Deception used in counselling women against abortion

[Karen]

http://www.thestar.com/printarticle/844997
August 07, 2010

by Joanna Smith, A political reporter based in Ottawa
www.twitter.com/smithjoanna


IMAGE: Pamphlets on display at one of the crisis pregnancy centres
visited by The Star.
TANNIS TOOHEY/TORONTO STAR


Frances Keet approaches a young woman outside an abortion clinic and
shoves some pamphlets – “Pregnant? Confused? We can help” – into her
hands.

“We offer help so you don’t have to go through with it,” Keet says.

When she learns the woman does not have an appointment but is thinking
about it, she ushers her up a long narrow staircase and into a soft-
lit room.

There is a comfortable couch. There is a coffee table. There are scale
models of fetuses nestled into the womb.

This is the counselling room of Aid to Women, a registered charity set
up next door to the Cabbagetown Women’s Clinic on Gerrard St. E. and
Parliament St. in Toronto. Its website advertises counselling on
unplanned pregnancy and information on abortion and its alternatives.
The charity also gives away baby clothes, cribs and diapers.

Keet grabs a clipboard, settles into a padded wicker chair and begins
the hard sell.

“I can’t make those decisions for you,” Keet says, but she has some
troubling information to share. A woman who has an abortion, she says,
puts herself at great risk of developing breast cancer. Terminating a
pregnancy is far more dangerous than carrying a baby to term. And she
might never be able to get pregnant again.

At one point she says the fetal parts, or “pieces of babies” are sold
to medical research. “There was a big truck that was out there. I
don’t know if you saw it: a big truck?” she asks, describing
untruthfully how the parts are collected in a bin and picked up for
sale.

She gives a terrifying description of the procedure itself. She shows
pictures of an aborted fetus, limbs lying in a bloody mess. She plays
with her lip as she watches the woman stare.

The point Keet drives home again and again is that a woman will,
without a doubt, suffer severe emotional pain following an abortion
because it is always – always —the wrong decision.

“You get hardened, because you know it’s a life and then that life is
gone,” she says.

Aid to Women is one of many pro-life agencies across the continent
called “crisis pregnancy centres,” which describe themselves as non-
judgmental sources of support for women with unplanned pregnancies,
but use misleading information to discourage them from choosing
abortion.

These charitable organizations offer free pregnancy tests and
counselling to women seeking accurate information about “all” of their
options – abortion, adoption and parenting – without always readily
disclosing their belief that terminating a pregnancy is the wrong
choice.

The Star sent a reporter to eight of these centres in the Greater
Toronto Area, posing as a woman six weeks pregnant who was leaning
toward having an abortion but first wanted to learn more about the
procedure and its risks.

The Star found volunteers and paid staff at the centres were giving
out verbal and written information about the physical and
psychological risks of terminating a pregnancy – including breast
cancer, emotional trauma and infertility – that either lacked context
or has been dismissed by medical experts.

The centres are run by compassionate and caring individuals who
clearly believe strongly in the integrity of their mission. In the
past couple of decades they have become an important part of the
battle against abortion.

These are not the people who picket clinics, humiliate doctors or
threaten violence. These are quiet servants and soldiers of God who
make it their mission to save the unborn by changing the mindset of
one woman at a time.

When the Star returned to confront Keet, counsellor and general
manager at Aid to Women, she said she believes in what she is doing,
even if some of the information she gives women is unclear.

“(Women) aren’t told the truth (at the abortion clinics) either, so
not to say I’m lying, but there’s a lot of hidden truths everywhere
and hidden stuff that people need to know,” Keet said. “We’ve seen so
many women that said, ‘Oh my goodness, I wish I had been told the
truth and if someone would have told me, I would have kept my baby.’”

Keet declined to address the specific allegations but emailed a link
to an anti-abortion website that urges visitors to “stop the cover up”
to explain why she said women who have an abortion increase their risk
of breast cancer by 80 per cent.

Michael Connell, president of Aid to Women, could not be reached for
comment.

Pro-choice groups and health care workers are concerned the
organizations add to the stress of an already difficult situation.

“The greatest concern that we have . . . is that crisis pregnancy
centres are offering misleading information to women who are faced
with an unplanned pregnancy,” says Agathe Grametz-Kedzior, program
manager at Ottawa-based reproductive rights group Canadians for
Choice.

The charity operates a helpline that often takes calls from women who
are distressed about information they have received from crisis
pregnancy centres.

Victoria Scott is a registered nurse at the Bay Centre for Birth
Control at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, which provides
abortion services. She says her job is to guide women through the
risks in a realistic and reassuring way.

