When Does Life Begin?

If I'm not being clear this means that +/- some deviation, you could expect 87 bad centers for every 100.

so if there was 5000 centers in the USA, one could expect with some accuracy that 4350 of those would provide false information, or that 650 would provide correct information.

kate, We understand math just fine. You failed to say 20 out of thousands when you followed your sentence with "that's less than one percent." Grow up! Those thousands still misinform young women at their centers by lying; telling them they can get cancer by having an abortion. Don't you have any English-ethical skills?

Kate - Just to clearify, are you saying that only 23 CPCs total get government funding? The other 1000s are privately funded?

ci i didnt fail to say that. as i just pasted once again


now read slowly. i was saying that 20 out of thousands of all crisis centers is one percent.

and tko the study was done on govt funded centers(25), not non profit christian centers that dont receive funding(thousands). two different groups. u cant use the stats on one group to represent another group. to get an accurate sample, one has to do a study on nonprofit orgs that dont receive money.

Some more info on CPCs. BTW, there are more than 23 government funded CPCs.

Taxpayer-funded lies
Antiabortion groups use "crisis-pregnancy centers" to scare women out of having abortions. Some lawmakers have cracked down on them. President Bush increased their federal funding.

By Michelle Goldberg

Pages 1 2August 23, 2002 | In the past decade, so-called crisis-pregnancy centers have become an increasingly central part of the antiabortion movement. They pose as women's health clinics and use innocuous names like "Women's Care Center" or "Pregnancy Problem Center." But instead of employing nurses or social workers, they're staffed by antiabortion activists who often make patients watch gory antiabortion videos, warn them about nonexistent health risks posed by abortion, and scare them with the threat of suffering "post-abortion syndrome," a psychiatric disorder that exists only in pro-life lore.

As of 1999, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) says, there were more than 3,200 crisis-pregnancy centers, or CPCs, in America. In New York state, they've been so deceptive that New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer subpoenaed 11 of them during a February investigation. The investigation was sparked by complaints from women who'd visited the centers, but after one CPC agreed to negotiate changes to its misleading advertising and counseling, Spitzer withdrew all the subpoenas in the hopes of reaching similar settlements with the other centers. The Ohio attorney general took on the centers in the same way in 1991, with similar results.

Lawsuits against CPCs have resulted in injunctions in California and North Dakota prohibiting them from advertising themselves as women's health clinics, and one California judge restrained a center from disseminating false information about abortion. In 1989, a Missouri woman successfully sued a CPC for intentional infliction of emotional distress after her pregnancy test was withheld until she watched a graphic antiabortion video. During a 1991 congressional hearing on CPCs, Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., found that they "hold out that they are health clinics, but when the women get there, there are no medical professionals. A very strident, very aggressive antiabortion campaign is what they get."

But in a growing number of states, the government isn't prosecuting these places -- it's funding them. Last year, Pennsylvania's Project Women In Need, or WIN, gave $4.3 million to antiabortion agencies, including 25 crisis pregnancy centers. Delaware and Missouri also give tax money to CPCs. The state of Florida has raised more than $650,000 for the centers by selling "Choose Life" license plates. Similar license-plate laws will soon go into effect in five other states.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government also channels money to crisis-pregnancy centers to administer abstinence-only education. For example, the Pregnancy Decision Health Centers, based in Columbus, Ohio, were awarded $585,000 to teach abstinence in 40 public schools. The group teaches that safe sex is a "myth" and uses a textbook that tells students, "Premarital sexual activity does not become a healthy choice or a moral choice simply because contraceptive technology is employed. Young persons will suffer and may even die if they choose it."

Federal funding for abstinence education began with a $50 million appropriation in the 1996 Welfare Reform Bill. But according to a spokeswoman for Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., an abstinence-funding champion, the Clinton administration was not strict in enforcing chastity-promoting criteria. The money was channeled through the states, spokeswoman Micah Swafford says, and some of it went to fund general sex education and extracurricular youth activities that were supposed to keep kids out of trouble. Unhappy with how the money was being spent, in 2000 Istook sponsored a bill creating $20 million in abstinence-only funds that would be given directly to chastity educators. That's where most of the federal money that goes to CPCs comes from. According to NARAL, the centers received $3 million from that pot last year.

The Clinton administration tried to "undercut" the program, Swafford says, by failing to provide money to administer it. That quickly changed under Bush, who approved a dramatic increase in abstinence-only funding to $73 million next year.

Still, right now the most direct government support of CPCs comes from states, and of all the state-funded programs, Pennsylvania's is the biggest. In fact, for the antiabortion lobby, it's a model for federal legislation. In 1999, Pennsylvania Republicans Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Joe Pitts sponsored the Women and Children's Resources Act, which, had it passed, would have given $85 million to CPCs and maternity homes. According to the National Right to Life Committee, Pennsylvania's law was the inspiration for the bill. In February, Republican congressmen introduced bills that provide $3 million to buy ultrasound machines for CPCs, thus increasing their apparent legitimacy.

