Crisis Pregnancy Centers

[FArchivist]

The post below has been taken from a LiveJournal blog post belonging to "amazements"

In recent years, there has been outrage over tax payers funding Planned Parenthood and Title X funding but did you know that the tax payers fund Crisis Pregnancy Centers? I think that if the government is going to ever defund Planned Parenthood, they need to stop letting the tax dollars flow to these horrid places that are detrimental to women.


I mean that it's been proven these centers lie to women outright. The list of lies they tell women are as follows:
- Abortion causes breast cancer (debunked by CDC).
- Abortion causes suicide (far from the truth).
- They make promises of helping women with their preganancies and never follow through.
- They lie to women about how far along they are.

As opposed to Planned Parenthood actually helping women and young women with actual health services, CPCS are dangerous and should at least not be tax payer funded.

Do you have an issue with tax payer money going to these centers? Do you have an issue with tax payer money going to Planned Parenthood? What are your thoughts on CPCs?

[Glados]

I do not have a problem with tax money going to both PP and CPCs. However, I would expect that any tax funded medical services be administered according to current accepted medical standards and that patients be given accurate information. A patients right to informed consent should not be violated.

The CPCs should lose their funding if they lie to patients or fail to adhere to current medical standards.

[RedRoseSpiral]

Thing is Glados, CPCs aren't medical institutes. Most of them are run by churches using volunteers with little to no medical knowledge. I know some in Missouri do have ultrasound machines they go through some special grant and the people operating them got like 6-12 hours of training to use them. That's about the extent of their medical training. The pregnancy test they give out are the ones you can get at the store.

[Gravekeeper]

Thing is Glados, CPCs aren't medical institutes. Most of them are run by churches using volunteers with little to no medical knowledge.

Then they should not be government funded. End of story.

[FArchivist]

Then they should not be government funded. End of story.

Ah, but religious-based organizations are allowed to be government funded, through the White House Office of Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships set up by the Bush2 administration under Executive Order. The legal theory is that by not providing government funding to non-proselytizing religious-based public initiatives, the 1st Amendment rights of those religious organizations were being violated.

The theory was proven correct in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation (2007), when SCOTUS told the aforementioned Foundation that they had no standing as taxpayers to challenge the Executive Order and included remarks that the Bush2 administration was correct on the subject.

[Glados]

The government may have the ability to fund religious institutions but the standards of care that patients deserve should not be compromised. A crisis pregnancy center implies that the services offered are for pregnancy. They would therefore need to be held to the standards of care that pregnancy requires. If they fail to do so then they should lose their funding. If they make it clear to the consumers that they offer non-medical types of assistance such as food or housing then they should be held liable if they fail to hold up their end of an agreement. In order to receive government money any organization should have to show that they are helping people and not harming them.

[RedRoseSpiral]

I forgot what state it was but one did try to make standards for CPC and ones that did not actually provide medical services and did not have licensed medical staff had to have a sign the public could readily have access to saying so. They tried fighting it in court saying it was against their constitutional rights. I haven't heard anything about it in a couple of years so I don't know how it was ruled.

[Ree]

An edit has been made to the first post in this thread giving credit to the original source.