“I tell them that they statistically have a better chance of dying in
a car accident between now and the time they have the abortion than to
have one of the more serious complications result (from) having the
abortion,” says Scott. “What risks do we take in our day-to-day lives
and by choosing to . . . terminate the pregnancy, am I significantly
changing that relative risk? And the answer is no.”

Crisis pregnancy centres are not new to Canada.

The oldest of the 17 found in the Greater Toronto Area has been
registered as a charity since 1968 and they appear to have a well-
established donor pool. The 14 registered charities that run those
centres (excluding one set up at a church involved in many other
activities) received a total of $546,851 in tax-receipted gifts in
2008.

But they have received far less attention than their 4,000-plus
counterparts below the border, where many are state or federally
funded and, in several jurisdictions, are the target of proposed truth-
in-advertising legislation.

Here, neither Health Canada nor the Ontario health ministry have much
to say about their existence. Neither government funds them. Neither
government regulates them.

But they are prevalent and they outnumber abortion facilities.

Canadians for Choice, which tracks access to abortion services across
the country, says that in 2008 there were 197 crisis pregnancy centres
in Canada (83 of those in Ontario), compared to 151 abortion
facilities (36 in Ontario). Many of them are affiliated with the
umbrella organizations Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support
Services (CAPSS), based in Red Deer, Alta., and Toronto-based
Birthright International.

The Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services and its
affiliates adhere firmly to Christianity and the pro-life position.
Its website says that everyone involved must agree with statements of
Christian faith and the sanctity of life. The association’s CEO Lola
French declined numerous requests for a telephone interview and then
was unavailable after receiving an emailed list of questions from the
Star.

The Mississauga Life Centre, affiliated with CAPSS, is in the basement
of a building in the trendy Port Credit area of Mississauga at
Lakeshore Rd. E. and Hurontario St. The volunteers and staff are hip-
looking, university-aged women who wear stylish casual clothing such
as off-the-shoulder tops and chunky jewellery.

Director Eeleah Cummins sat down with a reporter for some gentle
counselling.

The opportunity to counsel was something Cummins had prayed for,
publicly. An anti-abortion website run by the Colorado-based
conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family has a list of
prayers from crisis pregnancy centres across North America, including
one from Cummins that the Lord would place the desire in women to come
in and discuss their options.

But during this session she just says it is her job to give out
information about all three options “so you can go back and make an
informed decision.”

Cummins reads from a booklet the Star found at other CAPSS affiliates.
On the surface it appears to be a neutral, pro-choice approach to
options counselling. A closer look reveals that the pamphlet presents
abortion as an option fraught with peril, whereas both adoption and
parenting are seen as largely positive choices with minimal risk.

“The most risky part of abortion is the emotional part,” says Cummins.
She asks the reporter to read out a list of reactions reported by
women who have had an abortion, including one called “anniversary
grief”.

“If someone had an abortion May 30, then every time May 30 came
around, every year, they’d get depressed or they would maybe be
promiscuous that month or they would drink heavy or they would just
cry the whole month, and not understand why (they are) crying in May
of every year. It doesn’t make sense, right? And if they’ve had an
abortion, it’s linked back to that experience,” Cummins says.

Cummins says she knows a woman who found herself unable to vacuum her
house because it brought flashbacks of an abortion, although she
quickly acknowledges not every woman suffers a traumatic reaction to
the procedure.

“But we can’t guarantee that you’re going to be that percentage or the
other percentage, so the better you’re prepared for all of that, the
better you’ll be,” she says.

Cummins originally agreed to a telephone interview, but insisted upon
receiving questions in advance. After receiving the questions, Cummins
reneged and emailed a statement noting the centre has a disclaimer on
its website that says it does not “refer for or perform abortions” and
that it is listed under the “Abortion Alternatives” category in the
Yellow Pages.

The distinction between the “Abortion Alternatives” and “Abortion
Services” categories is not obvious online, where both pro-life and
pro-choice organizations appear under the general heading of
“abortion”. Yellow Pages Group says it has received “no inquiries or
complaints” about this.

“I would certainly never deceive anyone,” Ruth Gillespie, volunteer co-
director of Birthright Mississauga says when asked whether she was
concerned that a woman seeking unbiased information about abortion
might wind up visiting her office by mistake.

Earlier, an undercover reporter had sat down with volunteer counsellor
Liz Nixey at their office in the Dundas St. E. and Hurontario St. area
of Mississauga to learn more about abortion and was told the
organization preferred to promote life.

The website for Birthright International includes an exhaustive list
of services for pregnant women but never explicitly states that it
discourages abortion. That only becomes clear when one arrives in the
office, where multicultural fetus models tucked into blankets line the
top of a bookshelf against the wall and a basket filled with knitted
baby socks sits on the coffee table in the counselling room.

