I wish I could be more surprised. Or surprised at all, really.
Federally funded "pregnancy resource centers" are incorrectly telling women that abortion results in an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility and deep psychological trauma, a minority congressional report charged yesterday. The report said that 20 of 23 federally funded centers contacted by staff investigators requesting information about an unintended pregnancy were told false or misleading information about the potential risks of an abortion.
The pregnancy resource centers, which are often affiliated with antiabortion religious groups, have received about $30 million in federal money since 2001, according to the report, requested by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.). The report concluded that the exaggerations "may be effective in frightening pregnant teenagers and women and discouraging abortion. But it denies the teenagers and women vital health information, prevents them from making an informed decision, and is not an accepted public health practice."
A spokeswoman for one of the two large networks of pregnancy resource centers, Sterling-based Care Net, said that the report is "a routine attack on us that's nothing new." Care Net's Molly Ford said the centers criticized by Waxman received federal grants for abstinence-only programs they conduct, but not for pregnancy counseling. "The funds are kept entirely separate," she said....
And that would be almost, but not quite, entirely sophistry. It is quite probably true that the publications that they issue have the accounting handled separately. It's even likely that people have lines on their pay checks noting that they do X amount of X type of work, paid out of "Inaccurate-Information-R-Us" funds, and Y amount of Y type of work, paid out of Federal Government award funds. But what are they going to do, strictly monitor people to say, "Ah-ah-ah! You just went from abortion counseling, which we pay for out of different funds and where we can say whatever we damnwell please, into birth control counseling, which is funded by the government and must be accurate. Tsk. Shame on you. Distinguish these things properly! Note on your time card that you said the wrong thing at the wrong time, and we'll make sure to pay for those words out of the inaccuracy funds."
Seriously, for those organizations to say anything other than, "Yeah, we said it, we're going to keep saying that abortion causes cancer even if we know it's wrong, and you're going to keep paying for it because you're ideologues and idiots! Isn't that fun?" ... well, to say anything else is pretty damn close to an outright lie.
Of course, they have experience with that, now don't they?
Posted by iain at July 18, 2006 11:19 AM
