Posted on 02/26/2007 2:33:21 AM PST by markomalley
An anti-abortion group, once investigated for unauthorized medical practices, today is launching a new front in the battle: free sonograms in front of South Bronx abortion clinics.
Women coming to the clinics will be met by sidewalk activists from EMC Frontline Pregnancy Centers, who will invite them into a 32-foot, ultrasound-equipped van for a hot drink and the not-so-subtle suggestion they change their minds.
"We want them to see the baby, hear the heartbeat and think seriously about what they're doing," said EMC President Chris Slattery.
While mobile "crisis pregnancy centers" are familiar to rural America, New York's would be the first, Slattery says, in a big American city.
Slattery wouldn't disclose the unit's planned route. "We want the element of surprise," he said. The borough has seven abortion clinics.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
pro-life PING!
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That's a terrfic idea. The Pro Life wave is growing and growing!
Girls and women who come to get their sonagrams are refusing to have abortions that they are scheduled (on the books) to get.
We in our area, regularly hold fund raisers to help purchase these very expensive machines and someday in the not too distant future, hope to purchase one of the 3D machines.
One young mother-to-be (non pc for "fetal tissue carrier"), saw her baby sucking it's thumb, another saw one of her twins reach out and appear to kiss the other twin.
God bless Chris Slattery and his people. They do great work!
Great idea. A true pro-choicers support this.
Pro-Life bump.
Chris Slattery, ping.
What a poor grasp this reporter has...it's not supposed to be subtle, dude. When A firefighter pulls you out of a burning building, he's not being subtle.
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Tabi Katz and I saw this van at the New York State Right to Life Committee Convention. It was impressive. The sonogram system hadn't been installed yet at that time. Excellent work by Chris Slattery and the people who donated the money for this van.
Why is the headline in the Daily Snooze "Abortion activism" when it should be "Anti abortion activism"? I am sure the pro aborts are going wild at the thought of sonograms.
Good point. I didn't even realize that.
I knew I was becoming pro life when a "pro choice" Republican woman invited me to join some pro abortion Republican group and I felt very, very uncomfortable.
Thank God for Chris and his helpers!
Has anyone read the cover article in Time Magazine this week? I was so curious I was tempted to buy it, but decided to test the waters before throwing my $$ at that rag.
Chris sent it to everyone last week--said it was biased (guess in which direction).
BIG SNIP HERE
The latest trend is to convert pregnancy centers into health clinics that offer free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. What they will not offer is referral for birth control. Married clients wanting information on contraception are referred to their own doctor or pastor. But, as Wood explains, most clients are unmarried, and "the Bible clearly states that sex outside of marriage is against God's will for our lives."
That alone is enough to discredit the centers in the eyes of many pro-choice groups, which have always argued that the best way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. They are hoping that with the Democrats in control of Congress, legislation like the Prevention First Act will reduce the need for abortions by promoting comprehensive sex education and expanding access to contraception. At Planned Parenthood clinics, fewer than 1 in 10 clients is there for an abortion; the vast majority are there for birth control and reproductive health care (98% of American women have used contraception at some point in their lives). But because promoting abstinence before marriage is a part of the CPC mission, centers are eligible for federal abstinence-education grants, which in some cases have instantly doubled or tripled their budgets. In 2005, roughly 13% of Care Net affiliates got state or federal money; their average budget was $155,000.
The growth in the movement has raised other alarms with pro-choice groups. They point out that while counselors at crisis pregnancy centers lay out the physical and psychological risks associated with abortion, they don't mention that the risk of death in childbirth is 12 times as high and that many women who get abortions experience only relief. Both sides talk about the importance of complete information and informed consent, then argue over what that means. Each side challenges the other's motives: pro-life activists say abortionists are in business for the money and don't care about women; pro-choice advocates counter that crisis pregnancy centers are in the business for the ideology and don't care about women either.
The movement toward "medicalizing" the centers particularly concerns groups like Planned Parenthood that define their mission as offering the most accurate information about the most complete range of reproductive options. The motive behind offering free ultrasounds, which would typically cost at least $100, is more emotional than medical, critics argue, and having them performed by people with limited training and moral agendas poses all kinds of hazards. "What is really tragic to me is that a woman goes into a center looking for information, looking to be able to make a better, healthy choice, and she doesn't get all the facts," argues Christopher Hollis, Planned Parenthood's vice president for governmental and political affairs in North Carolina. "That's taking someone's life and playing a really dangerous game with it."
There's such momentum behind the CPC movement that abortion-rights groups have begun to fight back. Last summer the U.S. National Abortion Federation published a study on the centers subtitled An Affront to Choice, which charged them with marketing themselves so that women looking for a full-service health clinic might mistakenly go to a CPC instead and be "harassed, bullied and given blatantly false information." It accused centers of focusing on women's needs through the first two trimesters but then abandoning them once obtaining an abortion becomes much more difficult. Los Angeles Democrat Henry Waxman, now chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, investigated federally funded CPCs, using callers posing as pregnant 17-year-olds. The investigators reported that 20 of 23 centers they reached provided "false or misleading information about the health effects of abortion," inflating the risk of breast cancer, infertility, depression and suicide.
ANOTHER BIG SNIP
Hope I didn't post too much of this.
You do know Chris is my personal buddy... don't you? LOL
If you know how hard Spitzer and Planned Parenthood try to shut him down and bankrupt him...
EMC and Slattery need plenty prayers and masses for pro-life.
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