Project WIN was created in 1996 by Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey, an antiabortion Democrat. Under the law, all state grants to women's health centers like Planned Parenthood -- which are forbidden from using the funds to counsel about abortion, much less to perform it -- are matched by equal monies for "alternatives to abortion" programs that take an active antiabortion line. In addition to CPCs, Project WIN, working through an agency called Real Alternatives, funds maternity homes and adoption agencies.

According to the work plan filed with the state government as part of its contract, Real Alternatives service providers must "maintain a pro-life mission and agree not to promote, refer or counsel abortion as an option to a crisis pregnancy."

Of course, as a government-funded program, Real Alternatives can't direct money to clinics that openly proselytize to their patients. They can't, as the ACLU's Loise Melling explains, say, "God doesn't want you to kill your unborn baby." But under the Supreme Court's 1988 Bowen vs. Kendrick decision, money can be given even to "pervasively sectarian" organizations as long as programs don't have the "primary effect of advancing religion." Thus while government-funded counselors can't invoke Christianity when trying to persuade their patients, they're free to promulgate theories like post-abortion syndrome that are derived from religion if they can be said to serve some other social purpose.

Kate, Most, if not all, nonprofit CPCs (yes, I'm talking about all 3,200 of them) lie and/or use scare tactics to discourage abortion. You must be very proud of the methods used by these non-medical, unlicensed "clinics."

In total, over $30 million in federal funds went to more than 50
pregnancy resource centers between 2001 through 2005.

ok i read further. the study was done on 23 govt funded centers. but 50 centers receive funding. i was wrong on the total number but that just shows that less than half of the centers that receive govt funding are misleading. and that is still less that one percent of all centers in usa.

ci i didnt read any accurate stats on the 3500 centers in the article you pasted. i just read a biased article, with a few accurate facts, written by a liberal reporter. i can easily give you several writings,surveys etc biased by prolifers that paints a whole other picture.
in that article you gave, several instances of misleading women were cited, yet a total number isnt listed out of those 3500 for accurate stats....
i saw 11 in ny...no amt listed in ohio......no amt listed in north dakota and ca.....and one successful lawsuit in mo.

please dont try to say that this article proves that most centers lie.


and your just hedging around what this was about from the beginning. you accused me of being unethical bc i didnt cite criticism shown on a site I used, on one percent of the thousands of centers. i honestly didnt look that far to see "criticism" and even after you pointed it out, i didn't see how that accurately represents the thousands of christian nonprofit centers that dont receive govt money.

I just would like a clear number. How amny recieve gov funding?

More on CPCs:

Sexuality & Family Rights Program
Fake Abortion Clinics Deceive Women: What Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) Are:
CPCs are "fake" abortion clinics run by extreme anti-abortion groups that imitate actual abortion clinics, despite the fact that they do not provide abortion or contraceptive services and the majority are not medical clinics at all. CPCs typically use deceptive advertising tactics to mask their true anti-abortion agenda and to bring women into their facilities. Using misinformation, shame and scare tactics, these centers seek to dissuade women who face unintended pregnancies from choosing abortion.

CPCs originated as a grass-roots anti-abortion response to the legalization of abortion following Roe v. Wade. With recent dramatic increases in government funding, these centers are now highly organized and outnumber actual abortion clinics. Currently, there are an estimated 2,300 to 3,500 CPCs operating in the US, while there are only 1,800 abortion clinics.1 Though several CPCs have been individually targeted for their deceptive practices, little concrete legal or legislative action has been taken against them and they are largely unregulated at both the federal and state level.

How to Recognize a Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC):
CPCs are notorious for using deceptive tactics in order to give the false impression of being actual abortion providers. Most CPCs are affiliated with umbrella organizations or networks, such as Birthright, Care Net and Heartbeat International and may bear their name (click here to read Legal Momentum's research on CPC networks). Other CPCs use familiar or innocuous sounding names that disguise their true antiabortion motivations such as "AAA Women's Clinic" or "Pregnancy Decision Health Center." Many CPCs are often strategically located in close proximity to actual abortion providers or high schools and college campuses. For example, "PP, Inc.," a Massachusetts CPC, is located on the same floor as an actual Planned Parenthood.2

CPCs generally advertise under "Abortion Alternatives" in the telephone book and offer free pregnancy testing, counseling and/or ultrasounds. A CPC "client" facing an unplanned pregnancy is likely to be shown frightening videos about abortion or pictures of aborted fetuses and told about the risks of "post-abortion syndrome" (a condition not recognized by either the American Medical Association or the American Psychological Association).3 A recent Congressional inquiry found that 20 out of the 23 CPCs surveyed provided false or misleading information about the health risks of abortion, including inaccurate claims that abortion causes breast cancer, infertility and depression.4

CPCs do not provide abortion services or access to contraceptives. The vast majority of CPCs are not actual medical clinics and are therefore not required to meet the legal and ethical standards for medical facilities (including to provide complete and accurate medical information) or to respect patient confidentiality.

