NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota has released a report titled “State-Funded Deception: Minnesota’s Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” a supposed exposé of our state’s pro-life pregnancy care centers (also called crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs). NARAL hopes to get rid of the Positive Alternatives program, which provides modest state grants to a select number of pregnancy centers in Minnesota, by discrediting these organizations. NARAL also hopes to slap certain legal restrictions on them, but laments that “not all of the harmful practices CPCs engage in can be remedied through legislation.”
What are these horrible places that perpetrate “gross injustice” (as the NARAL report puts it)? Pregnancy care centers help pregnant women and new mothers in need (and their families) without advocating the wrong of abortion as a solution to the difficulties of life. Rather, these pregnancy centers offer the information, counseling, medical referrals, adoption help and various other kinds of assistance (e.g., parenting training programs, baby supplies, housing and employment assistance) necessary to become a prepared parent or to place a child for adoption in a loving home. They are a one-stop location for pregnant women who may lack resources and support, feel desperate, or feel that abortion is their only option. (Such women will not find what they need at the typical abortion clinic.)
More substantively, the report attacks as false certain statements about the effect of abortion on women. First, the report says there is no link between abortion and a higher risk of developing breast cancer. Really? Check out this list of studies pertaining to the relationship between abortion and the development of breast cancer. Learn more about the evidence at www.abortionbreastcancer.com/index and www.bcpinstitute.org/home.htm.
Second, the report denies that there is an increased risk of mental health problems following abortion. A 2011 meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Psychiatry — “the largest quantitative estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature” — strongly suggests otherwise (http://prolifemn.blogspot.com/2011/09/analysis-shows-strong-link-between.html).
Third, the NARAL report downplays any increased risk of future infertility and miscarriage following abortion. Evidence suggests that the risk is real (go to www.deveber.org/text/chapters/Chap5.pdf for the infertility risk and www.deveber.org/text/chapters/Chap4.pdf for miscarriage).
What are these horrible places that perpetrate “gross injustice” (as the NARAL report puts it)? Pregnancy care centers help pregnant women and new mothers in need (and their families) without advocating the wrong of abortion as a solution to the difficulties of life. Rather, these pregnancy centers offer the information, counseling, medical referrals, adoption help and various other kinds of assistance (e.g., parenting training programs, baby supplies, housing and employment assistance) necessary to become a prepared parent or to place a child for adoption in a loving home. They are a one-stop location for pregnant women who may lack resources and support, feel desperate, or feel that abortion is their only option. (Such women will not find what they need at the typical abortion clinic.)
More substantively, the report attacks as false certain statements about the effect of abortion on women. First, the report says there is no link between abortion and a higher risk of developing breast cancer. Really? Check out this list of studies pertaining to the relationship between abortion and the development of breast cancer. Learn more about the evidence at www.abortionbreastcancer.com/index and www.bcpinstitute.org/home.htm.
Second, the report denies that there is an increased risk of mental health problems following abortion. A 2011 meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Psychiatry — “the largest quantitative estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature” — strongly suggests otherwise (http://prolifemn.blogspot.com/2011/09/analysis-shows-strong-link-between.html).
Third, the NARAL report downplays any increased risk of future infertility and miscarriage following abortion. Evidence suggests that the risk is real (go to www.deveber.org/text/chapters/Chap5.pdf for the infertility risk and www.deveber.org/text/chapters/Chap4.pdf for miscarriage).
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