20 March 2023
by Robert Armour
Ministers are being urged by campaigners to review the charitable status of ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ giving unethical advice to pregnant woman.
These centres are organisations outside the NHS that offer advice to women with unplanned pregnancies. Many are registered charities.
Continued: https://tfn.scot/news/charity-urges-urgent-review-of-charity-status-for-crisis-pregnancy-centres
March 8, 2023 • For immediate release
Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada / BC Humanist Assoc.
NATIONAL – A new study of unlicensed pregnancy counselling centres across Canada finds that they often conceal an anti-abortion agenda and provide medical misinformation to pregnant clients.
Co-developed by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) and the BC Humanist Association (BCHA), the study reviewed websites of the nearly 150 so-called crisis pregnancy centres (CPCs) across Canada to identify the presence of misleading information, and compared the results to a similar 2016 study conducted by ARCC to better understand changes over time.
“We found that the websites of most CPCs in Canada share biased, misleading or outright false information,” said Joyce Arthur, Executive Director of ARCC. “Even though these agencies present themselves as unbiased counselling centres, most are anti-abortion and religiously affiliated. A key goal for them is to dissuade clients from having an abortion. Our report highlights the urgent need for increased regulation and oversight of CPCs to ensure that pregnant people are not subject to harmful misinformation or coercion.”
Feb 27, 2023
By Eleanor Layhe & Divya Talwar, BBC Panorama
Women are being misled and manipulated about abortion by some crisis pregnancy advice centres in the UK, according to evidence from a Panorama investigation.
The centres operate outside the NHS and tend to be registered charities. Most say they don't refer women for abortions, but offer support and counselling for unplanned pregnancies.
Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64751800
The post-Roe rise in births in the U.S. will be concentrated in some of the worst states for infant and maternal health. Plans to improve these outcomes are staggeringly thin.
By Melissa Jeltsen
DECEMBER 16, 2022
A typical pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that created a constitutional right to abortion, was reversed less than six months ago. This means the U.S. is currently at a unique inflection point in the history of reproductive rights: early enough to see the immediate effects of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—closed clinics, a rapidly shifting map of abortion access—but too soon to measure the rise in babies born to mothers who did not wish to have them. Many of these babies will be born in states that already have the worst maternal- and child-health outcomes in the nation. Although the existence of these children is the goal of the anti-abortion movement, America is unprepared to adequately care for them and the people who give birth to them.
The Life-Risking Consequences of Insufficient Reproductive Care
Maria Cholakova
Published October 25, 2022
On June 24, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a case that made access to abortion services a federal right in the country.
It allowed each state to make its own law on the legality of abortion and its accessibility. The decision sparked major outrage from both the U.S. and people around the world alike. It also led to conversations about the importance of abortion access, leaving many in the dark about their rights.
Continued: https://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/abortion-access-in-montreal-an-uphill-battle
A Nanaimo abortion provider says the centres confuse and misinform patients.
Tegwyn Hughes
August 11, 2022
On June 24, 2022, The House of Grace pregnancy centre opened its doors in central Duncan. Within days, a group of concerned citizens mobilized to publicly raise concerns about the new organization and other crisis pregnancy centres like it.
Unlike a women’s clinic or other medical clinic providing reproductive health care, crisis pregnancy centres are nonmedical organizations that offer counselling and support to pregnant people. They typically operate from a religiously informed view that life begins at conception and that preventing abortions is morally good.
Continued: https://thediscourse.ca/vancouver-island/crisis-pregnancy-centres-vancouver-island
Trudeau’s party is accused of going silent on vow to strip charity status from groups that ‘deceive’ pregnant people
Annie Burns-Pieper, OpenDemocracy
2 August 2022
The Canadian government has been urged to finally fulfill its promise of ending charitable status for anti-abortion organisations accused of deceiving pregnant people by masquerading as ‘health centres’.
During its 2021 election campaign, the Liberal Party vowed to target groups “that provide dishonest counselling to women about their rights and about the options available to them at all stages of the pregnancy”.
Carly Weeks, Globe & Mail
July 11, 2022
Abortion rights advocacy groups are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to defend reproductive rights in Canada by denying anti-abortion groups funding and revoking their charity status.
Dozens of crisis pregnancy centres and other anti-abortion groups received federal COVID-19 relief funds and continue to have tax exempt charity status. Mr. Trudeau has been highly critical of crisis pregnancy centres and has promised to revoke their charity status.
Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-crisis-pregnancy-centres-charitable-status/
A volunteer and a legal scholar take you into a job that is about to become much more dangerous.
a. l. Dawson and J. Shoshanna Ehrlich
June 30, 2022
All across the country, with its wildly uneven distribution of reproductive health services, anti-abortion protesters continue to wage a war of attrition against abortion access—often transforming the public spaces in front of clinics into hostile zones that clients must navigate in order to access essential care.
It will only get harder now that the Supreme Court has gutted Roe with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. While abortion access has become increasingly difficult in recent years, particularly for marginalized communities in abortion-hostile regions, we will soon face the grim reality that abortion most likely will be banned in at least 25 states. (Oklahoma didn’t even bother to wait for the Supreme Court to institute such a ban, which the governor signed at the end of May.) At the same time, abortion clinics that still remain are anticipating more protests by emboldened and potentially more aggressive anti-abortion activists who are seeking to transform the nation into a unified abortion wasteland.
Heartbeat International is appealing for money to fund its anti-abortion network in Ukraine and eastern Europe
Diana Cariboni
20 June 2022
US anti-abortion group Heartbeat International is taking advantage of Russia’s war in Ukraine to fundraise for ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ targeting refugees, openDemocracy has learnt.
Reproductive health experts fear the group could use its centres in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Romania to gain access to vulnerable people and persuade them to continue with unwanted pregnancies.
Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/heartbeat-exploits-ukraine-fundraising-anti-abortion-rape/
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