Once asked about abortion, Nixey digs into a manila envelope for a
blue pamphlet about “the facts of life,” opening it up and pointing to
a picture of what a fetus looks like at six weeks gestation.

“I just want . . . the girl to know what is happening inside of her
and what the stage of the baby is at,” Nixey said later when the Star
revealed that she had been speaking to a reporter. But Gillespie later
says this is generally against policy.

“You know, maybe when she looks back, she might say that she should
have asked you first,” says Gillespie. “We’re all just human, you
know?”

Reality check: Abortion risks — or myths?

Here are the three main risks that crisis pregnancy centres visited by
the Star claim are associated with abortion. Medical experts have
largely dismissed them as myths and exaggerations.

BREAST CANCER

What they said: Several centres suggested that a woman increases her
risk of breast cancer by having an abortion. The counsellor at Aid to
Women said the risk was as high as 80 per cent, whereas a counsellor
at Mississauga Life Centre mentioned only a “possible link to breast
cancer”.

Reality check: The U.S. National Cancer Institute convened a workshop
of more than a hundred leading international experts in 2003 to review
the existing studies and concluded that neither abortion nor
miscarriage increases the risk of developing breast cancer. The Public
Health Agency of Canada (according to spokeswoman Sylwia Gomes) and
the Canadian Cancer Society both support this conclusion, and based on
its own review, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of
Canada recommends that women be reassured of the risk when they seek
information about abortion from their doctors.

EMOTIONAL TRAUMA

What they said: Every centre visited by the Star said that abortion
can cause negative psychological effects ranging from sadness and
guilt to substance abuse and suicidal thoughts. Many of the staff and
volunteers said they based this knowledge on working with clients
through post-abortion support programs, which tend to be Bible-based
and lead women toward asking for forgiveness for terminating a
pregnancy. They list the emotional effects of abortion under the label
of “Post Abortion Stress” or “Post Abortion Syndrome”, sometimes
referred to simply as PAS.

Reality check: The American Psychiatric Association does not list
either “Post Abortion Stress” or “Post Abortion Syndrome” in its
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, considered the
authoritative index of mental illnesses. The association issued a
statement in 2008 from then-president Dr. Nada Stotland noting the
lack of evidence linking abortion to psychiatric illness.

“A woman may have many emotional reactions to an unwanted pregnancy
and abortion – most commonly relief, but also sadness and a sense of
loss. These feelings can coexist and, like feelings about any
important life decision, they can vary over time,” said Stotland,
adding that negative feelings are often associated with the
circumstances that led the woman to choose abortion, and not the
procedure itself.

FERTILITY PROBLEMS

What they said: Crisis pregnancy centres say abortion increases the
risk of future miscarriages and premature births, which they
attributed to complications from the surgical procedure such as
perforation of the uterus, and could even cause infertility. Several
counsellors told stories of women they had met who had chosen to
terminate their pregnancies in the past and were now suffering because
they were unable to bear children once they felt ready for motherhood.

Reality check: The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in
the United Kingdom includes a review of the literature in its
guidelines for induced abortions and concludes there are no proven
associations between terminating a pregnancy and subsequent
infertility, but did note the procedure may be associated with a small
increase in future preterm delivery or miscarriage, although the
evidence is inconclusive.

If those problems are due to complications from the surgical
procedure, then the relative risks are rare and influenced by factors
such as gestational age and the experience and training level of the
physician. Choice in Health Clinic in the Bloor St. W. and Keele St.
area of Toronto, for example, informs clients that injury to the
uterus happens less than once in every 1,000 abortions and major
surgery to repair it, such as hysterectomy, happens approximately once
for every 10,000 procedures. Their information sheet cites A
Clinician’s Guide to Medical and Surgical Abortion (Churchill-
Livingstone, 1999), considered an authoritative textbook for abortion
providers and sexual health clinics.

[Karen]

In the Sexual Health Clinics of Toronto (where this article was
published) it is common practice to 'lure' women into their facilities
for pregnancy care and counselling while only abortion care referral
is offered. In the instances where women seek pregnancy care or
indicate an intention to carry their pregnancy to term, Sexual Health
Clinics and Abortion Clinics in Toronto send them away empty handed
without referrals for pregnancy care.

Throughout Canada it is increasingly difficult to obtain pregnancy
care, thus *any* organization or individual who hangs their shingle
out offering support to pregnant woman has only a limited range of
services to offer. Whether it be a family doctor who doesn't do birth
and is not connected for referrals to ob/gyn birth providers, Sexual
Health Clinics or Abortion Clinics -- the healthcare provider who
meets a pregnant woman for a first consultation for pregnancy is at
risk of streaming that woman to abortion service due to deficits in
access to care for pregnancy.