. Abortion is a small part of what they do.
Posts like this just make me ill. The fundies are preying on women at their weakest point, yet none of them are supporting the babies their "other people's fetuses" protection fetish are bringing into the world.
Now, if they put their money where their mouths are, and fork over the thousands of dollars it costs to carry, bear, raise a child to adulthood..... nah that'll never happen.