I had to go to the one on the Ave for a proof of pregnancy paper. They kept saying stuff like "aren't you excited to be a mother?" and when they did the ultrasound they turned the screen towards me saying "look! Look at your little baby!" and a bunch of other bullshit. What really bothered me is a week later they called my house to "check on me and the baby".
No amount of guilt tripping would EVER deter me from getting an abortion. Which is exactly what I did. Fuck those people.

I hope you told them that the baby was in the dumpster when they called.

You'd think that the fact that these people are, essentially, CONNING people out of personal medical information would be enough to get them shut up. But no. I can imagine that if an abortion-providing clinic forgot to give a single client their HIPAA consent forms they'd be fined within the month.

Withholding pregnancy test results for someone who wants to get prenatal care? If they're supposed to be Good Samaritans, how can they possibly justify that?

These people sicken me. If these were good people who really thought what they were doing is the right thing to do, they would have no issue with this bill.

10 years ago, I went to a Carenet for a pregnancy test. It was a horrible experience.

I needed to know for sure if I was pregnant (I had some typical symptoms, but still had a period), so that I could get an abortion if I needed one. When I was honest about my intentions, and took what I thought were abortion pamphlets (it turned out they were "how to get over the guilt of having had an abortion previously" pamphlets), the woman teared up & almost started crying. And yep, I too got the phone call a week later, as well as a card in the mail from "Judy," who'd "helped" me.

The REALLY crazy part??? This was a baby I'd accidentally conceived with an HIV+ partner after having been sober for barely 5 months. What kind of idiot encourages a junkie with an HIV+ partner to keep the freakin' baby!? We really need more HIV+ kids with junkie parents in this world?

I'm sad to say, her guilting -combined with that of my partner-, convinced me to keep this baby.

The story has a happy ending. My child was born HIV negative, is nearly 10 years old, and I have stayed sober. I do NOT regret having kept her.

THAT SAID, it was obviously not the smart, sane choice to have made. It was wildly irresponsible of Carenet to have encouraged me to keep this child! I frequently wonder how many expectant junkies have been convinced not to end their pregnancies. How many of the resultant kids are now in foster care, or being raised in households where drug use is rampant?

I would never have gone to Carenet if I had understood at the time what they did and did not do, and who they really were. They wouldn't even tell me where I COULD go to get abortion info. They should have to be honest if they are going to continue to operate.

If women knew what these places, many would stop going. I need my wheatpasting kit and several hundred flyers calling them out to paste on the front doors of these "limited services pregnancy centers".

Perhaps you could also report on something like this:

http://www.lifenews.com/2011/02/01/plann…)

@8:Oh you mean this?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.co…

Yeah, shows how desperate and (frankly, stupid) so many Anti-Choice “activists” are doesn’t it? I hope Miss Lila Rose, and that moron she got to pull this stunt have fun explaining to the FBI that they aren’t reeeeeeeally sex traffickers! They were just doing it for JESUS11!!1!

Run along now Barry, you’re not tall enough to ride this ride.

Yeah I mean THAT Lissa. What, exactly, about my link did you refute by posting yours? Of course it is a hoax, how does that change what they did...? The Planned Parenthood clinic they visited did not report them as sex offenders, which they should have done. Planned Parenthood also informed the FBI AFTER this video was released to the news...Maybe you should read through that link again...

And I never said I was anti-choice.

I thought lying was a sin! At the least there is some serious hypocrisy going on here. Way to malign the good reputation of Jesus you fake ass Christians!

@#1 I accept you have the right to make decisions about what goes on with your body. I am, however, disturbed about your cavalier attitude towards the killing of your fetus. I would at the least expect a small amount of regret or sadness for your decision. Perhaps next time you will avail yourself of one of the many birth control options so abortion won't be your version of birth control.

@ 12 -- You're a complete fucking asshole. Shame on you.

Hey Pistolkitten. You fucking rule! Thanks for having courage and being a badass.

@10:Read your own link. You have it backwards. Live Action released this video AFTER Planned Parenthood went public. Not the other way around.

