Anti-abortion centers use sonograms to sway women

[question everything]

Anti-abortion centers use sonograms to sway women

By Michael Alison Chandler
THE WASHINGTON POST

September 10, 2006

WASHINGTON – On June 6, Cheryl Smith took her last $600 and drove her teenage daughter from Baltimore to Severna Park, Md., to get an abortion. When they got there, a receptionist told them that the clinic had changed hands, she said, but the new clinic would offer a pregnancy test and sonogram for free. The Smiths stayed. After they saw a picture of the fetus at 21 weeks with arms and legs and a face, their thoughts of termination were gone. “As soon as I seen that, I was ready. It wasn't no joke. It was real,” Makiba Smith, 16, said. “It was like, he's not born to the world yet, but he is inside of me growing.”

With its ultrasound machine and its location, the Severna Park Pregnancy Clinic demonstrates two of the most important tactics in an intensifying campaign to woo women away from abortion clinics. Anti-abortion organizations in recent years have added medical services to hundreds of Christian-oriented pregnancy counseling centers nationwide, many in or near places where women go to end pregnancies.

(snip)

Abortion-rights advocates say the proliferation of anti-abortion pregnancy clinics is a dangerous trend, confusing vulnerable women by mixing a seemingly neutral clinical environment with a religious agenda. “They can set up a waiting room and an exam room, but that doesn't mean they employ actual medical practices,” said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, a network of abortion providers.

The ultrasound exams have proven effective in persuading women to stay pregnant. A 2005 survey by Care Net, a Sterling, Va.-based network of about 1,000 anti-abortion pregnancy centers in the United States and Canada, found that 72 percent of women who were initially “strongly leaning” toward abortion decided to carry their pregnancies to term after seeing a sonogram. Fifty percent made the same choice after counseling alone. Such results have led anti-abortion forces to buy more ultrasound machines, which can cost as much as $50,000 each. In the past 2½ years, the evangelical organization Focus on the Family estimates that it has helped 200 pregnancy centers buy the machines.

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060910/news_1n10sonogram.html

[Finder]

1. I am sure this won't be popular but...I would rather them do this than

bomb centers and kill docs. I do agree they should not advertise themselves as medical clinics if they do not provide medical procedures.

I also think if a young woman makes the decision to stay pregnant after seeing an ultrasound rather than being forced by others(church, family, father of baby)then she has made an informed decision.

[Tunkamerica]

2. and just to add to those points

...if she can be swayed by an ultra-sound did she need to have an abortion? We have to remember that it's a matter of choice, but these women and girls also have the right to change their minds.

[question everything]

3. Agree. We are not "pro-abortion" as the other side choose to

portray us. We are pro-choice. Let every woman make her own decision. If she can be swayed by arguments, that's fine, but the final decision is her.

I wish that Kerry framed this issue this way. I wish that he talked about informing young women about sexual activities, about the consequences of unprotected sex and, yes, about alternatives, all the time emphasizing that it is her decision.

I hope that future candidates do better.

[Nobody]

4. I wonder how long it's going to take

for a woman to be able to make up her own mind and make her decision stick without strangers doing their level best to change her mind for her.

A woman SHOULD have all the information available. She should be able to make up her mind - and change it as often as she wants as new info becomes available.

It's dishonest to play bait and switch on people who walk into a clinic expecting to obtain a medical service and instead have people persuade her that's not what she really wants. Maybe it isn't. Fine. But if you're going to offer ultrasounds and counseling, you should be upfront about what it is you're offering.

I want to know:
How much pressuring are the counselors doing?

How many women change their minds back to aborting after they return home to their lives and all the issues are still there that prompted them to chose abortion in the first place?

When will women's decisions about their own lives be accepted and not second guessed by every stranger who thinks your medical decisions are their business?

This kind of bait and switch tactic is dishonest.