You may have read Time magazine's cover story about pregnancy care centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers. (Chuck talks about the story today on BreakPoint.)

Time describes an "investigation" by California Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reforms, in which callers posing as pregnant teenagers called pregnancy care centers. Waxman claims that 20 of 23 centers contacted gave "false or misleading information about the health effects of abortion" involving the abortion-breast cancer link, post-abortion fertility, and post-abortion depression.

Pro-life leaders suspect that Waxman (who never met an abortion he didn't like), in coordination with other pro-abortion congressmen, will shortly launch an attack on pregnancy care ceters in an effort to shut them down. Congress can do this by restricitng where pregnancy care centers may be located; cutting off federal funds for abstinence programs for teens (some 13 percent of pregnancy care centers receive such funding) and demanding "truth in advertising"--that is, forcing pregnancy care centers to advertise which services they don't offer--e.g., abortions. This is like insisting that Pizza Hut post large signs announcing, "We don't serve hamburgers here!"

According to LifeNews.com, pro-abortion Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York has already introduced legislation requiring the FTC to apply these phony "truth in advertising" standards to pregnancy centers (although not, apparently, to abortion clinics).

What much of the debate comes down to is who is telling the truth about abortion and its aftermath: Those who make millions aborting babies, or those willing to sacrifice both money and time to help distraught pregnant women, who are often under pressure by boyfriends and parents to abort theier babies. However, if Waxman wants to launch a war regarding whose medical research is the gold standard, "he would lose," says CareNet spokesperson Kristin Hansen. For instance, when it comes to the risk of negative emotional consequences after an abortion, "even openly pro-choice researchers, like the one in New Zealand, are finding the link between abortion and depression." 

Pregnancy care centers have always had to deal with harassment and deceitful attacks on their integrity by the abortion industry and its friends in the press. Now, however, the abortion industry's toadies in Congress are plotting to shut them down all together.

Don't let them. Learn more about these attacks on CareNet's site. And then call your representative. Express your support for the tremendous work your local pregnancy care center perfoms on behalf of women facing unplanned pregnancies.

Comments

[Dennis Babish]

Anne,
I agree with you that we should contact our representatives to extoll pregnancy care centers but I think we should do more than that.
We should also demand that the same standard should apply to the Planned Parenthood Centers and require "truth in advertising" for them. And this be included in any bill to apply them to pregnancy care centers. They should have to say we don't offer information about non-abortion solutions.
I wonder how far that bill would get, probably not far.

[David Cervera]

This just goes to show that the "pro-choice" battle isn't just about keeping abortion legal. These pregnancy centers are not trying to make abortion illegal. Indeed most are purposely staying away from the whole legal issue. And yet they are targets of the pro-abortion camp.

I try hard not to judge other people's motivations (not that I always succeed) and try to operate under the assumption that people are sincerely trying to do what they think is right, even if they are in fact wrong. But in attacking pregnancy centers, I'm finding it hard to find any other motivation than, "abortions must happen!".