And here’s a little question you might want to ask yourself.
If Live Action had been videotaping their earlier sting attempts, and had incontrovertible proof of any employee of Planned Parenthood aiding and abetting a sex trafficker, why didn’t THEY give this video, and those taken earlier to the police?
Why post only this one on their website, and only AFTER the news broke that Planned Parenthood had alerted the FBI?

And here’s another question.
If Planned Parenthood was actually involved in aiding human traffickers, why would they, go to the police in several jurisdictions, and then to the FBI?
Why would they open themselves to investigation by local and Federal law enforcement if they had something of that magnitude to hide?

These clinics need, at the very bare minimum, to be legally held to HIPPA standards and laws. Collecting personal medical and sexual history, while not abiding by privacy laws and standards is absolutely criminal. Nevermind, that they are lying liars who lie out of their lie-holes about who they are and what they represent.
A woman with an ounce of intelligence would run fast at the first hint that they are a coercive religious organization. Unless you are being held against your will, there is no reason to stay one second after they begin their religious gobbeltygook.
That said, I do understand that there are desperate women in need of care who think they have no other choice than to bend to the will of these people who might help them. It's just sad.

This Live Action piece is especially low: they're casting an anti-racist program designed to give the predominantly-darker-skinned residents of low-income areas equal access to abortion as a racist program bent on sterilization of that same population. And that while criticizing PP for providing manipulative, incorrect information.

As for those fetuses with identifiable parts and beating hearts about which the Live Action folks are talking: here's one at the 7th week of pregnancy (5 week embryonic age; weeks pregnant is generally measured from the last period, which adds 1-2 weeks to the embryonic age, the time since fertilization of the ovum). Isn't it cute*?

*By "cute", I mean a creepy-gross squid-looking thing. Blech.

@12: Why would you "expect a small amount of regret or sadness" [emphasis added] from pistolkitten? The only reason someone would feel regret or sadness over killing the fetus growing in her uterus is if she thought there was something wrong with doing so (in which case, presumably, she wouldn't have aborted the pregnancy), and there's nothing in her comment to suggest that this is the case. What you're doing, therefore, is forming expectations about her behavior that are in no way informed by her previous behavior (in fact, they're counter to it), which is just some bad decision-making on your part. As for other birth control methods, they are a whole lot cheaper, which is why most people who want to have sex and not become pregnant use them. Unfortunately, every birth control method other than abortion has a failure rate (it occurs to me that abortion might as well, though it seems pretty unlikely; maybe if the blastocyst has not differentiated it could regenerate if not all of the cells are removed?). That includes abstinence, because, unfortunately, rape is a very real threat facing women in our culture. Too, there is a growing trend (perhaps just growing in recognition) of reproductive coercion in intimate partner relationships as a form of abuse, whereby a woman's partner sabotages her birth control in order to exercise power over her body and reproductive capacity.

I've never met anyone in my life who uses abortion as her sole means of birth control; it's WAY too expensive and unnecessarily invasive. The suggestion that this is the case is patently absurd, but even if it is the case that someone, perhaps pistolkitten, is using abortion as her sole means of birth control, there's still only something wrong with that if one thinks there's something wrong with killing fetuses in the first place. Abortion isn't a 'last resort' for women who don't think there's anything wrong with abortion because its viewed as some sort of necessary evil (I recognize that there are people who hold this view, who think that abortion is the least-evil of several evil options in cases where a woman is not in a position to be a functional parent), it's a last resort because it's expensive, invasive, and carries certain minimal but still present risks. Your points only make sense in the context of your world view, which apparently includes an a priori assumption that abortion is bad; the only people who will find what you have to say relevant or in any way convincing are those who already agree with you, rendering your comment's sole purpose as antagonism. Ah fuck, that's the definition of trolling, and here I am feeding you. :-/

If I may clarify, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest provides services for more than 140,000 people. Out here in the hinterlands of Eastern WA, Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho provide services for an additional 40,000 people. Thank you. Sarah, PPGWNI

@12. How do you know she didn't use birth control? She never said she didn't, and it could have failed. Don't you know contraception doesn't work? That's what my abstinence-only sex "educator" said anyway.