Why Legal Momentum Opposes Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs):
Legal Momentum works hard to support and defend the reproductive rights CPCs seek to eradicate. CPCs mislead and deceive women to further an anti-abortion agenda. In the process, they put women's health at risk and undermine their reproductive autonomy. CPCs are increasingly receiving federal and state funding for these activities - with dangerous consequences for women's health and wellbeing. In Texas, a single, inexperienced CPC recently received $5 million in state family planning funding to provide "abortion alternatives." In previous years, this money had been granted to actual reproductive healthcare providers. The Texas Department of State Health Services now estimates that nearly 17,000 women could lose access to preventative family planning and reproductive health care services - including pap smears and breast cancer screening - as a result of this earmark.5 CPCs also receive money through tax credits and revenue generated by "Choose Life" license plates in several states.

However, the largest source of government funding for CPCs is federal abstinence-only program grants. This funding has brought inexperienced CPC employees and volunteers into schools to teach abstinence-only programs, replacing trained sexual health educators who had provided comprehensive sexual education. Legal Momentum has analyzed several of the curricula produced by CPC-linked abstinence-only programs and has found that many of these curricula are gender-biased, contain scientific and factual errors, and are infused with an anti-abortion rhetoric.

Legal Momentum has extensively researched the funding streams devoted to CPCs and their deceptive, anti-abortion practices. We will continue to monitor and expose their activities and their misleading and harmful practices.

tko i pasted from winkepedia that said over 50...and of those only 23 were used in the study...and of those 23 only 20 showed evidence of misleading info...that would be 87% of 23 and less than 50% in the case of all govt funded centers. and this study(as i have pointed out)
1. still shows only about 1 percent of the thousands of centers
2. can't be used to accurately ascertain the stats of nonprofit christian centers that arent govt funded.
3. had no bearing on my initial point.

Repost;



Why? Jesus didn't mention it. The bible makes it clear that a foetus is worth exactly what the father demands in compensation for it's forced removal.

I don't care if they are publically funded, these aren't good places for people to go.

If your tactic is to lie and use scare tactics, you must not reallly believe in what you're preaching; that is to say that you don't think you convince people with rational explanation.

Kate - I still think you are down playing the numbers.

Given a finite 50 centers recieving funds, a sample mean of 87% from a pool of (n=) 23, one can predict with a great deal of accuracy what happens at the other 27 centers that were not surveyed.

One would expect from the experiment that 43 (43.5) of the centers would also give false information.

Note: The only contribution that government funding had on the sample was the size of the pool. This means that the removal of this parameter would not affect the statistic dramatically.

All math aside, I still don't know why you'd want to send people to a place that uses lies to convince people.

sorry eorl i was getting to you. was too busy trying to explain stats last night.........
anyway eorl nowhere in the bible does it say verbatim"dont abort"
but the concept of a baby in the womb being a living human with a soul is in jeremiah and psalms. also john the baptist (in his mothers womb) received the Holy Spirit. christians take these verses to show that babies in the womb are living human beings and aborting them is akin to killing a child who is outside the womb.

tko and i see that your not reading what i type. several posts back you denouced any center that uses scare tactics, i agreed with you.

Kate - I'm speaking figuratively when I say "you." I don't mean YOU.

I'm am curious though, do you think that these 20 centers that provided decieving information represent a minority? Do you think that the privately funded centers provide information differently? If so, I'm interested in why you think that they would behave differently.

Thank you.

after reading my post, i was going to edit it because it sounded rude. that wasn't my intent, sorry. i think that all abortion alternative centers should have trained medical staff and counselors. and i think they should provide accurate information. if a center is going to point out studies that show negative effects on a mother's health post-abortion, they should point out that these studies are not proven by the cancer society etc. lying and using scare tactics is wrong. but i know of many centers that have trained medical staff, or will make referrals, truly care about the mother and try to help find a solution to abortion. there are also many pregnancy houses, places that will financially support a young mother for a period of time, pay her doctor bills and help her find adoptive parents for her child.

..and you know they are right to do so because...? What about the fact that the value of a foetus is clearly described as being whatever the father of the child says it should be? You just ignore that bit?

eorl im not familiar with that verse can you post it please.