I wasn't sad or regretful about mine either. Why would I be sad about not choosing a path that would shattered my plans to go on to become a health care provider for other women? Including those are that happily, readily, responsibly bringing a child into the world. I have the same amount of regret about it that I have about any other stupid mistake that I have made and then corrected: none. No amount of misinformation, shaming or downright lies are going to make me feel bad about it either. Microscopic clumps of cells do not make a person.

Yay Pistolkitten! Fuck those guys.

Thanks for the story highlighting this bill, and thank you to the readers who shared their powerful personal stories here in the comments section. Your honest accounts of visiting limited service pregnancy centers are the best evidence that there need to be some minimum standards for care at these centers. In response to the news story, it's important to point out that there's more than one way to measure support for this bill. So far, coalition partners including Planned Parenthood have collected more than 10,000 petition signatures and postcards in support of the bill. More than 5,000 of our activists have contacted legislators asking them to pass the bill. More than 100 people attended the House hearing to show their support, and another 75 attended the Senate hearing. And a recent poll shows that an average of 82% of Washingtonians support the components of the bill being considered by the legislature. It's clear that there is tremendous support for holding these centers to basic standards.
Jennifer Allen, Director of Public Policy, Planned Parenthood Votes! Washington

I’m from Montana, and we have the same type of clinics here (same company as well). Unfortunately, with MT being so spread out, our rural women have few health care facility options as it is. Adding these sorts of clinics just muddies the waters furthers, and continues to limit women in non-urban areas.

These “Woman’s Health Centers” carry an agenda; an agenda that is kept hidden in their varied advertising campaigns. I do not know about their campaigning in Washington, but in MT we are bombarded with newspaper ads, radio, and television, posters up at schools -both collegiate and high school- as well as fliers on cars. (A lot of “Jelly on the Belly” ads and slogans everywhere…)

Do unsuspecting women, who think they are receiving all options and legitimate health care advice, realize that the information they share with these providers is in NO way protected? Imagine your personal and sexual medical history being shared… perhaps in a prayer group, a sewing circle, in line at the grocers?!

The hidden agenda and intentions of these clinics needs to be broadcasted; as heavily broadcasted as their current campaign of misinformation!

** Living far away from Seattle, but I love to read The Stranger. Much preferred to my local black and read all over! **

I think that Bad Religion way back when put it best and succinctly when they wrote, "Lay hands off her body, It's not your fucking life."

Perhaps some informative signs held by activists outside of these so called "Limited Service Pregnancy Centers" might be able to educate those women who think they are going to a standard women's clinic. Nothing too rude, just things like "This location isn't required to keep your information private- and won't" and "For a REAL full service womens center go to" with directions. Maybe get some people to volunteer to drive women over...

So, the lady lectured you about abstinence after you were ALREADY pregnant? Isn't it frankly a little late? I mean, it's like they don't want abortion, but they don't want people having premarital sex either.

I am shocked and disgusted by these clinics, but to me the worst part is the legal support that they are getting. I am going into the medical field and feel very strongly that no clinic should service patients without licensing and accredidation, all patients, no matter how poor or how much of an immigrant, should be seen by a licensed health care provider who puts the patient's health ahead of any private agenda (isn't it weird that the women who go in get crap care, but the fetus on the other hand...).

I think unlicensed clinics should be *illegal*, because the concern isn't simply that someone else is pushing their agenda onto someone else (which by the way if it's religious is unconstitutional - freedom of religion, bitches), but unlicensed, unprofessional health care providers have no education to keep the patient and community healthy. You might as well be going to a back alley to get surgery from a butcher. There is a myriad of ways, health-wise, that things can go wrong and the health of the patient and the community can get screwed up. (And, yes, you need years of medical certification to know what they are - it's *very* complicated!) The State should be treating these places like a health hazard and shutting them down.

Insist that believers defend their position. Ask them what is that fate of the unborn soul. If unborn souls go to heaven, rejoice; it is the unlucky born who risk and often suffer eternal Hell. If these innocents do not go to heaven... you worship this Creator!?
If abortion is so bad, why does God do it so often? The fate of the unborn is at least 10% of us (the miscarriage rate) and probably well over 50% of all human souls ever created (google 'spontaneous abortion rate'). Does it matter to the unborn soul whether it is killed by God or a human?
Temporal life in this vale of tears is insignificant; the unborn, safe in Heaven, will not miss it or their chance to go to Hell. It is eternity that matters.
This is why abortion is such a hot-button issue. If you think about it much, it shows the incoherence of faith and reveals Christianity as a death-cult that can imagine nothing more beautiful than death and the end of the world.

Insist that believers defend their position. Ask them what is that fate of the unborn soul. If unborn souls go to heaven, rejoice; it is the unlucky born who risk and often suffer eternal Hell. If these innocents do not go to heaven... you worship this Creator!?
If abortion is so bad, why does God do it so often? The fate of the unborn is at least 10% of us (the miscarriage rate) and probably well over 50% of all human souls ever created (google 'spontaneous abortion rate'). Does it matter to the unborn soul whether it is killed by God or a human?
Temporal life in this vale of tears is insignificant; the unborn, safe in Heaven, will not miss it or their chance to go to Hell. It is eternity that matters.
This is why abortion is such a hot-button issue. If you think about it much, it shows the incoherence of faith and reveals Christianity as a death-cult that can imagine nothing more beautiful than death and the end of the world.

Self-righteous, sanctimonious, judgmental, obstructionist anti-abortion activists posing as medically neutral medical advisers. They should either be clearly marked and advertised as anti-abortion counseling centers or be put out of business. How would they like it if anti-religious atheists set up "pastoral counseling centers" for Christians experiencing crises of faith, without disclosing who they are and what their values and goals are? If our legislators base their decisions on how many deranged fundamentalists with time on their hands show up at hearings in Olympia instead of the wishes of the electorate at large, they are in for a surprise next election.

The Religious Wrong needs to be put in a dumpster---once and for all.

#1, sorry you had this experience, and I'm glad you stuck to your guns! I'll pray for their desire to force others to live by their 'morals' to be removed from their hearts by Jesus!

Okay,everyone. I'd like to chime in here.
While yes, there are definitely some shady clinics, it's important to remember that not ALL of them are. Just like there are good people and bad people in EVERY profession, Pregnancy Resource Centers are no different.
I'm the Director of a Pregnancy Resource Center in Oklahoma and I can tell you for a FACT that no one is more angry about shady clinics than me. Why? Because it makes my job harder. I never lie to clients EVER nor do I tolerate it from my volunteers. Furthermore, we have EXTENSIVE signage posted at our center and even on our website stating that we are not a medical center and that while we do offer free pregnancy testing and a wide range of educational material and parenting classes, we are not medical experts. We are super honest in our intentions to help women in the limited ways that we are able to. Why wouldn't I be honest about that? I'm proud of the help we are able to provide to families. And while no, we don't refer for abortions, I'd like to point out two things: 1) we don't "refer" for anything because we aren't a licensed medical clinic and therefore cannot legally do any referrals anyway, and 2)we are pro life but since we include that in all of our advertising, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who comes into the center. Ours if a free service provided to women who choose it and in no way something forced or mandated, so everyone who comes through our doors chooses to be there. I'd also like to point out that even though we aren't required by law to follow Health Info Privacy laws, WE DO IT ANYWAY. Client files are kept super confidential and under lock and key. I'm sure it helps that when I'm not Directing the Pregnancy Center I'm working my other job in the office of a Hospital Clinic, so I'm much more familiar with how medical information SHOULD be treated, but still--Everyone PLEASE remember before you go attacking all Pregnancy Center just because they are Christian run: Not all of us are shady nuts.